Another small market extension makes Reds inaction impossible to ignore

One of the biggest benefits a small-market club like the Cincinnati Reds can enjoy is stability. Stability in knowing who you are paying, and for how much. Stability in knowing what you can expect from a player year in and year out. Having that sets you up for success because your budget isn't completely subject to the whims of the market.

So when you have built a budding young core, and you lock the key cogs up long-term, you know how much you'll be playing them every season without having to worry about arbitration swings, and you'll be less likely to take big swings on mid-market players like Jeimer Candelario and risk it all blowing up in your face.

Other financial lightweights around the league have embraced this strategy, with the Kansas City Royals going to the well numerous times, most recently locking up Maikel Franco for five years following his breakout 2025 campaign, and now the miserly Athletics have gotten another deal done, coming to terms with Tyler Soderstrom on a seven-year, $86 million extension following the 24-year-old's first full big league season.

The question is, when will Cincinnati begin to ride the extension wave? Or will the club wait until it's too late?

The Reds must get on board with the league's extension craze before it is too late

The lone exception to Cincinnati's wait-and-see approach has been the six-year, $53 million extension they handed to Hunter Greene in April of 2023. In some ways, Greene was a curious choice to extend, given his injury issues; however, his ability to pitch like a top-of-the-line ace makes it worthwhile.

When you look at the Greene deal, you notice a couple of things. Even at the high-end of the contract, $15.33 million in 2027 and $16.33 million in 2028, the Reds will be paying below market value for him, and in buying out a free-agent year as well as holding a reasonable club option at $21 million for 2029, they guarantee that he stays in the fold. Furthermore, the nature of the deal keeps his AAV at a paltry $8.33 million, which helps in luxury tax calculations.

But you can see elsewhere that the Reds have missed opportunities. Typically speaking, clubs around the league have taken one of two paths in the extension game, locking up top prospects soon after making their debut, as was the case with the Baltimore Orioles and top prospect Samuel Basallo, or doing so immediately after a breakout campaign, which the Franco and Soderstrom deals serve as excellent examples of.

That logic means the Reds have already missed the boat on Elly De La Cruz, whose brilliant 2024 campaign put the world on notice, which, combined with his solid 2025 season, has set the bar high if the club were to engage in extension talks now.

The good news is, there are still a handful of players from the young core who would be candidates for an extension. It would be advantageous for the Reds to begin talks with Andrew Abbott this winter because another solid season from the 26-year-old southpaw will price him out of Cincinnati's budget.

More in the vein of the top prospect examples, extensions for Sal Stewart and Chase Burns would make a lot of sense. There's some risk given that neither player has proven it over a full big league season yet, but if they come close to living up to their potential, they will get expensive, quick.

These types of extensions might cause the Reds to miss out on some pre-arb savings, but in the long run, the savings on the back-end as the deal runs through the arbitration years and includes a free-agent year or two, more than offset that loss. And with that comes the certainty and control over the budget, giving the Reds more money to play with to add complementary pieces in the offseason in order to build a true contender.

There's a reason why these types of deals have become en vogue, and by refusing to get with the times, the Reds run the risk of squandering the young core that they've worked so hard to build.