New Reds pitcher and former Dodger Matt Magill pitching with Los Angeles in 2013. (image courtesy the Associated Press)
In the first bit of notable offseason news, the Reds announced last night that they had traded Chris Heisey to the Dodgers for righty pitching prospect Matt Magill. The team also announced they would not tender contracts to Logan Ondrusek or Curtis Partch, making them free agents. All three now-former Reds were drafted by the club and had spent their careers in the organization, including time with the Bats.
Chris Heisey hits for the Bats in 2010. (image via Pat Pfister)
Drafted in 2006 out of Messiah College in Grantham, Penn., Heisey spent the second half of 2009 and the first month of 2010 with Louisville. He hit just .205 over that span with 13 homers and 50 RBI in 92 games. He was called up to Cincinnati on April 30, 2010 when Chris Dickerson went on the DL and made his Major League debut on May 3. He was one of 10 Reds to debut in 2010 (along with Ondrusek) and produced four pinch-hit homers that season. Heisey became a solid outfield option playing all three spots, but mostly left field. The outfielder also made rehab appearances with the Bats in 2011 and 2013. He finished his Reds career a .247 hitter in 543 games.
Logan Ondrusek pitches while on Major League rehab with the Bats in 2014. (image via Pat Pfister)
Ondrusek was drafted in 2005 out of McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas. He earned 12 saves in 13 opportunities with the 2009 Bats on the tail end of their schedule, posting a solid 1.74 ERA. He started the 2010 season with Cincinnati and debuted on April 5. The righty was optioned to Louisville in each of 2010, 2012 and 2013. He also made one rehab appearance with the Bats in 2014, tossing a scoreless inning. Ondrusek amassed a 3.89 ERA in 281 appearances (271.0 innings) in five seasons with the Reds.
Curtis Partch pitches for the Bats in 2014. (image via Pat Pfister)
The Reds drafted Partch in 2007 out of Merced Junior College in California. He made both the jump from Double-A to Triple-A and from Triple-A to the Majors in 2013. In 2014, he started the season with the Reds and was optioned to the Bats and recalled to Cincinnati five times during the campaign, though only appearing in six big league games. He was optioned to Louisville for a sixth time in mid-August and was not recalled again after rosters expanded. He finished his career with the Reds with a 4.80 ERA in 20 games. With Louisville over parts of two seasons, he recorded a 4.56 ERA with 8 saves in 65 games.
Magill spent all of 2014 with the Dodgers’ Triple-A club in Albuquerque, going 7-6 with a 5.21 ERA in 36 games (12 starts) in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. The 6’3″ 25-year-old debuted with the Dodgers in 2013, making six starts, but only pitched 28.0 innings (4-2/3 innings per start) and went 0-2 with a 6.43 ERA. Reds President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Walt Jocketty was quoted in the Reds’ news release as saying, “We are excited to be adding a player with a power arm who has a chance to help our club next season.”
Magill will certainly have a chance to make the Reds club out of spring training in 2015, but it seems likely that he could see some time under pitching coach Ted Power in Louisville before returning the the big leagues and pitching in homer-happy Great American Ball Park.