Payroll squeeze leaves reunion with key Reds reliever on life support

There’s a version of the Cincinnati Reds’ offseason where Emilio Pagán’s ninth-inning scowl is back under the lights at Great American Ball Park ready to “run it back.” That version, however, runs headlong into a spreadsheet.

When a front office starts its winter with fixed dollars and multiple holes, the bullpen luxury item — yes, even the closer who just stabilized high-leverage chaos, gets pushed to the back of the cart. The romance of a reunion collides with arithmetic.

And the arithmetic isn’t subtle. Pagán just authored the kind of walk-year that gets agents paid: back-to-back seasons north of a 20% K-BB rate, a punch-out rate around 30%, and the poise to wear the “closer” tag without blinking. He’s also the quintessential modern relief riddle, dominant in the zone until the wrong fly ball leaves the yard.

In Cincinnati, where the park turns deep flies into souvenirs, that home-run volatility is a cost you can’t hide on the balance sheet. Pair that with a projected two-year, $32 million price tag, and suddenly the Reds wouldn’t simply be choosing Pagán; they’re choosing Pagán instead of two or three other needs.

Reds’ tight budget makes Emilio Pagán reunion a long shot

Here’s the constraint in plain language: president of baseball operations Nick Krall has already telegraphed that 2026’s budget will track roughly with 2025’s payroll. Translate that into usable offseason room and you’re talking about something on the order of $20 million to address a roster that needs more than a ninth-inning handshake. 

Rotation depth behind the headliners, a right-handed bat with damage in it, and run-prevention glue across the middle innings all stack up as parallel priorities. Allocate $16 million AAV to one reliever, and the margin for everything else narrows to a tightrope.

None of this diminishes what Pagán just did. The strike-throwing tightened, the chase wins came without spraying freebies, and he handled the closer assignment like a grown-up. It’s exactly the profile that makes contenders open their wallets in November.

Opportunity cost is the villain here. For the same $16 million AAV, the Reds could pursue an innings-eating starter on a short-term pillow deal and a secondary leverage arm with options left, or spread the dollars across two multi-inning relievers to shorten games from the sixth onward. There are internal runway plays, too, arms you like at league-minimum who can soak up medium-leverage while you shop for one external hammer rather than a marquee closer. That approach might not win the press conference, but it often wins the 162.

Is there a thread that could stitch Pagán back to Cincinnati? Sure, but it’s a narrow one: a creative structure (heavier incentives, escalators tied to games finished rather than saves, maybe a vesting option for Year 3) that trims AAV and risk for the club. Even then, the fit only makes sense if the front office can still check off a starter and a bat without resorting to bargain-bin roulette. Anything short of that, and the reunion becomes a luxury the Reds can’t responsibly justify.

Pagán earned his market; the Reds earned the right to be disciplined. With a finite pile of dollars and a park that punishes every elevated miss, for Cincinnati, sustainability beats splash.