The laundry list of injuries to Cincinnati Reds players at the big league level actually made the spotlight on Edwin Arroyo’s shoulder injury last spring that much brighter. After all, when the big leaguers go down (and the team’s record goes down with it), the natural response is to look to the minors and see who might be ready to step in and fix it.
Under normal circumstances, that would’ve been Arroyo. After Noelvi Marte was suspended, Matt McLain re-injured, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand struggled and got surgically repaired, the infield in Cincinnati was in tatters. Arroyo, one of the prize acquisitions from Seattle in the Luis Castillo deal, should have been ripping it up for AA Chattanooga last April, doing his best to prove he was once again worthy of top prospect status within the crowded youth movement the Reds had burgeoning.