Will The Reds Make an Effort To Improve in 2026?

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The 2025 Reds brought playoff baseball to their fans for the first time since 2013 (unless you count the pandemic-shortened 2020 season). Yes it took an epic collapse from the Mets to help make that happen. On June 13, 2025 the Mets had the best record in baseball at 45-24 and had a 96 percent chance to make it to the postseason. After that though the team with one of the highest payrolls in baseball managed just a 38-55 record, while Cincinnati did just enough to advance to face the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

The total cost of the Dodgers’ roster last season came to a staggering $586,717,376. For comparison the Reds spent a total of about $141,354,399, highlighting the real David vs. Goliath struggle that epitomizes modern day baseball. So the real questions now focus on what the Reds are able to do to make this team more competitive in 2026 and what they will actually do in order to achieve that level of success.

Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall has been clear about the monetary expectations for next year’s team. He doesn’t expect the payroll to be different from what we saw in 2025:

"Our 2026 payroll will be around the same as our payroll from 2025” — Nick Krall

This begs the question as to how the next iteration of the Reds can realistically improve given the fact that the front office doesn’t appear inclined to spend any more money to better the roster in significant ways. Let’s be clear, Cincinnati’s recipe for success isn’t a mystery. They want to develop young players through their farm system and rely on them to produce at the major league level. Reds ownership has largely avoided signing marquee free agents or making flashy trades to bolster the roster.

The great fear is that the Reds will simply “run it back” with the roster they have, without significant additions at positions of extreme need, especially in the outfield. They simply never found a combination of everyday outfielders that could provide any pop in the lineup. Their stable of outfielders boasted virtually no power, and only TJ Friedl could have been considered passable at the dish. Though Noelvi Marte showed flashes of promise after shifting to right field, that is very much still a work in progress.

The strategy of standing pat without a major offensive upgrade represents a gamble, for example, that a player like Matt McLain will be able to buck the awful 2025 that he had and perform more like the 2023 version. That season he batted .290 with an .864 OPS, 16 home runs, 50 RBI, and had 14 stolen bases. McLain was a part of the talented young core, along with Elly De La Cruz, Spencer Steer, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand, that many thought would propel the Reds into major contenders in the seasons that would follow.

For McLain and Encarnacion-Strand that leap forward didn’t come to pass. Over 147 games in 2025 (a significant sample size) McLain hit a career-low .220 with a .643 OPS, 15 home runs, and 50 RBI. Since 2023 the highest Encarnacion-Strand has hit in the major leagues is .208 and his efficiency behind the plate has fallen off a cliff. The Reds pride themselves on counting on developing their own players into ones who can carry a team to major success, but the problem is that those they are counting on to do that in 2026 haven’t shown the ability to fulfill such expectations.

To be fair, Krall and the Reds have made some moves this offseason, including:

• Signing outfielder JJ Bleday

• Acquiring outfielder Dane Myers from the Marlins

• Brining in pitchers Pierce Johnson and Caleb Ferguson

• Re-signing closer Emilio Pagan to a two-year, $20 million contract for the 2026 and 2027 seasons

But these have all the hallmarks of a club that’s retooling the same system and players, not one that has been working to identify deficiencies and aggressively address them in order to get better. Bleday and Myers either have no fWAR value or are negative in that category (meaning they are worse or no better than replacement players) and are below average in the aspect of the game the Reds need most help in: scoring runs. They don’t appear provide any significant offensive upside in the outfield, although at least one analyst has more optimism than your average Cincinnati fan:

There seems to be no real acknowledgment that there is a finite window to win given the presence of stars such as Hunter Greene and Elly De La Cruz, and that they will not be in Reds uniforms forever. Reds fans understand that the team operates in a small market, but have also seen at least some teams win it all while outside of the top 10 in league payroll, notably the Houston Astros in 2017 (with the 17th highest payroll) and the Kansas City Royals in 2015 (with the 13th highest). In this era of major league juggernaut teams with seemingly inexhaustible coffers, while it may be difficult for a team like Cincinnati to contend with a deep playoff run, that doesn't mean they should give up trying.

There is still time to make a move (or a few moves) to improve this roster. There had been buzz that the Reds might trade for White Sox outfielder Luis Robert Jr., and although that momentum seems to have stalled, there is always hope that as spring approaches things could change. Any team with a surplus of quality starting pitching, like Cincinnati has, can always become players in the free agent market, so long as they have the willingness to make a bold move to improve. But time and experience have consistently shown that the team jealously guards its talent, even at the expense of hampering the overall roster, such as will be the case next year if they do not acquire a significant outfield bat.

Die-hard, and even casual supporters of the Reds have shown that if this team is winning and playing solid baseball, they will come out and fill Great American Ballpark and pack downtown Cincinnati during the summer. They want to spend money and support this team, and it would be refreshing to see that same commitment from the front office and ownership in the offseason to recognize that fact. What fans don't want is more of the same: old, tired platitudes about how the Reds are "developing talent" and complaints about "financial constraints." It is a broken record that has been playing for far too long, but this time there is documented proof from the playoff appearance in 2025 that if, somehow, ownership throws that broken record out the window and changes its approach, something positive might happen.

It's up to them, once again. Same as it ever was.