It’s nearly time for free agency to really begin. And with that comes article after article of which free agents are the best fits for what teams, who will cost how much over how many years, and cries and pleas from fans everywhere for their team to be the one to land so-and-so player to help take their team to the next level. Yesterday Reds fans got a crushing blow from the front office when Cincinnati president of baseball operations Nick Krall told the media that the payroll in 2026 was likely to be about the same as it was in 2025.
MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand may have missed that memo. Or maybe he submitted his article before that came out and his editor missed the memo before publishing his piece this morning on the Top 30 Free Agents. Despite attendance being up and television ratings being up that’s apparently not enough to move the payroll for the Reds. And that’s where Feinsand’s article hits a rather big speed bump.
While running down the list of the top 30 guys, the Cincinnati Reds are only listed as a “potential fit” for one of them: Kyle Schwarber. The 33-year-old free agent hit 56 home runs and drove in 132 in the 2025 season with the Philadelphia Phillies. That kind of production would benefit any lineup in baseball. It’s the kind of difference maker for a team like the Reds who struggled for any consistent ability to score runs to pair up with an elite pitching staff to help take them from a mediocre, barely above .500 team to perhaps something more.
But to bring in a guy like Kyle Schwarber it’s going to cost money. And plenty of it. He was listed as the 3rd best free agent according to Feinsand. While he doesn’t get into the estimated contracts/salaries for anyone within the article it’s something that he did with Schwarber in the middle of September. This is what he wrote:
Among those we spoke to, the consensus is that Schwarber should land a deal of four or five years for at least $30 million per season. The days of signing players into their 40s are largely a thing of the past, but locking up Schwarber through his age-36 or age-37 season seems like it should be in play.
Cincinnati has plenty of money coming off of the books with guys leaving in free agency. But they also have plenty of guys that will be getting raises in arbitration that eats up some of those “savings”.
We don’t quite know how much money the Reds have on the books for 2026 just yet. They still have to decide on what they are going to do with options on both Brent Suter and Scott Barlow, as well as having a mutual option with Austin Hays. Not picking up the option on all three would cost them $2,250,000. Bringing all three back would cost them $19,500,000 – with the bulk of that being $12,000,000 to Hays.
Still, it’s tough to see how the Reds could keep their payroll nearly the same as it was in 2025 and find a way to add in $30-ish million in salary for Kyle Schwarber. With some trades it may be possible to clear enough payroll to make that happen, but it would take some real creativity to do that all while still trying to remain competitive – even if you do bring in Schwarber. And all of that ignores the fact that Cincinnati can’t just say “we have the money to sign Schwarber”, they have to compete with other teams to bring him in. And that means that you have to sign him before you make trades to clear payroll because if he signs elsewhere and you’ve already traded someone(s) away to clear money, then you’ve hamstrung yourself. But if you sign him and then can’t move enough salary in trades, you’ve also hamstrung yourself.
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