The Cincinnati Reds didn’t sign Kyle Schwarber. Their offer just simply wasn’t good enough as their reported offer was $25,000,000 shy of what we know at least two other teams offered him – including the team that he would sign with, the Philadelphia Phillies. The rumors that came out after that included that the team was going to essentially back off from any other “expensive free agents” and had about $5-10,000,000 to spend the rest of the offseason. But this morning it seems that maybe that’s changed a little bit as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic says that the front office is considering looking into a trade for Ketel Marte, who the Arizona Diamondbacks may be looking to move on from.
The Reds would be taking on a lot of money in such a deal if they took on the entirety of the contract. Marte is owed $81,000,000 over the next five seasons with salaries of $20M, $22M, and $22M in the final three years of the deal. There’s also a player option for 2031 at $11,500,000. There are also incentives for up to $5,500,000 every season of his contract for things such as plate appearances and MVP votes in the previous season.
Early on in the deal Marte is set to make less money, with a $15,000,000 salary in 2026 and a $12,000,000 salary in 2027. Those numbers are low enough that the club could probably figure out how to make it work while giving them time to plan around things when the dollars escalate later on.
As for Ketel Marte the player, he’s spent most of the last two seasons at second base. In the past he’s also played some center. He’s been an All-Star the last two years and he played like one in 2023, too. Back in 2019 he was also an All-Star. Over the previous three seasons the switch hitter has posted 16 WAR and hit .283/.368/.519 with 89 home runs, 249 RBI, 200 walks, and 298 strikeouts in 412 games. While that’s not quite on par with Kyle Schwarber from an offensive profile, that’s a legitimate middle of the order bat. You can see his career stats here.
Moving to the other side of the equation, though, is what it would take to actually acquire him in trade. And that’s a pretty big thing for a lot of reasons. Cincinnati doesn’t have a great farm system, but it’s also not a bad one. And they issue with the farm is more that after you get beyond the top 10 that the depth takes a good hit, but at the top of the farm they have guys worth talking about. Those are the prospects that a team would focus on in this kind of deal if they were looking for prospects.
The Reds also have some young players who aren’t quite prospects anymore. Whether guys like Noelvi Marte or Chase Burns would be on the table in this kind of deal is certainly debatable, but Arizona is looking for young players under longer term team control and those guys fit that bill.
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