Former little-used Guardians reliever randomly resurfaces with Reds 

The Cleveland Guardians have had plenty of players who had blink-and-you’ll-miss players in recent years. 

None of them personify that theme more than reliever Darren McCaughan, who appeared in two games for Cleveland in 2024 and allowed six earned runs across two appearances at the end of June. 

He ended up seeing a decent bit of action for the Marlins across the remainder of that season before briefly appearing in the bigs with the Twins last season. 

On Wednesday he finally figured out where he’s going to be this spring, as the Reds announced that they’d signed McCaughan to a minor league deal for 2026 with an invitation to big league spring training. 

Former Guardians reliever Darren McCaughan signs minor league deal with the Reds 

The Guardians added McCaughan to the roster in May of 2024 after the Marlins designated him for assignment, and they ended up calling him up to the bigs a little more than a month later after Nick Sandlin went on the injured list.

He threw two innings in his Guardians debut against the Blue Jays before allowing four runs in four innings in mop-up duty in a start against the Royals a week later. 

That was the final appearance he made for Cleveland, who placed on waivers, which led to him reuniting with the Marlins. 

He was added to the Twins roster last March and pitched well in three appearances at the big league level, but was designated for assignment when Minnesota needed to add a fresh arm to its relief mix. 

He has a 6.02 ERA across 61 1/3 career MLB innings and had a 5.10 ERA in 97 innings at Triple-A last season. He had a 5.06 ERA in six starts with Triple-A Columbus during his tenure with the Guardians in 2024. 

McCaughan is the definition of a depth reliever, as he’s not good enough to stick around in a big league bullpen, but is a valuable swingman to have in Triple-A who can be called upon at a moment’s notice. 

The Reds have a deep bullpen highlighted by closer Emilio Pagán, so McCaughan will have an uphill battle to make Cincinnati’s roster. But even if he doesn’t make the roster out of spring training it’s not hard to imagine a point where the Reds would need to call upon him at some point as they battle with bullpen injuries and inconsistency. 

Even if McCaughan’s time with Cleveland was short and unremarkable, he’s done a good job sticking around the periphery of the big leagues, and should benefit from being able to work with former Guardians manager Terry Francona in Cincinnati.