Cincinnati Reds acquire IF/OF Connor Joe from Padres via trade

The Reds moved Tyler Callihan to the 60-day IL to make room.

Old heads (and Getty photo archives) will remember the Connor Joe Era of Cincinnati Reds history. Back in December of 2018, the Reds selected Joe in the Rule 5 Draft, plucking him from the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and bringing him in to camp in Goodyear in search of a big league job.

That didn’t pan out, unfortunately. The Reds traded his rights to the San Francisco Giants prior to the start of the 2019 season, and Joe has since cycled through the depths of the Dodgers, Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates, and San Diego Padres organizations. In that time, he’s played corner outfield and 1B, and made a decent effort at being the lefty-mashing portion of platoons in the process.

He’ll be a Cincinnati Red again as of Friday night, too. The Reds acquired him from the Padres in exchange for AA reliever Andrew Moore, as C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic relayed during the Reds/Astros game on Friday evening.

Joe, 32, owns a .760 OPS in his career against LHP (with a .702 OPS against RHP), and presumably he’ll help fill out the lineup against southpaws going forward. The Reds let Stuart Fairchild go in spring despite that being something of his calling card, but with Blake Dunn struggling and Spencer Steer’s services needed at 1B the Reds found themselves with a bit of a dearth of right-handed outfield options for the time being. In theory, Joe will help balance that a bit as a platoon option opposite Jake Fraley and the newly promoted Will Benson.

Joe has a pair of options remaining, and has actually spent most of his time with AAA El Paso so far in 2025. He’s under team control through the 2027 season, should things go well enough that the Reds want him around that long.

Welcome (back) to Cincinnati, Connor!