Cincinnati Reds Have Financial Means to be Aggressive in Free Agency This Offseason

The Cincinnati Reds have some financial flexibility to work with this offseason.

According to Spotrac.com, the Reds will have a big gap between their committed payroll after arbitration and what the league average payroll is.

Cincinnati’s total payroll allocations were listed as $99,998,613 for 2024, which ranked 25th in MLB per Spotrac. The median team patrol allocations belonged to the San Diego Padres at $167,261,632 this year.

The Reds estimated actual tax payroll for 2025 according to Spotrac.com is listed as $70,649,999. That gives them just over $90 million to get to league average. Heck, just to get to where the Kansas City Royals were at in 2024, they would have $50 million to work with.

Manager Terry Francona will reportedly make around $5 million per year, so that bumps the Reds up to just over $75 million. They still have plenty of room to work with this offseason.

It is important to note that these are estimates for arbitration. The number could differ, but they wouldn’t differ wildly enough to zap the Reds' spending power.

This offseason should be busy. The Reds need to aggressively address their weaknesses in free agency—and they should have the budget to do it.