Reds Beat: Bargain-Hunting Nick Krall Taking His Shots On Upside Outfielders In JJ Bleday, Dane Myers

CINCINNATI — Nick Krall went bargain hunting Saturday to rebuild his outfield.

Hours after buying low on an outfielder the Reds believe can overcome sluggish 2025, the club’s President of Baseball Operations traded minor league outfielder outfielder Ethan O’Donnell to the Miami Marlins for outfielder Dane Myers.

Myers, 29, made his first career Opening Day roster with the Marlins this past season, slashing .235/.291/.326 (72-for-307) in 106 games. Defensively, he appeared in 68 games in center field (58 starts), 31 games in right field (18 starts), and 11 games in left field (6 starts).

Prior to joining the Reds, Myers had previously spent his entire Major League career with Miami after being claimed off waivers from the White Sox on December 7, 2022. Originally selected by the Tigers in the sixth round of the 2017 first-year player draft, he made his Major League debut on July 4, 2023, and set a Marlins record by collecting 16 hits across his first 10 career games.

The Reds give up 23-year-old O’Donnell, who was originally selected by the Reds in the sixth round of the 2023 first-year player draft. He spent the entire 2025 campaign with AA-Chattanooga, where he slashed .236/.327/.325 in 125 games. In 2024, O’Donnell was recognized as a Midwest League All-Star at High A-Dayton.

Earlier in the day, the Reds signed free agent outfielder JJ Bleday to a one-year, $1.4 million deal.

Bleday, 28, slashed .212/.294/.404 with 14 homers and 17 doubles across 98 games with the Athletics in 2025. He posted a .324 batting average (22-for-68) against left-handed pitching, the third-best mark among all Major League left-handed batters with at least 60 at-bats against left-handed pitchers.

In 2024, Bleday set career highs in nearly every offensive category, including games (159), batting average (.243), runs (74), hits (139), doubles (43), home runs (20), RBI (60), and walks (67). His 43 doubles that year ranked fourth in the American League and sixth in the majors.

Bleday believes there’s a path to returning to his 2024 form.

“I think just being a fluid athlete, sticking to the fluidity in my swing, trust in my eye,” Bleday told me. “I have a really good eye. I don’t chase a whole lot. If I can just get back to that, and get back to hunting my my zones and and staying within myself, I think I have a chance to do some really cool things here. And that’s what I’m focused on right now, is just, you know, keep it simple and just keep it more simple and just be aggressive.”

The Reds see the potential from Bleday’s 2024 season and believe the outfielder still in his prime, can overcome an off year that saw him optioned three times before his designation for assignment on Nov. 18. Bleday served as the Athletics’ Opening Day starter in center field in each of the last 2 years. He’s appeared in 278 career games in center field, 73 in left field, and 39 in right field.

“Right now, take a one day at a time, make sure I’m healthy going into spring training,” Bleday added. “Make sure strength, weight, everything feels good, and I’m happy where I’m at. And then, from there on out, it’s just compete, trust what I’ve done this offseason, trust the work I put in and just go be who I am. Don’t try to do too much, and don’t try to put stats out there, like, go hit ‘X’ amount of homers, do ‘X’ amount of batting average. I’ve done it in the past. And sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. It’s hard to control that in baseball, but if you can kind of just control the game plan and what you want to do, the simple things, a little details, you’ll get the results.”

Selected by Miami with the fourth-overall pick in the 2019 first-year player draft, Bleday has played in parts of four Major League seasons with the Marlins (2022) and Athletics (2023-25). A native of Danville, Pennsylvania, he played collegiately at Vanderbilt, where as a junior in 2019 he was recognized as the SEC Player of the Year after leading all Division I batters with a program-record 27 home runs.

Bleday also played locally with the renown Midland baseball program in 2016, and lived in Newport, Kentucky.

“It was before my freshman year of college,” Bleday said. “So, 2016 summer, and I was actually living in Newport, Kentucky, and with my host dad, there was a bunch of us there. So we would just go commute to, I forget where the location is at now, but they sell the same exact facilities, not too far from Cincy. And yeah, we would just go there practice, do the travel baseball stuff, and it was a good preparation for college baseball.”

To make room for Bleday and Myers on the 40-man roster, the Reds designated right-handed pitchers Keegan Thompson and Lyon Richardson for assignment, keeping the 40-man roster at its max. Thompson signed a one-year Major League contract on Nov. 4 of this year.

Fan reaction will be mixed to these two moves after the Reds missed out on the Kyle Schwarber sweepstakes in free agency.

Will the bargain shopping pay off? Only time will tell.