Cincinnati Reds acquire OF Scott Heineman from Texas Rangers

The Cincinnati Reds have acquired outfielder Scott Heineman from the Texas Rangers. If you’d read the headline, you’d already know that.

The move was announced on Twitter by MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon, among others.

Heineman, 28, has had quite the month. He was non-tendered by Texas only to be re-signed shortly thereafter, and then was DFA’d by the Rangers earlier this week. That put him in transaction limbo, and it appears the Reds were willing to part with youngster Jose Acosta to make a deal happen.

Acosta, mind you, hit .395/.481/.579 as a 19 year old in 2019 in 234 PA split between the Dominican Summer League Reds and the Arizona Reds in Goodyear. Apparently, shedding him from the ranks was worth it to land Heineman, who has hit .189/.259/.331 in 139 PA at the big league level over the past two years.

To his credit, he does own a .303/.378/.475 career line across four years in the minors, though a lot of that is boosted by the high-octane offensive environments in which he played (the A+ California League and AAA Pacific Coast League).

It’s hard to suggest this is anything more than a very, very deep depth move. The Reds have lost the likes of Derek Dietrich, Brian Goodwin, Jose Siri, Stuart Fairchild, Phil Ervin, Scott Schebler, Josh VanMeter, Travis Jankowski, and Brian O’Grady over the last year or so, thinning their options beyond the obvious outfielders ahead of them.

So, they now have Heineman.