The Reds have moved on from Sam Haggerty, according to his MLB.com transaction tracker, ending his stint with Triple-A Louisville.
Haggerty, a former Met and Mariner, spent most of 2024 sidelined by an Achilles tear before landing with the Rangers on a minor league deal. He didn’t make Texas’ Opening Day roster in 2025, but the club brought him up in May. Once in the majors, he put together a useful run, batting .253/.328/.370 with a 98 wRC+, two home runs and 12 stolen bases across 64 games and 182 plate appearances.
That production was enough for the Rangers to give him a $1.25MM contract for the offseason, but the relationship didn’t last. Texas cut him loose in early June after he dropped to .159/.213/.182 with a 12 wRC+ over 47 homer-less plate appearances. His strikeout rate jumped to 34%, about 10 points above his career norm.
Haggerty then signed a minors pact with Cincinnati a week after his release from the Rangers. He arrived with a solid Triple-A track record - .289/.375/.451 in 749 plate appearances - but the results in Louisville never came close to that standard.
In 99 trips to the plate with the Bats, he struck out 27.3% of the time and hit just .205/.293/.273 with one home run. His wRC+ sat 46% below league average.
Cincinnati also added another veteran arm, signing 34-year-old left-hander Kent Emanuel to a minors deal, per his transaction tracker. Emanuel is a soft-tossing ground-ball pitcher and this is his first MLB organization since the Marlins in 2024. He spent last season between the Mexican League and High Point of the Atlantic League, then stayed with High Point this year until the Reds brought him in.
A former Astro as well, Emanuel has logged 35 1/3 major league innings with a 4.58 ERA. In Triple-A, he has a much larger body of work - 409 1/3 innings - and a 5.21 ERA, including a notable stretch in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.
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The adjustment also rippled through the rest of the diamond, with Ezequiel Duran sliding to shortstop and Corey Seager moving into the designated hitter role. To create room on the 40-man roster, the Rangers also shifted Jack Leiter to the 60-day injured list, a reminder that even in a good stretch, the margins can get thin fast when injuries start changing the shape of the lineup. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Still Have One Clear Path To Veteran Help
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