Over the weekend we learned that right-handed pitcher Nick Martinez was going to be accepting the Cincinnati Reds qualifying offer for the 2025 season that will pay him $21,050,000. Monday saw Martinez officially inform the team that he was going to accept it, first reported by Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer. He further reported that talks of a multi-year extension were not expected to continue with Martinez.
With Martinez coming back, it begs the question of what’s next for the club? We did learn a little bit in the past few days. First was that the team stated they would at least match the 2024 payroll and perhaps increase it. We also learned that the Reds were in the early stages of having trade discussions with Kansas City that involved Jonathan India and Royals starting pitcher Brady Singer.
Let’s start by talking about the 2025 Reds payroll. With Martinez getting $21,050,000 and the estimated arbitration numbers for the eligible players, Cincinnati is basically already even with the 2024 payroll. And that’s without any upgrades or additions to the team. Payroll is going to have to go up if the team is going to add anything on the free agent market, though if they go the trade route it’s possible to work the numbers to add players but not increase payroll.
As for the trade talks with the Royals, things get a bit more murky there. As was speculated over the weekend by this very writer, that felt like it could have been a backup plan to add innings from a solid starter pitcher if Nick Martinez was not going to be returning. Now that he is returning, it seems that Cincinnati is backing away from looking to acquire Singer. Or at least that’s the case according to Jim Bowden of MLB Network Radio. Of course, Bowden doesn’t have the strongest track record, either.
What does seem like it’s still happening, though, is that the Reds are still willing to listen to trade offers for Jonathan India. The infielder may be more valuable as a trade chip as it’s possible he could be more of a utility player for Cincinnati if everyone is healthy in 2025, while another team may have a spot for him to be a starter.
Roster Moves Are Coming
Expect to see several roster moves later today. While today is the deadline for players to accept/reject qualifying offers, it’s also the day in which teams must add eligible players to the 40-man roster in order to protect them from December’s Rule 5 draft.
The Reds have three open roster spots (the Nick Martinez acceptance of the qualifying offer is not technically official yet, so if you are counting the spots there are technically four open) that they could use in order to protect players. They don’t have to use all three spots, and they would also opt to open up more spots by designating players for assignment who are on the 40-man roster currently.
Last week at RedsMinorLeagues.com we looked at the players who are eligible if left unprotected and discussed the players who have a chance to be added to the 40-man. We’ll have plenty of information on the minor leaguers who get added to the roster later today when the decisions are made.
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