Emilio Pagan gets nice new contract after impressive season

Pagán has always had an elite strikeout and walk profile. He hasn’t had the year-by-year consistency of the sport’s best closers, though. The fly-ball approach still leaves him vulnerable to the home run ball. Pagán has only had one season in his nine-year career in which he has allowed fewer home runs than the average reliever. He has surrendered 85 home runs since entering the league in 2017. That’s 19 more than any other reliever over that stretch.

The longball is always going to be an issue, but Pagán sticking around as a high-leverage reliever despite the homers is a testament to his effectiveness in other areas. He’s a reliable control artist with above-average velocity. His splitter gives him an option to attack opposite-handed hitters, while he mixes in a cutter as his main offspeed pitch versus righty batters. Pagán has generally been durable outside of the aforementioned lat strain. He has topped 50 innings in every other full schedule of his career, including six years with 60+ frames.

Pagán’s strong walk year earns him a nice contract for his age 35-36 seasons. The guarantee narrowly beats our two-year, $16M prediction. Pagán also gets the upside of the out clause, which allows him to get back to free agency if he has an equally strong ’26 season. Another two-year deal at age 36 would be rare but not unprecedented, so it’s not out of the question that he pitches well enough to consider that route.

Assuming Terry Francona slots Pagán back in the ninth inning, he’ll pitch behind a solid setup group that includes Tony Santillan, Connor Phillips and Graham Ashcraft. Cincinnati should add a left-hander at some point. The only southpaw who’d be in their bullpen at the moment is Sam Moll, who was up and down from Triple-A Louisville throughout the year.

Cincinnati has $32.275M in guaranteed contracts to six players: Pagán, Hunter Greene, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Jose Trevino, Ben Rortvedt, and Moll. They owe $15M in dead money ($12M salary and a $3M option buyout payable after the World Series) to Jeimer Candelario. Cincinnati has a sizable arbitration class which MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects to cost around $45M. They’d owe another $8M-$10M in minimum salary players, which puts their current commitments in the $100M-$105M range. President of baseball operations Nick Krall said he expects payroll to be around the $116M at which they opened the 2025 season.

That’d leave them with roughly $15M-$20M to spend. They’re in the market for an impact bat and reportedly trying to bring Kyle Schwarber back to the Cincinnati area. That would surely cost more than $20M annually. It’s possible ownership would make an exception for someone like Schwarber or Pete Alonso. The front office could also look to trade a player or two from the arbitration class to free up more spending capacity if they feel they’ve got a strong chance to sign an elite hitter.

Ken Rosenthal and C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic first reported that the Reds and Pagán had reached a two-year, $20M deal with an out.