What rookie Eduardo Salazar shows about the future of the Reds bullpen

Cincinnati Reds reliever Eduardo Salazar, a homegrown prospect who made his MLB debut on Wednesday, remembers the long afternoons in Chattanooga last season that he spent working on his sinker.

Salazar wasn’t having a good season in Double-A, and former Chattanooga Lookouts pitching coach Rob Wooten identified a sinker as a pitch that could help Salazar get to the big leagues. During batting practice, they worked in the outfield and in the bullpen on developing that pitch and adding it to Salazar’s repertoire. Wooten taught Salazar the pitch from scratch, and he helped the 25-year-old figure out how to become a better pitcher.

Then in 2023, Salazar posted a 1.02 ERA over the first two months of the season and earned a call up to MLB. He struck out 25 batters in 17 ⅔ innings between Double-A and Triple-A this year, and Salazar says his sinker changed the trajectory of his career.

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“I gained so much confidence (because of) that pitch,” Salazar said via interpreter Jorge Merlos. “Now, I call it my pitch.”

Salazar is a player development success story for the Reds, and they’ll need a lot more stories like this one in their efforts to complete this rebuild.

Since the Reds traded Raisel Iglesias and cut Archie Bradley before the start of the 2021 season, the Reds’ bullpen has mostly been a collection of waiver claims and minor league free agents. Over the last three years, Hunter Strickland and Sean Doolittle have been the only MLB free agents that the Reds have added to the bullpen.

While most teams use free agency to strengthen their bullpen, the Reds’ slashed payroll hasn’t given them that opportunity. Ownership has given the front office limited flexibility over the last few offseasons, and the front office has needed to allocate those resources for starting outfielders and starting pitchers.

As a result, the Reds’ bullpen features mostly journeymen relievers like Derek Law, Buck Farmer, Fernando Cruz and Alex Young.

“(Reds general manager Nick Krall) and his staff have done a great job of identifying guys from the outside, waiver claims and things like that,” Reds manager David Bell said. “A lot of times your focus is on developing starters, which is so important. But if we can continue or really start in some ways the process of getting relievers here and making that an option, you can still get them from outside too, but that would really help us with having those young guys like Alexis (Díaz).”

Díaz and Salazar are the only relievers in the Reds’ current bullpen who they signed and developed through the minor leagues. Injured relievers Tony Santillan and Tejay Antone are the only other homegrown relievers with MLB experience on the Reds’ roster. Recently, the Reds had a wave of relief pitcher prospects like Ryan Hendrix, Joel Kuhnel, Jared Solomon, Daniel Duarte and Dauri Moreta flop without making much of an impact with the Reds.

The Reds have made a lot of changes in pitching development over the last few years, and one of the goals is developing relief pitchers more consistently. Since the Reds named pitching coach Derek Johnson the organization’s director of pitching and promoted him to oversee their pitching development efforts, the Reds have developed a new wave of relief pitcher prospects like Salazar that Johnson is encouraged by.

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Johnson and the Reds’ minor league pitching coaches and coordinators developed a set of “core pillars” for the Reds’ philosophy.

The Reds started giving minor league pitchers all of the tools and data they needed to play an active role in conversations about their development. The Reds prioritized staying away from a “cookie cutter” approach, and their new, transparent philosophy helps pitchers feel more involved with their development process. As a result, the Reds’ minor league coaches have seen more confidence in their minor league pitchers.

Johnson calls this a “balance between the arts and the sciences,” and it’s helped Reds’ minor league pitchers take big steps forward recently.

“The big thing I saw that was different from other places was watching video and talking about what happened in every game,” said Reds reliever Kevin Herget, a veteran who played for the Louisville Bats as well as in the minor leagues for three other organizations. “That was a religious thing that they did every game, no matter how long you were in the game. It’s a conversation that leads to a plan of action for your next outing or even your catch play that day. That helps guys get better every time they go out.”

The first step in building a good farm system of relievers is identifying which pitchers would make the best relievers. The high draft picks and the top prospects usually get every chance to be a starting pitcher. The best relievers, like Díaz, are the diamonds in the rough with a few unique traits.

“A lot of times, you want to give guys every opportunity to be a starter before moving them to a relief role,” Bell said. “At the same time, relievers have become a big part of our game. Identifying early that they might be a fit in the bullpen can help us at the major league level.”

The Reds recognized Díaz’s elite fastball spin rate and believed he could become a great reliever. The Reds are hoping that Salazar’s sinker and slider make him a long-term contributor out of the bullpen.

When a reliever figures out an approach that can work consistently in MLB, he can move quickly through the farm system like Salazar, who began the 2023 season in Double-A.

“I didn’t think I’d be here this early in the season,” Salazar said. “I’m super excited to be here but also shocked that I’m here too.”

The Reds have a big group of productive pitchers in the minor leagues with interesting traits. An average farm system usually just has a couple of relief pitching prospects who end up turning into reliable big leaguers. When the Reds are trying to contend in the next few years, the strength of their bullpen will be determined by whether they’re able to develop two relief pitcher prospects or six-plus relief pitcher prospects.

In Triple-A, Salazar was showing his potential along with intriguing relievers like Pedro Garcia and Jake Wong. In Double-A, Carson Spiers, Donovan Benoit, Stevie Branche and Evan Kravetz lead a group of relievers with potential. Down the road, the Reds could convert a starting pitcher prospect like Levi Stoudt, Joe Boyle or Lyon Richardson into a reliever.

“We certainly have some homegrown talent that’s starting to get there,” Johnson said. “That’s a testament of four years of player development. We’ve changed things to develop more pitching in general. Our minor league pitching coaches and coordinators have done a great job.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: What rookie Eduardo Salazar shows about the future of the Reds bullpen