Cincinnati Reds trade Tyler Gilbert to Philadelphia

The Cincinnati Reds have traded left-handed pitcher Tyler Gilbert to the Philadelphia Phillies. It wasn’t really a trade, though – at least not in the traditional sense. Philadelphia is sending the Reds an undisclosed amount of cash to buy his contract. In baseball that’s considered a trade for some reason.

Following the 2023 season, Tyler Gilbert was outrighted and cleared waivers while in the Diamondbacks organization. He elected to become a free agent in November and in January the lefty signed a minor league deal with the Reds that included an invite to big league spring training.

Spring training went well for Gilbert from a statistical standpoint. He pitched in five games and threw 9.0 innings while giving up two earned runs, walking one batter, and he struck out 11 of the 41 hitters he faced. That performance, though, still got him sent back to minor league camp on March 18th.

When the regular season began the Reds sent Tyler Gilbert to Triple-A where he pitched for the Louisville Bats. He made three starts and four relief appearances and to say things didn’t go well would be putting it nicely. He posted a 13.11 ERA in 11.2 innings where he allowed 24 hits – but no home runs – and walked six batters. That’s a WHIP of 2.57. He would strike out 13 of the 63 hitters he faced during him time with Louisville.

Gilbert, who threw a no-hitter in his first big league start (he had made three relief appearances earlier in the month of his rookie season) in 2021 with Arizona, is now on back with the Phillies. Philadelphia drafted him in the 6th round of the 2015 draft and he remained with them in the minors until he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers after the 2020 season. Arizona then picked him up in the minor league version of the Rule 5 draft and then spent much of the 2021 season in Triple-A before he was called up in August. Since then he’s been back-and-forth between Triple-A and the big leagues – all with the Diamondbacks until 2024 when he was with Louisville.