Reds not immediately reinstalling Alexis Diaz as closer

Alexis Díaz is back in the Cincinnati bullpen, as the Reds reinstated him from the 15-day injured list Tuesday afternoon. (They also welcomed back Matt McLain and Austin Hays from the IL.) However, Díaz will not immediately return to his traditional closer role.

Manager Terry Francona told reporters (including Mark Sheldon of MLB.com) that Díaz won’t step right back into the ninth inning. The Reds relied upon Emilio Pagán in save situations while Díaz was shelved by a hamstring strain. Pagán has four of the team’s five saves, while Tony Santillan picked up the other. Santillan has been Francona’s top setup man. Scott Barlow and Ian Gibaut have gotten a handful of leverage appearances as well.

Pagán has had a solid first three weeks. He has worked 7 1/3 innings of two-run ball, striking out five against one walk. He’s 4-4 in save chances and picked up a hold on Opening Day. Pagán is in the second season of a two-year, $16M free agent deal. The first season didn’t work out as the Reds had hoped. The righty allowed a 4.50 earned run average over 38 innings. His strikeout and walk numbers were very good, but Pagán’s longstanding issue keeping the ball in the park continued. He also lost a few weeks to triceps tightness and spent two months on the IL with a lat strain.

Díaz has been Cincinnati’s closer for most of his three-year MLB career. He earned his first save chances late in his rookie year, a deserved nod after his 1.84 ERA with 83 punchouts across 63 2/3 innings. Díaz earned an All-Star appearance and saved 37 games during his second season. He walked a tightrope for most of last year, however.

While Díaz successfully locked down 28 of 32 save chances, he did so with a career-worst 3.99 ERA. His strikeout rate — which had sat north of 30% in each of his first two seasons — plummeted to a pedestrian 22.7% mark. Díaz has never had good command, making the drop in whiffs all the more concerning.

His stuff has also backed up. The righty averaged 93.9 MPH on his fastball last season. That’s down nearly two ticks from his 95.7 MPH mark as a rookie and a 94.5 MPH average in 2023. Between those somewhat alarming numbers and the season-opening IL stint, it’s sensible for the Reds to stick with Pagán and Santillan as their top late-game arms while having Díaz work in somewhat lower-leverage spots in the early going.