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Reds Outright Ian Gibaut

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Reds reliever Ian Gibaut has been activated from the 60-day injured list and sent outright to Triple-A Louisville, according to the transaction log at MLB.com. The right-hander had been on the IL with a right shoulder impingement. Gibaut has over three years of service time, so he can reject the outright assignment in favor of free agency.

The 31-year-old has pitched in parts of four seasons with the Reds from 2022-25. In 137 2/3 innings with Cincinnati, he has posted a 3.92 ERA with a roughly average 22.5% strikeout rate and a below-average 9.3% walk rate. The highlight of his tenure was Gibaut’s 2023 season, in which he had a 3.33 ERA in 75 2/3 innings out of the Reds’ bullpen and allowed hard hits at a rate of just 31.8%, well below the league average of 38.2% among qualified relievers that year. Unfortunately, Gibaut made only two appearances the following season as he underwent surgery for a nerve issue in his forearm. The Reds non-tendered him in November 2024, but re-signed him to a minor league contract in January 2025.

In 25 1/3 innings across 25 appearances this year, Gibaut had a 4.62 ERA but did not miss many bats, with a mere 13.2% strikeout rate. Some of that can be attributed to injury, as his season was interrupted by two separate trips to the IL, the first coming at the end of April. Gibaut also appeared to be working with diminished stuff, as his average fastball velocity declined from 95.2 mph in 2023 to 94.0 mph in 2025 (he only threw two innings in 2024). However, he still did well at limiting hard contact with a hard-hit rate of 33.7%. He also lowered his walk rate to 7.3%, which graded out better than league average.

Although this move keeps him off the Reds’ 40-man roster, it’s plausible that Gibaut could work his way into a middle relief role in 2026 if he chooses to stay in the organization. Emilio Pagan and swingman Nick Martinez are free agents. Meanwhile, Scott Barlow and Brent Suter both have club options, although the $6.5MM value of Barlow’s option might keep him from returning. Gibaut earned a more affordable $1.3MM in 2025 and should earn a similar amount if not slightly less in 2026. He can be controlled through 2027 via arbitration.

The Case For The Reds To Sign A Big Bat

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The Reds’ immediate exit from the playoffs makes it easy to forget the successes of the regular season. Cincinnati snapped a four-year postseason drought in manager Terry Francona’s first season. They won 83 games for just the second time since 2013. This team has something to build on heading into 2026, and now is the time to make a splash in free agency.

As MLBTR’s Anthony Franco explored in Cincinnati’s Offseason Outlook for Front Office subscribers, improving the offense will be key this offseason. The club did not have the depth or high-end talent to compete with the best of the National League. Cincinnati could make smaller moves around the margins, as they’ve done in recent seasons, but why not take a bigger swing?

Financially, the team is in a decent spot. FanGraphs’ RosterResource tool has the Reds with an estimated payroll of around $94MM heading into next season. They were close to $120MM this past season, and have been above $130MM in each season from 2020 to 2022. The biggest current commitment for 2026 is the $13MM owed to Jeimer Candelario. While it stings to be shelling out that amount to a player no longer in the organization, Candelario is the only one on the books for eight figures right now, assuming the team declines Austin Hays’ $12MM mutual option. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz has Brady Singer projected to earn $11.9MM in arbitration, but the righty will likely be the only significant commitment coming from the arbitration process.

Cincinnati’s largest free agent contract by total value is a tie between Nick Castellanos and Mike Moustakas at $64MM over four years in 2020, as shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker. The club will have to go well beyond a $16MM average annual value to entice Kyle Schwarber or Pete Alonso, but maybe combining the outlay on Castellanos and Moustakas would be enough to make an interesting offer.

Part of the reason for the offense being the offseason focus is that the pitching staff was excellent in 2025. Hunter Greene looked like an ace when healthy. Andrew Abbott delivered a breakout season. Singer and Nick Lodolo provided stable innings. Chase Burns posted electrifying strikeout numbers upon getting called up. Cincinnati ranked ninth in starting pitcher ERA. Only six other starting staffs had more strikeouts.

The success on the mound is made more impressive by Cincinnati’s home venue. Great American Ball Park ranks third in StatCast’s Park Factor metric. It’s the second-highest rated park for home runs. The strides made by the starting pitching unit make the shortcomings of the offense harder to swallow, especially given the favorable hitting environment.

Though they snuck into the playoffs after chasing down the Mets, the Reds finished third in the NL Central. They haven’t been better than third in the division since winning it in 2012. This might be the perfect time to buck that trend.

Pittsburgh and St. Louis are in rebuilding mode, making this a three-horse race heading into next season. Milwaukee and Chicago both won 90+ games in 2025, but could be facing significant losses. Kyle Tucker is a free agent. He would fit the bill as a significant splash for Cincinnati, though he’s likely out of their price range. The more likely impact is removing a key contributor from the middle of the Cubs’ lineup. Speaking of important losses, Milwaukee could be considering a Freddy Peralta trade. It would be a massive loss for a rotation without much proven depth and some health questions.

The Brewers and Cubs are still likely the favorites to win the NL Central next season, but the Reds can close the gap. Their finances make a big move possible, and their pitching staff deserves better support. Schwarber said it would be “cool” to suit up for his hometown team. The Reds might as well try to make that happen.

What Can The Reds Expect From Matt McLain In 2026?

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It was a good season for the Reds in 2025, on balance. Hunter Greene replicated his excellent 2024 and cemented himself as one of the game’s top young starters, Andrew Abbott enjoyed a career-year that saw him make his first trip to the All-Star game, and despite winning just 83 games the club managed to squeak into the postseason for the first time in a full season since 2013.

With all that being said, however, there are clear flaws with the team as presently constructed and it’s not at all hard to see where the team needs to improve if they hope to return to the playoffs next year for another bite at the apple. The Cincinnati offense disappointed across the board this season, with even star shortstop Elly De La Cruz hitting 11 fewer extra-base hits and swiping 30 fewer bases than last year despite similar on-base numbers.

In a season where virtually every piece of the club’s offensive nucleus fell short of expectations, it seems a bit unfair to single out any one player. Even so, the struggles second baseman Matt McLain faced stand out among the crowd. McLain was one of the most exciting young players in baseball as recently as 2023, when his sensational 89-game rookie season earned him a fifth-place finish in NL Rookie of the Year voting that year. Unfortunately, he missed the entire 2024 season due to injuries and in some regards looked like a shell of his former self this season.

That’s not to say he regressed across the board. McLain’s 28.9% strikeout rate this season was a near perfect match for the 28.5% clip he struck out at back in 2023. His 9.5% walk rate was actually a substantial improvement over the 7.7% rate he posted in his rookie campaign. His defense was also phenomenal as he finished the year with +6 Fielding Run Value, a figure bested by just eight qualified middle infielders in baseball this year. That’s a substantial step up from the +1 FRV McLain offered in his rookie campaign.

Those are all positive (or, in the case of McLain’s strikeout rate, at least neutral) signs relative to 2023. It’s also where the good times come to an end, however. McLain’s power was down substantially by just about every metric this past year. After slugging 16 homers in 89 games as a rookie, he hit 15 across 147 games this year. His doubles also dropped from 23 to 18, while his triples actually dropped from four all the way down to zero. Hitting ten fewer extra-base hits in 174 more plate appearances is a drop in power output that’s nothing short of alarming, and McLain’s paltry .124 ISO put him in the bottom 20 among qualified hitters this year. His barrel rate dropped more than three points from 2023, and his hard-hit rate has dropped nearly two.

That falls short of even some notoriously contact-oriented hitters like Jung Hoo Lee and Jacob Wilson. While those players (not to mention hitters with even less power like Luis Arraez and Nico Hoerner) get away with that minimal power output thanks to elite bat-to-ball skills, but McLain’s lack of improvement in the strikeout department leaves him unable to emulate that brand of hitting. Barring a massive drop in strikeout rate next year, McLain will need to recapture some of that power if he’s going to improve over this year’s paltry 77 wRC+, much less approach the 129 wRC+ he posted in his rookie season.

Just how feasible is that? It’s hard to believe that he’ll get back to that level he flashed in 2023 entirely, because that was buoyed in no small part by a .385 BABIP. A BABIP of .350 is typically viewed as around the upper limit of the sustainable year-to-year range, and McLain’s .292 BABIP this year falls firmly into that more sustainable range. It’s possible it ticks back up in the future, but reversing that more than 90-point drop appears to be little more than a pipe dream. Getting back above league average, however, seems to be a far more reasonable ask, and one that could turn McLain into a key piece of Cincinnati’s core once again.

He’ll need to adjust his approach a bit if he’s going to get there. McLain’s hard-hit rate was only marginally lower than his rookie season in 2025, but he lost more than a quarter of his barrels on a rate basis this season. Some of that can surely be attributed to a stark drop in line drives. While McLain’s grounder rate stayed stagnant at 38.7% between this year and 2023, his line drive rate dropped from a 24.2% clip as a rookie to just 17.2% this year. To put those numbers in context, his line drive rate this year ranked 132nd among 145 qualified hitters, while his 2023 rate would’ve ranked eighth this year among that same group.

Getting back to a more line drive oriented approach could help McLain both recoup some of those lost extra-base hits, and it would also help with his steeply declining BABIP. McLain hit 44.2% of his batted balls in the air this year, a top-30 clip in the majors. That works well for hitters like Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber who have the power to slug 40+ homers on an annual basis, but it’s a much less effective recipe for success for someone with McLain’s profile. He pulled the ball less often than all but 23 of the league’s qualified hitters this year, leaving him with a lot of fly outs and pop ups but little production to show for it.

If McLain can lower his launch angle a bit next year, he could get back to hitting the sweet spot more often than he did this year. That was the secret ingredient that made McLain so effective in 2023, as his 39.6% sweet spot rate ranked in the 94th percentile among all MLB hitters. That dropped to just 34.0% this year, which placed him in the 43rd percentile. The good news for McLain and the Reds is that a change in approach is far easier to correct than a step back in underlying skills, and McLain’s discipline, defense, speed and bat speed all seem to be either right where they were in his rookie year or even better. That makes it relatively easy to imagine him re-emerging as a core piece of a Reds lineup that will need to generate a lot more offense this year if they want to build on their cameo in the playoffs this season.

Reds Plan To Keep Elly De La Cruz At Shortstop

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Elly De La Cruz has led the league in errors the past two seasons, but the Reds intend to keep him at shortstop, at least for the time being. President of baseball operations Nick Krall spoke to Mark Sheldon of MLB.com for a piece about Cincinnati’s top prospects. With shortstop prospect Edwin Arroyo knocking on the door of the majors, Krall was asked if there were plans to move De La Cruz off the position. “As of right now, no,” Krall told Sheldon.

After posting 29 errors in 2024, De La Cruz racked up another 26 this past season. He’s been at least three errors clear of the next-closest defender in each of the past two seasons. Durability is somewhat at play here. De La Cruz has been remarkably healthy in his first two full seasons in the big leagues, appearing in at least 160 games both times. More games equal more fielding opportunities, though De La Cruz has also struggled on a per-chance basis. He finished with the third-worst fielding percentage among qualified players in 2025.

De La Cruz has tantalizing tools at the position. He averaged 92.2 mph on throws in 2025, which ranked in the 93rd percentile. De La Cruz posted standout marks in terms of range last season, with StatCast having him at 14 Outs Above Average. That mark plummeted to -3 this past year, though.

Center field has been rumored as a future destination for De La Cruz. It’s a path many struggling infielders have taken over the years, with Oneil Cruz serving as the most recent notable example. Cruz finished second in errors last season with 26. While a couple of those miscues came in the outfield, 24 of them were at shortstop. Pittsburgh moved Cruz to the outfield full-time in 2025, opting to go with the sure-handed Isiah Kiner-Falefa at shortstop.

While Arroyo might not be an immediate MLB option, Cincinnati has alternatives already on the big-league roster. Matt McLain made 52 starts at the position when he first debuted in 2023. The same goes for Noelvi Marte, who played a handful of games at shortstop when he first joined the Reds. Santiago Espinal has plenty of experience up the middle, but he’s likely ticketed for a utility role. Cincinnati now has Ke’Bryan Hayes at third base to buttress the left side of the infield, which should allow some flexibility with the shortstop decision.

No matter where he plays, De La Cruz’s bat will be in the lineup. He’s been the engine of the offense the past two seasons, topping 20 homers and scoring 100+ runs in back-to-back years. De La Cruz has at least 35 stolen bases in all three of his MLB seasons, including a league-leading 67 swipes in 2024. De La Cruz has trimmed his strikeout rate in each year of his career. He hit a career-best .264 this past season.

Despite De La Cruz’s struggles, Cincinnati only had the 11th-most errors last season. They ranked 21st in fielding percentage. A full season of Hayes should boost those marks.

Diamondbacks Hire J.R. House As Third Base Coach

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The D-Backs are hiring J.R. House as third base/catching coach, reports Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic. The 45-year-old has held that role with the Reds for the past seven seasons.

House had a brief big league playing career as a part-time catcher. He coached and managed in the D-Backs’ farm system for most of the 2010s and still lives in Arizona. House tells Piecoro that the proximity to home was a big reason for him to leave the Reds for what amounts to a lateral move.

The Diamondbacks had hired a first-year third base coach, Shaun Larkin, last offseason. Larkin struggled in that role and had a few bad sends that led manager Torey Lovullo to remove him from the job in the middle of August. Larkin remains on staff as an infield instructor. Piecoro writes that Tim Bogar, who worked as third base coach for the final five weeks of the season, will return to a minor league player development role.

That may be the only change to Arizona’s staff. Lovullo told The Burns & Gambo Show earlier this month that they’d bring back all their coaches, though he left the door open to some role shuffling. The Reds will now need to make at least one coaching change going into Terry Francona’s second season at the helm.

Nine Players Elect Free Agency

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Now that the season is over, we’ll start seeing several players choose to become minor league free agents. Major League free agents (i.e. players with six-plus years of big league service time) will hit the open market five days after the end of the World Series, but eligible minor leaguers can already start electing free agency.

To qualify, these players must have been all outrighted off their team’s 40-man rosters during the 2025 season without being added back. These players also must have multiple career outrights on their resume, and/or at least three years of Major League service time.

We’ll offer periodic updates over the coming weeks about many other players hitting the market in this fashion. Unless otherwise credited, these free agent decisions are all listed on the official MLB.com or MILB.com transactions pages, for further reference.

Catchers

Outfielders

Pitchers

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images

Nick Krall Downplays Possibility Of Reds Trading Starting Pitching

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It was starting pitching depth that carried the Reds to their first full-season playoff appearance in more than a decade. Their bats ranked 14th in runs per game, 19th in OPS, and 24th in wRC+. Their gloves ranked 20th in errors, DRS, and FRV. Their bullpen ranked 14th in ERA, but 27th in xERA and 27th in SIERA. Yet, the Reds finished 83-79, edging out the Mets for the NL’s final Wild Card spot. How did they pull it off? Andrew Abbott, Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Brady Singer, Nick Martinez, Zack Littell, and Chase Burns had a whole lot to do with it. Those seven arms combined to start 152 of Cincinnati’s 162 games, pitching to a 3.69 ERA (84 ERA-) in 832 innings. Their collective 16.4 FanGraphs WAR and 8.64 Win Probability Added as starters helped the Reds finish with the second-best rotation fWAR and third-best WPA in the sport.

Martinez and Littell are set to hit free agency, but Greene, Lodolo, Abbott, Singer, and Burns will be back. Three promising arms who missed 2024 with injuries – Rhett Lowder, Brandon Williamson, and Julian Aguiar – should factor into the mix as well, as could top prospect Chase Petty. That’s a lot of names for one rotation.

Yet, president of baseball operations Nick Krall doesn’t seem overly eager to deal from that area of strength. “I wouldn’t say no,” he told reporters (including Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer), when asked about the possibility of trading a starter this winter. “But when you trade pitchers, you’ve got to go [back]fill them somehow. We all know how it works, where you run out of innings at some point in the season, guys get hurt, things happen.”

The POBO’s comments hit on a key point. The 2025 Reds didn’t just succeed because their starting pitchers were excellent, but because their staff was so deep. Trading away too much of that depth could leave the team scrambling in the case of injuries next season. Greene, Abbott, Lodolo, and Singer are presumably locks for 2026. Meanwhile, Burns, Lowder, Williamson, Aguiar, and Petty all have minor league options; presuming one of them wins the final rotation spot out of spring training, the other four (if healthy) can wait in the wings at Triple-A. Excluding openers, the Reds used 10 different starting pitchers in 2025. They’re going to need more than five to get through another campaign.

That’s especially true with this group of arms. Singer has proven himself to be a durable workhorse over the past few years. But no one else on Cincinnati’s staff has ever made 30 starts in a season. Abbott qualified for the ERA title for the first time in 2025, but Greene and Lodolo have yet to accomplish that feat. Burns, Lowder, Williamson, Aguiar, and Petty have started a grand total of 49 games in their young careers, and 26 of those belong to Williamson. As general manager Brad Meador mentioned, the Reds are “going to have to manage the innings of a handful of those guys.”

Krall also acknowledged that trading from his major league pitching depth might not be the most straightforward way to improve other areas of the roster.

“It’s really hard to say we’re going to go trade a pitcher – and I’m not sure you’re going to trade a pitcher for offense,” he explained. “You might end up trading the pitcher for a prospect and then go have to sign the offense.”

[Related: Cincinnati Reds Offseason Outlook, for MLBTR Front Office subscribers]

None of this is to say the Reds won’t end up trading a starter. It’s just not a given. Asked about the possibility of dealing Greene, an All-Star on an incredibly team-friendly contract (he’s guaranteed just $42MM over the next three years), Krall could have shut down the line of questioning. Instead, he replied, “I don’t want to speculate on anybody that’s going to get traded or not traded at this point.” The Reds aren’t actively shopping any of their young starters, but it doesn’t sound like anyone is untouchable either. After all, if anyone were untouchable, one would think it would be Greene.

That said, for all the same reasons the Reds wouldn’t want to trade Greene, he would bring back a nice return in a deal. All of Cincinnati’s starters are cost-controlled, with Singer, Lodolo, and Williamson still in their arbitration years, and Abbott, Burns, Lowder, Aguiar, and Petty not yet eligible for arbitration. Yet, Greene is both a proven ace and a high-upside young arm, and he is under team control through the 2030 season. That’s a valuable player.

If the Reds are looking to shave payroll, trading Singer would be their best course of action; he is projected to make $11.9MM in his final year of arbitration eligibility. If they’re trying to bring back an MLB-ready position player without significantly weakening their rotation for 2026, then it’s Petty, still a top prospect, who makes the most sense to move. However, if the goal is simply to find the best possible return, it’s Greene who would command such a package.

Nothing Krall said suggests Greene is on the block. But he had a chance to say Greene was off limits, and he didn’t take it. Instead, the POBO only said that he didn’t want to speculate about trade candidates because he hadn’t “had any conversations with other clubs.” Of course, Krall also said that when a team trades a pitcher, they have to somehow fill his spot. Greene, it should go without saying, wouldn’t be easy to replace. So, a trade still seems improbable – but perhaps it’s slightly closer to being a real possibility than Reds fans might want to believe.

Offseason Outlook: Cincinnati Reds

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The Reds made the postseason in a 162-game schedule for the first time in 12 years. They looked overmatched against the Dodgers and were swept out of the Wild Card Series. This year was a nice stepping stone, but the Reds need to add a couple bats to pull alongside the true best teams in the National League.

Guaranteed Contracts

  • Hunter Greene, RHP: $41MM through 2028 (including buyout of ’29 club option)
  • Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B: $36MM through 2029 (including buyout of '30 club option)
  • Jose Trevino, C: $11.25MM through 2027 (including buyout of '28 club option)

Other Financial Commitments

Option Decisions

  • Team, OF Austin Hays hold $12MM mutual option ($1MM buyout)
  • Team holds $6.5MM option on RHP Scott Barlow ($1MM buyout)
  • Team holds $3MM option on LHP Brent Suter ($250K buyout)

2026 financial commitments: $37.5MM
Total future commitments: $105.5MM

Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; projected salaries courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)

Non-tender candidates: Lux, Espinal, Gibaut, Moll, Benson

Free Agents

The Reds ranked 14th in MLB with 4.42 runs per game. That's an underwhelming mark for a team that plays in one of the league's most favorable hitter's parks. They'll need to improve upon a .245/.315/.391 batting line. The offense should be the offseason priority, but their first couple decisions are in the bullpen.

Cincinnati holds options on relievers Scott Barlow and Brent Suter. It's an easy call to move on from Barlow, who'll receive a $1MM buyout. They'll probably also opt for a $250K buyout on Suter, as the Cincinnati native struggled to a 7.36 ERA after the All-Star Break. Closer Emilio Pagán hits the market following one of the best seasons of his career. Nick Martinez will again be a free agent after playing this year on a $21.05MM qualifying offer salary.

If Pagán walks, the Reds could be in the market for a closer. They're not going to spend at the level it'd take to bring in Edwin Díaz, nor does a splash for Robert Suarez seem advisable given their needs on offense. Old friend Raisel Iglesias will be available on a one or two-year deal at age 36, though he pitched well enough with Atlanta to command an eight-figure salary. Kenley Jansen will sign a decent one-year deal, while Ryan Helsley and Michael Kopech are probably looking for pillow contracts. Devin Williams, Brad Keller, Luke Weaver, Kyle Finnegan and Pagán himself should all be looking at multi-year contracts -- though it'd be a surprise if Pagán commands more than two guaranteed years entering his age-35 season.

Tony Santillan, Graham Ashcraft and Connor Phillips are Cincy's top returning leverage arms. Santillan has a little bit of closing experience, while Phillips has shown wipeout stuff with hit-or-miss command. If the Reds find the prices too high on free agent closers, perhaps they'll let Santillan and Phillips compete for the ninth inning while pursuing a setup type like Tyler Rogers or Phil Maton. In any case, they should bring in at least one back-end arm.

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Emilio Pagán Interested In Returning To Cincinnati

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After recording a career-high 32 saves in 2025, right-hander Emilio Pagán has expressed interest in rejoining the Reds. “I’d love to be back and run it back with them and take another run at it,” Pagán told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The pending free agent has spent the past two seasons in Cincinnati’s bullpen.

Pagán stepped in as manager Terry Francona’s preferred 9th inning option after Alexis Díaz went down with a hamstring injury in the spring. He entered the year with 33 career saves across eight MLB seasons. Pagán nearly doubled that mark as the Reds’ stopper, going 32-for-38 in save opportunities. He notched a 2.88 ERA across a career-high 70 appearances. Pagán was tied with Aroldis Chapman and Jhoan Duran for fifth in the league in saves.

A solid campaign with Minnesota in 2023 earned Pagán a two-year, $16M deal with Cincinnati ahead of the 2024 season. Injuries limited him to 38 innings in his first year with the team. He spent time on the IL with triceps tightness and a lat strain. The latter issue cost him more than two months. Pagán struggled when healthy, pitching to a 4.50 ERA with a bloated 1.34 WHIP. He was set to open the 2025 season on the periphery of Cincinnati’s late-inning mix, but Díaz’s injury opened the door for another reliever to step forward. Despite having former closers Taylor Rogers and Scott Barlow on the roster, it was Pagán and Tony Santillan who emerged as the top candidates for the role. Both pitchers earned a save within the team’s first 10 games, but Santillan wouldn’t get his second save until early June. By then, Pagán had run away with the job.

The closer role wasn’t completely foreign to Pagán, but it had been a while since he had spent the majority of a season in the position. He served as Tampa Bay’s primary closer in 2019 after Diego Castillo and Jose Alvarado faltered. Pagán earned 20 saves that year. He was dealt to San Diego in the offseason, and then to Minnesota a couple of years later. Pagán opened the 2022 season as the Twins’ closer, but lost the job to Duran after an extended stretch of poor performance.

Pagán will be one of many intriguing names on the closer market this offseason. Devin Williams, Ryan Helsley, and Raisel Iglesias are free agents. Edwin Díaz and Robert Suarez could opt out of their current deals and hit the open market. Kenley Jansen, Luke Weaver, Kirby Yates, Ryan Pressly, and Kyle Finnegan have extensive late-inning experience. Pagán’s best choice might be to stick with the club where he just posted a career season. It sounds like the interest is mutual, too. Team president Nick Krall told Wittenmyer that Pagán would be “tremendous to have back.” Krall added that the veteran “fits in the culture of our bullpen.”

The Reds should certainly have the financial flexibility to add in free agency. FanGraphs’ RosterResource tool has them below $100MM for next year’s payroll, though the team does have an ample group of arbitration-eligible players. The club had a payroll of around $120MM this past season. Cincinnati is stuck paying $13MM to Jeimer Candelario next year, but he’s currently the only player on the books for more than seven figures in 2026, assuming they decline the $12MM mutual option on Austin Hays. If the Reds don’t make any additions to the bullpen, they’re likely looking at patching together the closer gig with Santillan and converted starter Graham Ashcraft.

Curt Casali Retires

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In a move that wasn’t publicly reported earlier this season, longtime catcher Curt Casali retired and took a job in the Reds front office, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  Casali signed a minor league deal with the Braves last winter but was released before the end of Spring Training, and he didn’t play at all in 2025.

At age 36 and after 11 Major League seasons, it appears as though Casali decided to call it a career and move onto a new phase of his baseball life.  The nature of his duties with the Reds isn’t specified, but Slusser wonders if Casali could emerge as a future managerial candidate….even as soon as this winter as the Giants look for a new dugout boss.  That would continue the trend of catchers moving into managerial jobs, and Slusser notes that Buster Posey (obviously a former backstop himself) seems to be looking at ex-catchers in the early stages of San Francisco’s managerial search.

Casali has plenty of links to the organization, as he played with the Giants in 2021-22 and again during the 2024 season.  In the first year of Casali’s time in San Francisco, he was Posey’s backup during what ended up being Posey’s final big league campaign.

A 10th-round pick for the Tigers in the 2011 draft, Casali was dealt to the Rays in March 2013, and he made his MLB debut in a Tampa uniform in 2014.  Casali was mostly a part-timer over his four seasons with the Rays, but he received the bulk of the catching duties in 2016, playing in 84 games and making 256 plate appearances.  He didn’t hit much during that extended look, however, and Casali left the Rays organization and bounced around to a few teams on minors deals, including a return to Tampa Bay before the Rays dealt him to the Reds in May 2018.

Casali spent the next three seasons in Cincinnati, and his bat came alive to the point that he moved into a virtual timeshare with Tucker Barnhart.  Casali hit .260/.345/.440 over 485 PA during the 2018-20 seasons, but the Reds still chose to non-tender Casali during the 2020-21 offseason, paving the way for his next contract with the Giants.

At the 2022 trade deadline, San Francisco dealt Casali to the Mariners as part of a noteworthy trade that also sent Matthew Boyd to Seattle’s bullpen for the stretch run.  Casali backed up Cal Raleigh for the remainder of the 2022 campaign before entering free agency again, and his final two MLB seasons were spent revisiting old haunts in Cincinnati (in 2023) and San Francisco (in 2024).  While Casali’s big league playing time during those two seasons was spent with the Reds and Giants, he also was briefly part of the Marlins and Cubs organizations on minors deals.

Overall, Casali will finish his career with a .218/.312/.369 slash line and 48 home runs over 1579 PA and 543 games across his 11 seasons in the Show.  Beyond that modest offensive production, Casali was well-regarded for his ability to handle pitchers and call a game.  If Slusser’s report is any indication, Casali’s knowledge of the game might well develop into coaching or managerial jobs if he wishes to pursue that direction.

We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Casali on a fine career and wish him the best in his post-playing career.

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