Tyler Stephenson Wins Arbitration Hearing

Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson won his arbitration hearing against the team, reports Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer. He’ll earn the $6.8MM figure submitted by his reps at ACES rather than the $6.55MM figure submitted by the team. Stephenson is heading into his final season of club control and will be a free agent next winter.

Stephenson pulls in a 38.1% raise on last year’s $4.925MM salary on the heels of a season in which he slashed .231/.316/.421 with 13 homers and 18 doubles in 342 plate appearances. A broken left thumb and an oblique strain limited him to just 88 games in 2025, but he had another generally productive stretch while healthy. Since debuting in 2019, Stephenson has taken just shy of 2000 plate appearances and logged a combined .261/.338/.426 slash with 63 homers and 94 doubles.

Last year’s 33.9% strikeout rate was a career-worst by a wide margin, but his career-high 10.8% walk rate at least helped to mitigate that uptick in punchouts a bit. He actually chased balls off the plate less than the average hitter, but Stephenson’s contact rate on those chases was just 49.4% — well shy off the 55.6% league average. His contact rate on balls within the zone dropped by a concerning six percentage points.

Some of that could be due to his broken thumb, of course. Hand injuries can linger and impact a player’s swing even after he’s cleared to return to action, and it’s worth noting that Stephenson’s bat speed dropped by nearly a mile per hour over the prior season. It’s not unreasonable to think that with better health, he could regain some of that contact. Either way, his quality of contact remained strong; Stephenson averaged 90.5 mph off the bat with an excellent 49.2% hard-hit rate and an even better 14.4% barrel rate.

Heading into the 2026 season, Stephenson will again be the Reds’ primary catcher, teaming with defensive-minded Jose Trevino to handle the majority of Cincinnati’s catching duties. He could also mix in at first base and designated hitter. A healthy platform season should put Stephenson in line for a nice multi-year deal as he heads to the open market ahead of his age-30 campaign next winter.

Following Stephenson’s victory, players have gone 6-1 against teams in this offseason’s slate of arbitration hearings.