Today is the day in which players and teams exchange arbitration numbers for those players who are eligible. The Reds have plenty of those players, but several of them agreed to new contracts with Cincinnati today and won’t be heading to arbitration this year. Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that deals were agreed to by the team with Spencer Steer, Gavin Lux, TJ Friedl, and Will Benson for the 2026 season. The club would announce three more deals just after 7:00pm as they came to agreements with pitchers Nick Lodolo, Tony Santillan, and Brady Singer. Mark Sheldon reported at 7:50pm that the team had also agreed to a deal with Matt McLain for $2,300,00.
Gavin Lux got the largest deal of the bunch among the position players, signing for $5,525,000. The MLB Trade Rumors projections for Lux were lower than his deal, coming in at an even $5,000,000. Lux had a tough year in 2025 if you look at his WAR numbers. At the plate he was roughly a league average hitter thanks to a good on-base percentage. What he did not do was hit for any power at all. His five home runs were the fewest he has hit in any of his four seasons where he’s played at least 100 games and in 2025 he had more plate appearances than in any other season. But the big drawback in his WAR-related value was that he was being asked to play in the outfield where he was a terrible defensive player. Cincinnati doesn’t plan to ask him to do that much, if at all, in 2026.
Spencer Steer signed a deal for $4,000,000. His projected arbitration salary was at $4,500,000 for 2026, so the team may have come out a little bit ahead on this one. A Gold Glove finalist at first base in 2025, Steer played in 146 games for the Reds last year and hit .238/.312/.411 with 21 home runs. It was his third straight season hitting 20 home runs. But he’s also seen his on-base percentage drop in each of the last two years after posting a .356 mark in 2023.
TJ Friedl agreed to a deal forth $3,800,000. When it comes to the projected arbitration numbers this is where there was a big difference between what MLB Trade Rumors had projected and what a player signed for. They had Friedl at $4,900,000 and he signed for significantly less than that. After an injury-plagued 2024, Friedl rebounded in 2025 and hit .261/.364/.378 and was a slightly better than league average hitter. His 2.3 WAR (baseball reference version) was the 2nd best among Reds position players, trailing only Elly De La Cruz.
Will Benson took a deal for $1,725,000. His deal came in at $25,000 above the projected number from MLB Trade Rumors. The outfielder struggled to hit for the second season in a row, posting a .226/.273/.435 line in his 90 games played. Benson showed good power but his on-base percentage was atrocious for the second season in a row. He did help counter that some with quality defense in the corners, while getting a handful of innings covering center during the year.
Matt McLain agreed to a deal with the club right before the deadline to exchange arbitration numbers. After missing 2024 with a shoulder injury that required surgery, the infielder struggled to do much at the plate in 2025. McLain hit just .220/.300/.343 – good for a terribly low 74 OPS+ on the season. He did provide value when he was on the bases, going 18-for-20 in stolen base attempts. In the field he graded out as a strong defender at second base, too. MLB Trade Rumors had his projected arbitration number at $2,600,000 and he wound up signing for $300,000 less than that.
When looking to the pitchers it was Brady Singer leading the way with the largest deal as he agreed to a contract for 2026 worth $12,750,000 according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. In his final year of arbitration before reaching free agency, Singer is coming off of his first season with the Reds where he went 14-12 with a 4.03 ERA in 169.2 innings while making 32 starts. His projected arbitration number from MLB Trade Rumors was $11,900,000.
Nick Lodolo is getting a healthy raise in 2026 and will be earning $4,725,000 for his efforts, which is up a bit from the projected $4,300,000 from MLB Trade Rumors. During the 2025 season he pitched in 29 games and had a career high 156.2 innings pitched while posting an ERA of 3.33, which was a career best. The lefty also racked up a career best 156 strikeouts, and had the lowest walk rate of his career as he handed out just 31 free passes during the season.
Reliever Tony Santillan will get $1,800,000 for the 2026 season. That’s lower than he was projected to get from MLB Trade Rumors, who had his estimated salary at $2,400,000. He’s pitched for the Reds in each of the past five seasons, but 2025 was the first time in which he pitched in more than 30 games for the team. The reliever threw in 80 games, posting a 2.44 ERA in his 73.2 innings for the Reds while racking up 75 strikeouts.
As of now the team does not have deals in place with Tyler Stephenson or Graham Ashcraft. Both will remain under contract with the Reds, but their salaries at this point are unknown for 2026.
These deals do give the front office a tiny bit of clarity as to how much money they may be able to spent moving forward. They likely had a good idea anyways based on their own internal projections for arbitration if they had to go down that road but with things locked in on these guys that get a little bit of a clearer picture on that front.
This article was updated as the club announced more signings after the initial publication.