The Reds and left-hander Joe La Sorsa are in agreement on a minor league deal with an invite to major league spring training, reports Ari Alexander of KPRC 2. The southpaw will make the league minimum $780K in the majors and $180K in the minors.
La Sorsa, 27 in April, had a very brief stay on the open market. The Nationals designated him for assignment and then put him on release waivers. The report of this deal came out less than two hours after the announcement that he had cleared waivers and become a free agent.
He has thrown 50 1/3 innings in the majors over the last two years, allowing 4.47 earned runs per nine. His 19.2% strikeout rate has been subpar but his 6.4% walk rate a couple of ticks better than average. He has done a decent job of limiting damage in that sample, with Statcast having his average exit velocity, hard hit rate and barrel rate all a bit better than the rest of the league.
His minor league production has mostly been similar to that major league work. Over 2023 and 2024, he logged 92 2/3 innings on the farm with a 2.82 ERA, 18% strikeout rate and 6.2% walk rate. His 2022 numbers were a bit more unique. He logged 73 1/3 minor league innings over 40 appearances that year with a 2.33 ERA, 31.4% strikeout rate and 3.6% walk rate.
Even if he can’t get those huge strikeout numbers back, he can perhaps be useful on account of his strong control and ability to stay off barrels. The Reds project to have three lefties in their bullpen, including recent trade acquisition Taylor Rogers as well as Brent Suter and Sam Moll, though there’s nothing wrong with more depth. If La Sorsa gets added to Cincinnati’s roster at any point, he has a couple of option years and less than a year of service time, meaning he can potentially provide cheap depth with roster flexibility.