Fever BaseballFor collectors and stat nerdsFuture Value Radar (FVR) · On the record
CIN

Cincinnati Reds

National League · National League Central · Great American Ball Park

Umpire favor

-10.0 net runs over 134 graded gamesthe zone cost the club more than it gave, on balance.

Biggest swings: -2.8 vs MIN · -2.5 vs MIN

→ all umpire grades

The season ahead

28 games left on the schedule — what’s next, then the road to the finish. Times are in your own clock.

On deck

at Chicago Cubs (76–58)

Fri, Aug 28

Game 1 of 3· Wrigley Field

Probables: Rhett Lowder vs David Peterson

The card will be kept live — follow along →

28 games left

Aug 286:20pmat CHC (76–58)
Aug 296:20pmat CHC (76–58)
Aug 3011:20pmat CHC (76–58)NBC/Peacock
Aug 3110:40pmvs SD (72–62)
Sep 110:40pmvs SD (72–62)
Sep 24:40pmvs SD (72–62)
Sep 410:10pmvs MIL (82–51)
Sep 510:40pmvs MIL (82–51)

On the radar

What the market seesWhat the engine sees
PlayerPosAgeResultsSampleBoardSignal
Ke'Bryan Hayes3B29OPS .46378 GBREAKOUTEV95 104.85
Blake DunnCF27OPS .72238 GFADEEV95 106.07
Elly De La CruzSS24OPS .818115 GINDEXEV95 111.6
Chase BurnsP23ERA 2.77139.2 IPINDEX
Sal Stewart1B22OPS .806134 GINDEXEV95 107.09
Eugenio SuárezDH35OPS .705103 GINDEXEV95 106.85

Left of the rule is the league’s own line on the player — his results, not our numbers, and never an input to any FVR signal. Right of it is what the engine measures.

The Card Pulse

What the collector market pays for this roster — movers first. A rising price is demand, not our read on the player. The full board →

Grade A · #3 of 30Heat 7.8%Value $56.63 avg
Sal StewartSal Stewart [Red Rookie Variation] #6
19.7%$158Collect →
Blake DunnBlake Dunn #RA-BD
17.5%$33.00Collect →
Hunter ParksParks Harber [Refractor] #BCP-43
8.5%$49.99Collect →
Chase BurnsChase Burns [Red Rookie Variation] #3
6.7%$41.83Collect →
Elly De La CruzElly De La Cruz #44
2.6%$63.34Collect →
Sal StewartRCSal Stewart #39
2.4%$37.37Collect →
Alfredo DunoRCAlfredo Duno #BCP-238
0.7%$70.52Collect →
Chase BurnsRCChase Burns #BST-10
0.5%$35.78Collect →
Eugenio SuárezEugenio Suarez [Aqua] #48
0.2%$35.11Collect →
Alfredo DunoAlfredo Duno #BTP-51
0.1%$34.59Collect →
Eugenio SuárezRCEugenio Suarez #US96
0%$63.94Collect →
Ke'Bryan HayesKe'Bryan Hayes [Gold] #127
0%$36.80Collect →
Ke'Bryan HayesRCKe'Bryan Hayes #P-9
0%$11.33Collect →

What they pay

A market fact, not an engine read — and the club’s own row from the payroll board, computed once so the two pages cannot disagree.

vs the tax line
+$93.6Munder
MP/MW
$5.40M17 of 30 — 1 is cheapest

PROPOSED Below the floor the owners proposed on 2026-07-21 — this club would have to spend up. A proposal out of a negotiation that has not happened, not a rule. The line in force is the $244M tax threshold above.

The five biggest commitments this season

  • Eugenio Suárez$15.0M
  • Brady Singer$12.8M
  • Emilio Pagán$10.0M
  • Hunter Greene$8.3M
  • Ke'Bryan Hayes$7.0M

Cash is what the club pays out; the tax payroll is average annual values under the CBA’s own rulebook. Two answers to one question, never subtracted from one another. Figures from Cot’s, as of .

A second set of books

The numbers above are Cot’s. These are MLB Spreadsheets’s, and they answer two questions Cot’s cannot: what this payroll is made of, and where it has moved since Opening Day. We keep both sources rather than merging them, because the only thing that catches an error in one is the other.

Where the two sources disagree

  • On cash payroll, Cot’s reads $128.6M and MLB Spreadsheets reads $127.6M $1.0M apart — and both sheets carry the same date, so there is no staleness in it at all.

Both are reputable and neither is wrong on its own terms. A gap on sheets a month apart is one source catching up; a gap on sheets a few days apart is a real disagreement about what a club is paying, and nobody prints those. We do not average them, and every figure on this site says which source it came from.

Since Opening Day

Cash payroll
$126.0M$127.6M +$1.6M
Tax payroll
$148.8M$150.4M +$1.6M

A move is not a verdict. Adding payroll is not virtue and cutting it is not vice, so nothing here is colored — the sign is the whole fact. And a move in dollars is not a payroll in dollars: we never compare one to the other.

Where the money goes

Cash payroll

$127.6M

The bar divides the $127.7M this club pays out. It takes $0.1M back in — cash in trades — which is what brings the cash payroll to $127.6M.

Tax payroll

$150.4M

The bar divides the $150.6M this club pays out. It takes $0.2M back in — cash in trades — which is what brings the tax payroll to $150.4M.

LineCashTax
Players on the rosterSalary to the men actually playing, majors and minors.$111.0M$114.4M
Major-league salary$108.5M$111.9M
Minor-league salary$2.5M$2.5M
Players who are goneSalary buying this club no player at all.$12.9M$15.9M
Termination pay$11.8M$14.8M
Outright assignments$1.1M$1.1M
BonusesSigning bonuses charged against this season, buyouts of options declined, and bonuses already earned.$3.8M$0.2M
Option buyouts$2.3M
Signing bonuses (prorated)$1.3M
Performance and award bonuses$0.2M$0.2M
Cash in tradesMoney sent out with a player traded away, or taken in — a negative figure — to absorb someone else's contract.−$0.1M−$0.2M
League chargesThe same for all thirty clubs — no front office decided to spend this.$20.1M
Benefits$18.4M
Pre-arb bonus pool$1.7M
Total$127.6M$150.4M

An em dash in one column and a figure in the other is not a missing number — it is the two rulebooks sorting the same money differently. A prorated signing bonus is in the cash figure and already inside the average annual value the tax is assessed on; league charges are the reverse. That is why the two totals differ, and why they are never subtracted from one another.

Composition and Opening Day figures from Ethan Hullihen (@EthanHullihen, MLBSpreadsheets), from a workbook whose oldest relevant sheet is dated . The workbook carries a different date on every tab, so this is the oldest of the ones we read rather than the file’s own. Every line above was checked to sum to the club’s stated total before it was printed.

Down on the farm

Organization prospects on our pre-consensus boards.

What the market seesWhat the engine sees
PlayerPosAgeClubResultsSampleBoardSignal
Héctor RodríguezRF22Cincinnati RedsOPS .880104 GPRE-CONSENSUSEV95 108.86
Hunter ParksP25Louisville BatsERA 8.9031.1 IPPRE-CONSENSUSStuff 0.6096
Alfredo DunoC20Chattanooga LookoutsOPS .90265 G · A+INDEX

Left of the rule is the league’s own line on the player — his results, not our numbers, and never an input to any FVR signal. Right of it is what the engine measures.

On the record

  • C0015 Ke'Bryan Hayes · miss

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