The run-around given to the media members covering the Cincinnati Reds from the front office early this offseason has pretty much dictate that the 2026 payroll is going to be just about the same as it
was in 2025. That payroll changed a lot during the course of the year – they added Miguel Andujar, Zack Littell, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Garrett Hampson at various points, and eventually dumped what they could of Taylor Rogers – but the best estimates mean they’ll be in the $112 to $120 million range for next season.
Given what they already have on the books and the litany of players they have who’ll be earning big raises through arbitration, that leaves the Reds with something akin to $20 million or so to put to work before Opening Day. That’s despite Nick Martinez, Emilio Pagan, Scott Barlow, Brent Suter, Andujar, Littlell, and Hampson all being gone already, and the first half of this sentence means you can readily tell they need to spend money on a new bullpen.
Still, there are potentially ways they could get creative in their additions, especially on the offensive side of things. Heck, they could even move players off the current roster, save a little money in the process, and turn that back into an acquisition of one of the guys listed below!
There are several buy-low options the Reds might be able to sneak into their budget out there at the moment, and today we’ll dive into a significant one of note.
Christian Walker – 1B/DH, Houston Astros
You remember the Christian Walker Era of Cincinnati Reds history already, right? The Reds claimed him off waivers from the Atlanta Braves in early March of 2017 only to lose him back on waivers to the Arizona Diamondbacks three weeks later. So, he never actually appeared in a regular season game at any level for the Reds, but he did go on to become a star for the Snakes – from 2022 through 2024 he swatted 95 homers, hit .250/.332/.481 with a .347 wOBA, 123 OPS+, and 121 wRC+, was valued at 10.9 fWAR, and took home a trio of Gold Gloves for his work at 1B.
That led to him signing a 3-year, $60 million deal with Houston last winter, and things went south for him there.
After keeping his K-rate at a wonderful ~19.4% between 2022-2023, it spiked in 2024 (24.1%) and even more in 2025 (27.7%), and his walk rate plummeted down to 6.3% – 4% lower than where it was in 2022. He still smashed 27 homers, but his overall rate stats stunk relative to his peak – .238/.297/.429, 103 wRC+. And now he’s got two more years at $20 million per left of his deal…so why exactly am I listing him here?
He sputtered out of the gate terribly for Houston, owning just a .660 OPS through the first 90 games of the season. However, from July 1st through the end of the season he got hot the way he had been for the previous three full years, hitting .264/.318/.489 (.807 OPS) with 17 homers in 73 games. He’s 34, yeah, but there was at least a big sample of 2025 where he looked like the guy he’d been previously.
Still, there’s rumblings down in Houston that the Astros want out from under his deal, and have since the trade deadline. He reportedly was considered in the big deal that sent Carlos Correa back to Houston from Minnesota, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale revealed from this week’s GM Meetings that Walker is firmly available again this winter. The Astros have a logjam in their infield, and he’s got a lot of money owed his way the next two years, two components that make him the pretty obvious odd man out.
The money is obviously the first big question here, as a) Walker certainly wouldn’t get 2 years and $40 million as a free agent right now and b) he wouldn’t get half of that from the Reds as a free agent, either. So, Cincinnati would have to get creative in asking Houston to either send money along or eat money elsewhere, even though the Reds don’t have a lot of dead money that’s moveable (thanks for nothing, Jeimer Candelario).
Houston may well lose Framber Valdez to free agency as he’s one of the top starters on the market, and starting pitching is a definite need of theirs. That’s where a guy like Brady Singer, who’s going to earn somewhere around $11 million in his final year of arbitration in 2026, could become a key piece of a Walker deal, even though the Astros would still need to either kick in more cash or add a significant prospect piece (as Singer’s got way more value right now than Walker).
The fit is the second big question, however. Walker’s a 1B/DH, and though his defensive metrics slipped unexpectedly last season he’s got a trio of Gold Gloves to his name for good reason. Spencer Steer and/or Sal Stewart seem to have the inside track at 1B right now, though there’s a world in which you could see Steer as the team’s primary LF while Sal and Walker rotated between 1B/DH most every day.
Might that make the everyday Reds lineup too heavy with right-handed bats? In that scenario, only Elly De La Cruz and TJ Friedl would be hitting from the left side, with only Will Benson and Gavin Lux around as alternate options. The case could very well be made that adding a bat to the Reds lineup that has 30+ homer potential probably needs to be someone who mashes RHP more than LHP, though here’s where I point out that Walker actually did hit RHP better than LHP in each of the last two seasons and has hit them almost identically for his career (.780 OPS vs. RHP, .782 OPS vs. LHP).
He’s getting up there in age, which is always a concern. He’s making big money (for a club like the Reds), and he’s not a perfect fit for the roster they have right now. Still, there’s a price at which he becomes a pretty damn attractive power piece for a team starved for that particular trait, and a price at which he becomes a much more attractive offensive option than paying, say, Gavin Lux to be your mostly positionless bat-first option against RHP.
It’ll be a buyer’s market for anyone shopping for Walker given Houston’s willingness to move him and the perceived struggles Walker had through part of last year, and he’s got enough left in the tank that I hope the Reds at least explore it. I hope like hell they don’t overpay for it the way they did in the still-perplexing deal to land Lux a year ago, but there is certainly enough here to at least put together a pitch.
