Two Cincinnati Reds players have elected to become free agents today. Neither is a surprise. Ian Gibaut and Santiago Espinal were both designated for assignment, cleared waivers, and then outrighted to Triple-A this week.
Ian Gibaut has been outrighted to the minor leagues before. That made him eligible to refuse his outright to the minor leagues this time around and opt to become a free agent. For Santiago Espinal, this is his first time being outrighted, but as a player with more than five years of Major League Baseball service time, he too was eligible to refuse the outright to the minor leagues and opt to become a free agent if he chose. Both players chose to test the free agent waters and see what is out there for them.
For the right-hander Gibaut those waters certainly could be tested because after spending a lot of time on the injured list during the season, his season came to an end in August when he had surgery on his shoulder and biceps tendon. That’s likely going to keep him off of the mound for most of or all of 2026 if the injury tracks the typical timeline for those types of injuries/surgeries.
Santiago Espinal is likely to have more options available to him. He’s healthy and he’s got some value as a depth piece with plenty of big league experience. Whether he gets a big league deal at a lower salary than he had in 2025 or whether he’s going to have to get a minor league deal with someone that comes along with an invitation to big league spring training is probably the bigger question for him.
A reunion with Cincinnati is tough to see right now. Once the team acquired Ke’Bryan Hayes at the trade deadline the Reds essentially cut his playing time down to almost none. And then in September the team called up Sal Stewart, which made Espinal fall even further down the depth chart at several positions. As the roster stands today it seems that at best he’s the 2nd backup at multiple positions. For a glove-first player, that’s not a situation you want to be in because the playing time simply is not going to be there.
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