Reed Ready For Reds

CINCINNATI—Lefthander Cody Reed is taking his offseason training seriously this year, because he did last year and it resulted in the best year of his career.

The 22-year-old didn’t really understand what he was supposed to do with his offseason work early in his pro career.

The Royals selected Reed in the second round of the 2013 draft from Northwest Mississippi CC, and he spent 2014 at low Class A Lexington, where he went 3-9, 5.46 in 19 starts.

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So after that disappointing campaign, he took the offseason more seriously. He carried that offseason work into a good spring training and eventually a great 2015, where he went 13-9, 2.41 with 144 strikeouts in 146 innings for three teams.

Reed finished the year in the Southern League playoffs as a member of the Reds’ Double-A Pensacola affiliate.

Cincinnati acquired Reed as one of three lefthanders from Kansas City at the trade deadline for Johnny Cueto. While John Lamb and Brandon Finnegan made their big league debuts for the Reds last season, but Reed is the one that has many in the Reds organization the most excited.

“I’ve been a (pitching) coordinator for 19 years, and you just see something different about a guy. This guy’s different,” new big league pitching coach Mark Riggins said. “He’s a different-looking guy. He separates from the other guys a little bit.”

He also looks a little bit different on the mound because of the glasses he’s worn since high school. Reed’s poor vision prompts him to wear rec glasses with white frames that make him stand out on the mound.

“The first impression I had when I caught his first game,” Pensacola catcher Kyle Skipworth said, “I was extremely impressed because of how he wanted to make a good first impression, but it didn’t change the rest of the season.”

“The guy we saw in Game One was the same guy we saw all the way through his start in the playoffs . . . He wore a chip on his shoulder. It was awesome.”

RED HOTS

• The Reds hosted 15 of their top pitching prospects in a three-day pitching summit in Goodyear, Ariz., in mid-January.

• Skipworth had surgery on his left ankle after the season and hopes to be ready by spring training.