Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson won his arbitration hearing against the team, reports Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer. He’ll earn the $6.8MM figure submitted by his reps at ACES rather than the $6.55MM figure submitted by the team. Stephenson is heading into his final season of club control and will be a free agent next winter.
Stephenson pulls in a 38.1% raise on last year’s $4.925MM salary on the heels of a season in which he slashed .231/.316/.421 with 13 homers and 18 doubles in 342 plate appearances. A broken left thumb and an oblique strain limited him to just 88 games in 2025, but he had another generally productive stretch while healthy. Since debuting in 2019, Stephenson has taken just shy of 2000 plate appearances and logged a combined .261/.338/.426 slash with 63 homers and 94 doubles.
Last year’s 33.9% strikeout rate was a career-worst by a wide margin, but his career-high 10.8% walk rate at least helped to mitigate that uptick in punchouts a bit. He actually chased balls off the plate less than the average hitter, but Stephenson’s contact rate on those chases was just 49.4% — well shy off the 55.6% league average. His contact rate on balls within the zone dropped by a concerning six percentage points.
Some of that could be due to his broken thumb, of course. Hand injuries can linger and impact a player’s swing even after he’s cleared to return to action, and it’s worth noting that Stephenson’s bat speed dropped by nearly a mile per hour over the prior season. It’s not unreasonable to think that with better health, he could regain some of that contact. Either way, his quality of contact remained strong; Stephenson averaged 90.5 mph off the bat with an excellent 49.2% hard-hit rate and an even better 14.4% barrel rate.
Heading into the 2026 season, Stephenson will again be the Reds’ primary catcher, teaming with defensive-minded Jose Trevino to handle the majority of Cincinnati’s catching duties. He could also mix in at first base and designated hitter. A healthy platform season should put Stephenson in line for a nice multi-year deal as he heads to the open market ahead of his age-30 campaign next winter.
Following Stephenson’s victory, players have gone 6-1 against teams in this offseason’s slate of arbitration hearings.
Good
Power to the people!
GOOD! Every single member of the Reds front office should be red faced embarrassed for letting this go to arbitration over 250,000 dollars! Sends a great message
to the younger player they would like to keep, doesn’t it?!
Like they give a F about someone else’s negotiations. Unless it affects them in theirs they are not going to care.
You’re a fool if you think they’re not aware of it..
It does not affect them in their own contract dealings. They don’t sit around thinking well if Tyler gets taken to arb that hurts them in some way. You’re just as stupid for thinking it will make them think twice about signing extensions here.
Like the extension you signed to live in Mama garage..
Conveniently forgetting Suárez was signed by going over budget which shows the other players they are making a more financial effort to win. But all you have is something about me banging someone’s mom in her garage. Can’t be my mama since she passed a few years ago.
Another player whose game has been hurt by trying to hit homers. Even the 6.55 number submitted by the Reds was a raise over the previous season. Yet all his numbers were a bit down from the year prior. IMO, arbitration raises should be based on performance, not the market.
rtc
“arbitration raises should be based on performance, not the market.”
Agreed
Per Fangraphs, his production was worth $9 million last year. So pay him that?
Or he’s projected, also by FG, for about $9 million in production this year. So, yeah, pay him that.
Last year he was coming off a season in which his production was worth $25 million.
I agree. Pay players based on production
Glad for Tyler. The attempt to shortchange by that small amount by team standards was pretty pitiful.
I could see bOb telling pHiL to dive on the ground, if they saw a dollar bill laying on a city street
7 million for .231 and 88 games. Get ready for $15 peanuts and $100 parking. Power to the people!…… To pay for this stupidity.
CT
“Power to the people!”
The way people get power is by knowledge
Maybe understand something about economics
You haven’t come across this yet?
People choose to spend their money on MLB. They buy tickets, peanuts, Crackerjacks, jerseys, bobbleheads, cable packages, etc.
Businesses supplying those items charge the price that gives them the most profit.
That profit gets shared with the players through their salaries.
If player salaries were lower, teams would still charge the same amounts for the above items. The owners would just keep more of the money instead of the players getting it.
There you go. A lesson in high school level economics.
CT
“7 million for .231 and 88 games”
His production, which isn’t measured by dumb batting average and the number of games he played, was worth $9 million per FanGraphs.
Watch a game instead of just looking at stats on ESPN.
Then you’ll see that walks exist. And doubles, triples and home runs are more valuable than singles. And defense also matters
Baseball is a cool game to watch. Maybe you should try it
Honest question is if he was worth $9M in his final year of arbitration why didn’t ask for that in his hearing?
An honest question to ask is if tysteve was worth $9M in his final year of arbitration why wasn’t that the number he asked for in his hearing?
Taking your player basically to “court” over $250,000 is a sad state of affairs.
AJ Preller in S.D has never taken a single player to Arbitration….not a one in over 10 years so it can be done.
.Has to mean something to players when deciding where to sign
Yeah, we just missed behind you on those Hosmer and Bogaerts deals!
Thank you sir, someone else sees that other players notice these things..
I think the Reds are done with Stephenson at the end of the year. A tad too injury prone and has not put up consistently good numbers. Unfortunately, catching is the Reds biggest weakness at the minor league level.
Duno is a top prospect even if only at AA.
Duno is probably the top catching prospect no matter in all of MLB. Saying that the Reds biggest weakness is catching in the minors is totally wrong. .Probalby more likely their outfielders are the biggest weakness.
I think the writing was on the wall when they extended Trevino. Not sure who will start next year though as Trevino proved he can’t handle full time and wears down last year. Their best minor league option is at least two years away.
8 of 10 or so arb players for the Reds settled w/o hearings. The 2 cases that went to hearings was for only half a million total. But yet management should be red faced and pitiful?. Capitualation to players only leads to higher ticket, beer, Reds TV streaming prices. Last I checked absolutely no one at this site considered those bargains- by any means!
How soon the Suarez signing is forgotten and the owners/ POBO bumbs again!
Yes, certain group of Reds fans always go negative. Mostly no clue on how it works.