The Cincinnati Reds could have up to 10 players who are arbitration eligible this offseason. Teams can non-tender players that they feel don’t warrant a big league deal for 2025, or at least at what they believe a player is likely to get in arbitration. Teams will have until mid-November to make that call.
Over at MLB Trade Rumors they published their projected arbitration numbers for the 10 Reds who will be arbitration eligible if Cincinnati doesn’t non-tender them. Looking at the projections it seems that some of the decisions will be easier than others.
| Player | Projection |
| Ty France | $8,600,000 |
| Tejay Antone | $1,100,000 |
| Santiago Espinal | $4,000,000 |
| Jake Fraley | $3,300,000 |
| Tyler Stephenson | $5,200,000 |
| Austin Wynns | $1,400,000 |
| Ian Gibaut | $800,000 |
| Sam Moll | $1,100,000 |
| Alexis Diaz | $4,200,000 |
| Nick Lodolo | $2,200,000 |
That is a big number for Ty France. And while Austin Wynns’ projected arbitration number isn’t much the truth is he signed a league minimum deal last year and cleared waivers multiple times throughout the year, and only played in seven games with the big league club. He’ll be a 34-year-old with a .609 career OPS next year. Then there’s TJ Antone, who fair or unfair, could be a guy that the team would be paying in 2025 to not pitch at all. He is trying to come back from a third Tommy John surgery.
Let’s assume that all of these guys are tendered a contract, though, and they get the raises that they are projected for. And let’s assume that Nick Martinez opts out of his deal but both sides agree to exercise the option with Jakob Junis (mutual option for $8,000,000, or the club can buy out the option for $3,000,000). That would leave the Reds payroll at roughly $88,000,000.
Of course it’s not likely that all of these players will be retained. And of course that’s just where the payroll would sit if the club didn’t make any other moves. That’s certainly not going to happen. The Reds will make some deals – whether it’s just trades, just some free agent signings, or a combination of both.
We don’t really know what the projected payroll for 2025 will be. How much that is might come down to which manager they can land. A top tier, proven manager is going to cost a bit more than a manager with no past managerial experience to go on. It’s a small amount, overall, but with how the Reds have gone about their business of late, that could be a real difference.
My guess would be that when the team heads to the winter meetings in December and has already made their decisions on who to tender and non-tender, that they’ll have about $80,000,000 committed to players for 2025. How much they add from there is all up in the air.
