Cincinnati Reds sign left-handed reliever Andrew Chafin

The Cincinnati Reds have signed left-handed reliever Andrew Chafin to a minor league contract and assigned him to the Triple-A Louisville Bats, who begin their season tonight. Chafin, who has pitched in the big leagues in each of the last 12 seasons, signed with the Minnesota Twins this offseason on a minor league contract, but after being informed that he wasn’t going to make the team he used his opt-out to become a free agent. Their loss is the Reds gain.

Chafin has pitched well in his career.  The 35-year-old lefty has a career ERA of 3.35 in his 643 games. Last season he saw action with both the Washington Nationals and the Los Angeles Angels and pitched in 42 games while posting a 2.41 ERA and throwing 33.2 innings. He allowed just two home runs while walking 19 batters and striking out 36.

Chafin has had a few seasons in his career where he’s thrown plenty of strikes, but for the most part in his career he’s had an iffy walk rate and that’s been true in each of the last three seasons. His walk rate did improve after joining the Angels, but it was still a bit higher than you would like it to be.

This spring saw Andrew Chafin pitch in six games with the Twins. He allowed two runs in his six outings, covering 1.0 inning in each. That was good for an ERA of 3.00. He allowed four hits, walked three, and he struck out five. He had two walks in his first outing and then just one over the remaining five before he opted out of his deal.

There was a big red flag this spring, though. From 2021-2024 Chafin threw his fastball around 92 MPH. In 2025 that dropped down to 89.5 MPH but he was still able to keep runs off of the board despite the loss in velocity. This spring he averaged 85.7 MPH on his fastball. Left-handed or not, that’s a tough sell to big league teams that you will be able to get MLB hitters out. If you’re going to keep tabs on him while he’s in Triple-A it would seem wise to check the Statcast data on whether or not his velocity ticks up or not.

You can see the career stats for Andrew Chafin here.