The Reds made a bullpen move Monday, designating right-hander Ron Marinaccio for assignment and selecting the contract of left-hander Kent Emanuel from Triple-A Louisville. Cincinnati also named right-hander Zach McCambley the 27th man for Monday’s doubleheader against the Cardinals.
For Marinaccio, it marks another turn in a season that has already sent him to three organizations. He began the year in San Diego’s bullpen, was traded to Pittsburgh in a deal that sent international bonus space back to the Padres, and then landed with the Reds on waivers last week after the Pirates also DFA’d him.
The righty’s overall track record is still strong enough to explain why another club might take a shot. From 2021-25, Marinaccio worked 125 1/3 innings for the Yankees and Padres and posted a 3.02 ERA with a 28.3% strikeout rate and a 40.1% ground-ball rate. The command has always been the issue - his 12.3% walk rate and 3% hit-by-pitch rate pointed to that - but he still carved out a role as a useful middle reliever, picking up 14 holds and two saves when asked to work in leverage.
This season had been manageable for a while. By late June, Marinaccio was sitting on a 3.72 ERA over 38 2/3 innings, even with his strikeout rate down to 20%.
The silver lining was better control: his walk rate had dropped to 7.5%, and his ground-ball rate had climbed to 46.9%. But one rough outing on June 27 changed the picture.
He was tagged for five runs in 1 2/3 innings, and the slide since then has been severe.
Over his last 19 innings, Marinaccio has been battered for 23 runs on 24 hits and 15 walks. Six of those hits left the yard, and he’s struck out only 16 of the 100 batters he’s faced in that stretch. That run has pushed his ERA from 3.72 to 6.09.
Even with the ugly stretch, Marinaccio still owns a career 3.98 ERA in 183 major league innings, and the stuff hasn’t backed up. He averaged 93.8 mph on his fastball with the Padres and 93.6 mph with the Reds.
Because he’s out of minor league options, any club that claims him would have to put him directly into its big league bullpen. He’s also controllable through arbitration for three more seasons after this one.
Emanuel, meanwhile, gets another chance to stick on a major league roster. The 34-year-old is now set to make 2026 his third big league season after previous brief stints with Houston and Miami, where he logged exactly 17 2/3 innings with each club. In those outings, the 6-foot-4 UNC product posted a 4.58 ERA with a 16.7% strikeout rate, 7.3% walk rate and 55.5% ground-ball rate.
Cincinnati signed Emanuel to a minor league deal earlier this month. Before that, he had pitched for the High Point Rockers in the independent Atlantic League and spent 2025 with los Diablos Rojos del México.
With Louisville, he allowed one run on two hits and struck out eight in six innings. Emanuel works with a three-pitch mix built around an 89-90 mph sinker, along with a slider in the upper 70s and a changeup in the low 80s.
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