the Reds 2026 payroll is going to \u201cbe around the same as our payroll from 2025.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\nThe Reds just made the playoffs for the first time since the sinking of the Lusitania. MLB league minimum salaries are rising some ~2.6% again as part of a multi-year plan set in place a handful of years ago to gradually increase salaries league-wide. The cost of a Qualifying Offer is up another million. Yet still, here we are, with the Reds seemingly a) unwilling to fit that into their tight-ass budget or b) simply telling the world false information.<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s day and age it\u2019s nearly impossible to rule out the latter, though everything this ownership group has ever done suggests it\u2019s pretty clearly going to be the former.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
If that\u2019s truly the case, the Reds will roll out a payroll on Opening Day of roughly $111 million, though they did finish 2025 with roughly $116 million on the books after deadline additions. As I noted when I looked deeper into their existing payroll obligations and likely arbitration raises a month ago, they already had something akin to $95 million on the books before the Thompson signing. Swapping him in at $1.3 million instead of someone else making league-minimum raises that to just under $96 million, so you can pretty clearly see what they\u2019ve got left to spend within that kind of budget.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s with their left fielder about to be a free agent. That\u2019s without a closer, and potentially without a pair of key setup men from last year, too. That\u2019s without Zack Littell, Nick Martinez, or Miguel Andujar, too.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s enough to make you wonder just how willing Krall will be to do move someone off the current roster who\u2019s now making more money than they are comfortable paying him. Perhaps that\u2019s Brady Singer or Tyler Stephenson or Gavin Lux, each of whom will be a free agent at the end of next season anyway. Surely he could find some SP depth for less than the $11 million Singer may command (is that Thompson already?), Jose Trevino is already signed, and Gavin Lux just posted a -0.2 bWAR season and still has no position.<\/p>\n
All told, it seems to have barely taken a couple weeks after the Reds somewhat promising 2023 campaign ended for the official Wet Blanket of the Cincinnati Reds\u2122 to once again throw a huge chunk of the optimism built up over the last calendar year right out the window.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
The guys are just gonna have to play better next year, I guess!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though right-hander Keegan Thompson spent the entirety of the 2025 season at the AAA level within the Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":355846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[41393,1271,5048,1885,10625,10630,173632,69661,1266,145855,10628,62,19895,67,132,68,69804],"class_list":{"0":"post-355845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-brady-singer","9":"tag-chicago-cubs","10":"tag-cincinnati-reds","11":"tag-detroit-tigers","12":"tag-gavin-lux","13":"tag-jose-trevino","14":"tag-keegan-thompson","15":"tag-miguel-andujar","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-nick-krall","18":"tag-nick-martinez","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-tyler-stephenson","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-zack-littell"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115493429841455631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}