The Cincinnati Reds currently have 14 players on their roster who’ll be arbitration eligible heading into the 2026 regular season. That means the Reds have 14 players currently rostered who’ll be picking
up raises over what they made during the 2025 season, since that’s precisely how the arbitration system works.
The fine folks at MLB Trade Rumors have used a pretty accurate model for years to estimate what these players will earn based on the inputs of their statistical production (and previous year salaries), and they released their estimates for each team’s group of arb-eligibles on Tuesday morning.
There are four Reds who’ll be in their final season of arbitration eligibility in 2026 – meaning, of course, that the Reds have only one more season of control over them before they reach free agency. Brady Singer ($11.9 million) leads the model’s estimates among that group, followed by Tyler Stephenson ($6.4 million), Gavin Lux ($5 million), and non-tender candidate Santiago Espinal ($2.9 million).
A trio of Reds have logged at least four years of service time, and that group is topped by Nick Lodolo ($4.3 million). He’s followed by Ian Gibaut ($1.5 million) and Sam Moll ($1.2 million).
TJ Friedl ($4.9 million) and Spencer Steer ($4.5 million) will see the largest salary increases among the group of players entering their first arbitration year, followed by Matt McLain ($2.6 million as a Super Two), Tony Santillan ($2.4 million), Will Benson ($1.7 million), and Brandon Williamson ($800K as a Super Two).
If the Reds choose to tender contracts to all 14 of those players – and if the numbers from the model are exactly right (they’ll be pretty close) – that’s approximately $51.5 million worth of salary obligations for that portion of the roster. For reference, the total amount earned by those same 14 players during the 2025 season was $27.75 million, so there’s a nearly $24 million increase in payroll just to roll back out those same guys again for the 2026 season.
First off, it’s unlikely that they’ll tender contracts to everyone listed there. Espinal and Gibaut, perhaps, stand out as two likely non-tender candidates. If you’re looking for the total bottom line for the 2026 payroll, you also have to factor in the likes of Nick Martinez ($21.05 million), Emilio Pagan ($8 million), Zack Littell (the prorated portion of his $5.72 million), Miguel Andujar (the prorated portion of his $3 million), and Scott Barlow ($2.5 million) coming off the books as each reaches free agency. That’s not an insignificant number by any stretch, though those are five pretty key roster openings that must now be filled either from within or via costly dives into free agency. The same can probably be said for Austin Hays ($5 million, assuming he and the Reds decline his $12 million mutual option for 2026), and potentially Brent Suter ($2.75 million with a similar option decision), though again, that opens up two additional holes on the overall roster.
All told, it’s a pretty clear indication of where the Reds are in this iteration of their rebuild. They wanted to create a young core that all emerged together, sticking to the plan of long-term ‘sustainability’ rather than pushing in a lot of chips for a run in any one year. That’s now gone on long enough for this many of them to begin hitting the years in which they get expensive, and both Elly De La Cruz and Andrew Abbott are on-pace to join them as immediately pricey arb-eligibles for the 2027 season, too.
It sure would be nice for them to actually begin to win something, anything before this group gets too expensive for the ownership’s own liking. It’s already beginning to get that way, I fear.
