Barring a major trade this offseason, the 2026 season will mark the fifth regular season in which Spencer Steer has appeared in a Cincinnati Reds uniform. That’s right, when the Reds front office once
again began to blow up the roster back in 2022, it was the deal shipping out Tyler Mahle that brought in Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and Steer became the first new piece of the rebuild to really make his mark on the big league roster.
Luis Castillo was similarly shipped out that summer, and now Noelvi Marte is heading into what will be his fourth regular season of big league ball in 2026. Time flies when you’re in a constant rebuild, it would appear.
Pointing out the relentless march of time is only one small piece of this particular angle, though. It’s more me parsing through the notes and remnants of what was the 2025 season, turning the page to 2026, and making note of just how little the Reds have on the books at the moment.
This deep into this rebuild, with this many ‘young’ pieces that the front office refused to give up, and yet there’s still precious little that they’ve been willing to commit to long-term. The player with the most number of guaranteed years on the books at the moment is none other than Ke’Bryan Hayes, whom the Pittsburgh Pirates signed through at least 2029 prior to shipping him out to their division rival in what still seems like a blatant salary dump. Hunter Greene got inked, as he well should have, and is under contract through 2028 (with a 2029 option), while backup catcher Jose Trevino landed an extension through at least 2027 after being picked up last winter.
That’s it, though. Three guys – two of whom weren’t even Reds 10 months ago – accounting for a grand total of about $20.5 million of salary obligations for the 2026 season.
TJ Friedl’s entering what will be his sixth regular season of big league ball with no contract having been doled out his way. Tyler Stephenson is entering his seventh. Nick Lodolo has pitched his way to arbitration eligibility after appearing in each of the last four regular seasons in Cincinnati’s starting rotation, while Gavin Lux – who required a pretty penny from the Los Angeles Dodgers to be acquired last offseason – is heading into his final year of team control (like Stephenson) before reaching free agency.
We haven’t even reached Elly De La Cruz or Matt McLain yet, two guys who we all swore were set to be cornerstones of this franchise when they debuted in 2023. As a reminder, we’re now heading into 2026.
Frankly, it’s pretty telling that this front office and ownership hasn’t signed any of these guys to a cost-controlled extension. The only question remaining, though, is why that’s the case.
Is it because none of them are willing to sign offers that have come their way? The sheer magnitude of the number of un-extended players suggests that’s got to be impossible, as there’s no way that many guys would balk at that kind of opportunity (so long as the offers are anywhere in the ballpark of where they should be). Pure human nature suggests at least one of them has to be somewhat risk-averse.
Is it because the ownership group is flat broke? Is it because they’re looking to sell the team soon and want as few liabilities on their ledger as physically possible?
Or, perhaps most damning if plausible, is it because the front office still doesn’t know what the hell they have after all this time?
If it’s the first scenario, well, I empathize with their tough luck. If they offered Elly the Julio Rodriguez deal a year ago and he said no, I can at least applaud them for trying.
If it’s the second scenario, well, I’d applaud the hell out of that, too. A new owner of this franchise surely could do no worse over a two-decade stint at the helm than the current one, and there’s no way the new one could possible be as frugal.
If it’s the third, it’s yet another indictment of just how blasé the entire franchise has acted for decades now when it comes to any sort of urgency. It’s also not hard to see this being precisely the case, however. Despite many of these core pieces having now been around long enough to theoretically evaluate, they’ve still got so few concrete pieces with known projections that putting accurate price tags on them seems like swinging blindfolded at a piñata.
Is McLain good, or not? Is he his small-sample 2023 pre-injuries, or the guy who struggled the entire 2025 campaign (while already turning 26 years old)?
Did Elly already peak?
Can Stephenson ever stay healthy? Can Lodolo?
Is Andrew Abbott a ~9 WAR guy over the last two seasons the way Baseball Reference says? Or, is he a 4.9 WAR guy over that span like FanGraphs suggests?
Can Noelvi Marte really play RF full-time? They’ve got barely over 50 games of evidence.
Where do you even play Spencer Steer with Sal Stewart not just knocking on door, but kicking it down?
You don’t really have to squint to see that almost every ‘core’ piece on this roster still has significant questions surrounding who they are, and who they’ll become. Just about the only one who’s showed his entire hand is Friedl, but he’s also the one who just turned 30 with enough control through arbitration that an extension doesn’t really make any sense. The range of projection for literally every other non-extended piece on the roster heading in to 2026 still seems so vast that nailing a number that both team and player would find attractive still seems like a fool’s errand, a testament to both the upside and extreme volatility of the players this front office has put together during this rebuild.
The fact remains, though, that literally every single position player (save Friedl) regressed in 2025 from previous performance, and that’s usually the prime time for front offices to pounce with team-friendly extensions if they’ve got the gumption to do so. Buy the dip, so to speak, if you’ve got any confidence that those regressions were merely temporary and fixable by ‘young’ players who still have plenty of time to evolve. So, if we don’t see at least one this winter, it’ll tip you off to just which scenario mentioned above may be the most likely to be driving decisions.
