Cincinnati Reds: 5 players to lock up with a contract extension

The Reds should look to extending these five players before next season.

While Reds Country has high hopes for the Cincinnati front office to make a run a re-signing Trevor Bauer, Nick Krall may be focused elsewhere. There’s no denying Bauer’s talents, but with a few players on the Cincinnati Reds roster heading into arbitration for the first time, it may be more prudent to offer long-term extensions to those players rather than pursue Bauer in free agency.

It’s become the norm in recent years to “buy-out” a player’s arbitration years in order to have clearer picture of a team’s payroll heading into the future. We’ve seen the Atlanta Braves spend big on Ozzie Albies (seven-year/$35M deal) and Ronald Acuna Jr. (eight-year/$100M contract) in recent years, locking up their young core for the foreseeable future.

The Reds reached a similar deal with Eugenio Suárez back in 2018. The Cincinnati third baseman agreed to a seven-year contract extension with the club after losing his first arbitration case earlier that winter. Geno’s $66M contract will keep him in the Queen City through the 2024 season with an option for 2025.

So, who’s next? While the potential of spending big in free agency seeming remote, the prospects of signing one or more of the Reds young talents is certainly on the table. The Chicago White Sox even signed their top prospect, Eloy Jimenez, to a contract extension before he even stepped onto a major league field. Which five players should the Reds extend this offseason?