Cincinnati Reds
Team Leader
Method to the madness: why the Reds are still in on Kyle Schwarber
Source: https://www.redreporter.com/latest-news/49203/kyle-schwarber-rumors-cincinnati-reds-middletown
You can take as many grains of salt as you see fit before considering a possible signing of slugger Kyle Schwarber by the Cincinnati Reds, of all clubs.
If you’re here, you know the obvious connection – yes, he’s from just up the road from Cincinnati in Middletown, and still calls that part of the state home during the offseason. The idea of getting to play professional baseball for a mighty fee just down the road from home – and for a team you saw all the time growing up – is not without at least a little bit of merit.
Still, we’re talking about a guy who just slugged 56 homers last year and didn’t need Great American Ball Park as his home park to do it, a guy who finished 2nd in National League MVP voting prior to reaching free agency. This is a guy who despite being 33 in March has been estimated to command a contract flirting with $150 million over 5 years, something the Reds have never come close to fathoming in the free agent realm.
The idea is not farfetched. The likelihood of execution is.
That’s more or less the same conclusion reached by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic on Wednesday, who wraps his note on the flirtation between the Reds and Schwarber with the kicker of money matters most, and it’s difficult to foresee the Reds coming up with enough.
That’s surely not lost on the Reds. What also is not lost, I hope, is just how much this particular signing falls in the silo of actually boosting ticket sales. You can very well make the argument that signing splurging to sign the likes of Teoscar Hernandez, or Cody Bellinger, or Jorge Soler, or any of the other sluggers in free agency in recent years would’ve made the Reds a better ball club (and that more wins create bigger audiences), but it’s impossible to envision a singular signing the Reds could make in this window that a) fits exactly what they need within their lineup and b) would be a direct draw to their wide region of potential ticket buyers.
That’s untapped revenue they cannot really tap in other ways. Pete Alonso? He’d get a bit of it, but only a bit. So, this entire pursuit – however genuine it is – is either a clear sign the Reds see a path to revenues they couldn’t otherwise obtain, or they see that the fans see it and are doing their best to say we know, and we tried!
The other pertinent aspect of this apparently non-zero pursuit is perhaps more important to the actual expectations of the 2026 Cincinnati Reds club. The front office obviously sees that a guy who can take walks and knock the crap out of baseballs is a pretty vital need for this current roster, and failing to make a pursuit of such an upgrade does a disservice to the rest of the roster already on-hand. As for strawman arguments you can make, the 2025 Reds failing to advance in the playoffs (and failing to not finish higher in the regular season standings) likely derives directly from their inability to clobber the baseball, either over the fence or off of it, and any pursuit of Schwarber indicates that the ‘we want guys who hit line drives all over the place’ mantra of Cincinnati’s front office during the rebuild and 2025 may have finally eaten a little bit of crow.
In other words, even if Schwarber ends up signing a gargantuan contract elsewhere, the Reds know – and have made known – that they know they need more thump in this lineup. Any failure to address that in other ways after any failed pursuit of Schwarber then becomes even more egg on the face of the folks putting this roster together for 2026.
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On top of all that, there’s one overriding fact about the Reds in their current position that is worth pointing out that I’ve not really seen highlighted elsewhere, so let’s talk about that.
This is not a roster burdened by the weight of long-term contracts. They’ve got Ke’Bryan Hayes, for whatever reason, but that’s not a deal that should burden any club at its rate. They’ve got Hunter Greene signed for an absolute bargain and could trade him for a haul at any moment of it. Jose Trevino is paid like a moderately overpaid backup catcher for this year and next, and that’s it.
That’s it!
In Brady Singer (~$12 million), Tyler Stephenson (~$6.4 million), and Gavin Lux (~$5 million), you’ve got a trio of players who’ll be free agents at season’s end coming off the books. Lux doesn’t even fit the roster for 2026 without Schwarber, while Singer will be backfilled by the advancement of the likes of Rhett Lowder and Chase Burns (and Brandon Williamson, one hopes) this year. Trevino’s already on the books once Stephenson reaches free agency (barring a surprising extension), and top prospect Alfredo Duno looks like he may well mash his way into the catching conversation as soon as the start of 2027.
That’s a lot of turnover on the payroll after 2026, with a lot of in-house replacement already on hand for it. So when you factor in the chance to spend money on a local who fits the roster perfectly despite his warranted lofty salary expectations, you’ve got to look beyond just 2026 to see how it would fit. And to the best of my peering, it sure looks like it would fit just fine in 2027 – perhaps even better than in 2026.
Ultimately, it will come down to money, as Rosenthal said. That doesn’t always mean the most on the actual contract, though. The cost of a second home, cost of living, etc. all factor into that decision as well, which means the Reds maybe don’t have to come in with the highest offer – they just have to get close enough to make it tough to say no.
If the Reds can’t even do that, well, what are we even doing here?
Source: https://www.redreporter.com/latest-news/49203/kyle-schwarber-rumors-cincinnati-reds-middletown