What’s left for the offense within the payroll?
The Cincinnati Reds sent out a procedural olive branch to pitcher Nick Martinez earlier this week in the form of a roughly $21 million Qualifying Offer (QO). That’s on the heels of Martinez’s excellent work during the 2024 season (3.10 ERA, 142 ERA+, 1.03 WHIP in a career high 142.1 IP) as well as him opting out of what would have been a $12 million contract for 2025 to stay with the Reds.
He is, quite simply, one of the best free agent pitchers on the market this winter, and this is what the best free agent pitchers normally get – a QO, which gives the team that issued the offer a chance to recoup some draft pick compensation should their prized former player sign elsewhere. Thing is, any team that signs Martinez other than the Reds risks forfeiting a draft pick of their own to sign such a prized free agent, meaning they’ve got to be sold not only on his ability but also his longevity to make that happen.
Martinez will turn 35 years old next year, making him far and away the oldest of the 13 free agents across Major League Baseball who received a QO this offseason. The Reds will get some draft pick compensation if he declines the QO and signs elsewhere, but they’ll only get one of those big-prize picks after the 1st round if Martinez signs for over $50 million elsewhere – something that would require a deal of at least 3 years to happen. It’s far from unprecedented for that to happen for pitchers his age, but usually those pitchers have a) career-high single season IP totals way higher than 142.1 IP and b) a longer track record of being a starter than a reliever.
Martinez, for all his perks, doesn’t have either of those, making the likelihood of him accepting Cincinnati’s QO quite good. Jon Heyman of the New York Post is even reporting that Martinez ‘is expected’ to accept it, a move that would both lock-in his highest ever single-season salary and bump Cincinnati’s payroll – after including their option buyouts from earlier this offseason – to just over $90 million for 2025 already.
While that’s a big financial burden for the spendthrift Reds, it’s probably exactly what they wanted to happen when they doled out this QO. Without the draft pick compensation tied to him that comes with declining the QO, Martinez’s free agent market would’ve been a lot more robust, meaning perhaps the best way to make sticking around with the Reds for 2025 look better to Nick was to make him less attractive as a signee to everyone else – even if that means he ends up coming back to the Reds on a deal that pays him a handful of million bucks more this year than the Reds would prefer.
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In the end, it seems pretty clear the Reds wanted (needed, even) a pitcher of his caliber for 2025 and did what it took to make signing him the best option for both parties, and did so at the expense of a few million bucks that they surely wished they could’ve used elsewhere. That, folks, is the kind of at the margins decision-making that they need to tightrope-walk to get a guy with ace potential to sign in Cincinnati, and it sure looks like they may have navigated that quite well.
The big question, of course, is whether they can find a way to appropriately augment the offense now with fewer funds left over than they’d ideally desire. If they’re going to top out at roughly $105 million for their payroll for 2025 and a Martinez acceptance of the QO gets them over $90 million, is there really a route for them to sign a big outfield bat like Teoscar Hernandez, Tyler O’Neill, or Anthony Santander?
MLB Trade Rumors has each among their Top 50 free agents this offseason. They’re tabbing Hernandez for a 3/$60 million deal, Santander for 4/$80 million, and O’Neill for 3/$42 million – the latter of whom conveniently takes the payroll from roughly $91 million to the aforementioned $105 million on that precise deal. Of course, such a move wouldn’t take into account that they still needed to address the free agent loss of Buck Farmer from a bullpen that, with Martinez in the fold as a starter, lost a pair of key performers from 2024, too – or address the need for a backup catcher with Luke Maile now also a free agent.
It’s hard not to look at the existing roster and payroll in much the same way as we did this time last year when the Reds oddly chose to dole out $45 million guaranteed to infielder Jeimer Candelario when an outfield bat really looked like the more prudent addition. Candelario’s dismal 2024 and remaining contract mean he’s unlikely to get moved this winter (since the return would be so poor), but his presence along with the presumptive return to health of Matt McLain and Christian Encarnacion-Strand means the Reds have, once again, an incredibly crowded infield mix with a big, big hole in the outfield.
They could simply choose to eschew outside additions, move players all over the place out of their natural positions, and throw defense to the wind (again). That didn’t work last year, of course, though the injury issues provided an additional wrench into that evaluation process. Were they to pursue a more straightforward path of keeping players in their more natural positions and – instead of moving them around – trade from their depth to address issues elsewhere, it’s hard not to notice that Jonathan India’s $5 million salary for 2025 (and team control for 2026 through an expensive arbitration process) is a lot pricier than the current obligations for McLain, CES, Spencer Steer, Elly De La Cruz, and Noelvi Marte and a lot more moveable on-paper than what’s left on Jeimer’s tab.
Could the Reds move India directly for an outfield bat that’s on-par with that of Hernandez, Santander, or O’Neill? That’s incredibly doubtful, barring a fleecing by Nick Krall and Co.
Could the Reds move India to save $5 million and, in turn, use that savings along with the remaining open payroll to sign a guy like Hernandez, Santander, or O’Neill? That’s where things get significantly more interesting.
A move of India would open regular playing time at 2B for McLain, who spoke to SportsCasting.com’s Kyle Odegard earlier this week about his desire to remain an infielder despite getting some limited run in the outfield in Arizona Fall League play. That would seemingly set a somewhat regular infield mix of Candelario/Marte at 3B, Elly at short, McLain at 2B, and CES/Candelario at 1B, with the DH available as well. The outfield, in this scenario, would feature TJ Friedl in CF most days alongside the Newly Signed Free Agent Bopper™ in one corner with Spencer Steer in the other and Jake Fraley rotating through to hit RHP accordingly.
The question of whether that’s enough to make the 2025 formidable is a whole different story. Whether or not the Reds could afford to bring in one of the precious few big-boppin’ outfield bats on the free agent market if Nick Martinez accepts the QO, though, appears to be feasible if, and only if the Reds are willing to move a guy who’s been an infield cornerstone for four seasons already. Otherwise, they’re going to have to lean on the trade market to find an outfield bat that’s significantly cheaper than the free agent options and do so with a farm system that’s much more beat up and broken than it was when they were stockpiling prospects back in 2022.
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