The Reds recently severed ties with Diamond Sports Group and will go into 2025 with MLB handling their broadcasts. The club’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer Doug Healy spoke with Mark Sheldon of MLB.com about all the changes, most notably stating that there’s no payroll reduction coming.
“We will maintain payroll levels at or above 2024,” Healy said. “And we will continue to give Nick Krall, Terry Francona and the entire Reds baseball operations the resources they need to field a championship caliber team at the major league level.”
That’s a notable development for the Reds and their fans as it was fair to wonder if a payroll drop was coming. As the regional sports network (RSN) model is decaying amid cord cutting, many clubs have reduced or plan to reduce spending. The Padres went from a $249MM payroll in 2023 to just a $165MM figure in 2024, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. The Twins went from $154MM to $127MM. The Cardinals and Rangers are reportedly looking to scale back in 2025.
As of a couple of years ago, all of those clubs had deals with Diamond, just like the Reds. Diamond dropped the Padres in 2023 as part of their bankruptcy proceedings, leading MLB to step in and take over. The Twins struck a new deal for 2024 but with reduced fees. For 2025, they will be following the Padres in having the league take over. The Cardinals are still going forward with Diamond next year, though with the fees reportedly about 23% below the prior contract. The Rangers are looking into creating their own streaming service, as opposed to going with the league, but they won’t be back with Diamond.
The Reds are now following the Padres, Twins and other clubs in going with the league-run broadcasts. While the direct-to-consumer model cuts out the RSN middleman, it does require more active uptake than the cable model. Many people over the years have ordered cable packages that included these RSNs, even if they didn’t intend to watch much or any baseball. That gave MLB clubs a source of passive income that won’t be a part of streaming services.
Reportedly, the Reds were getting $60MM annually as part of their deal with Diamond. It’s unclear how much they can expect to receive in 2025 with this new paradigm, but it seems fair to expect that it will be less than that number.
Regardless, that loss of revenue doesn’t seem to be leading to payroll cuts, assuming that Healy can be taken at his word. That’s surely nice news for fans of the club as well as president of baseball operations Nick Krall. The Reds showed some encouraging signs in 2023, promoting a large number of prospects to the majors. That created some optimism for 2024 and the front office tried to spend some money in bolstering the roster, giving eight-figure deals to Jeimer Candelario, Nick Martinez, Frankie Montas and Emilio Pagán.
Unfortunately, the Reds were bit hard by the injury bug this past season, with most of the players on their roster missing some or all of the campaign. The result was a lackluster 77-85 season that saw them fall well short of a postseason berth. Krall and his staff are now going to be tasked with getting the train back on the tracks in 2025. A payroll cut would have made that more challenging, but it appears that won’t be something he has to deal with.
RosterResource projects the club for $79MM of spending in 2025, which is $11MM shy of their $90MM mark that Cot’s has for Opening Day 2024. The 2025 number doesn’t account for Martinez. The club gave him a $21.05MM qualifying offer, with November 19 being the date for him to accept or decline. Perhaps he will take it or maybe he and the club can work out a longer deal with a lower average annual value, though there will be more clarity in the coming days.
Assuming Martinez is back on the roster in some way, the club won’t have a ton of wiggle room relative to last year’s levels. A few non-tenders of their arbitration-eligible players could make some more space but they might require a payroll bump to be able to make any significant moves. It seems as though that might actually possible, which should count as at least mildly good news, as many other clubs in this situation have gone in the other direction.
At 2024 is not competitive in the least.
Sorry Red, until they show otherwise, Reds front office isn’t spending that much more for 2025.
These teams aren’t going to lose the kind of scratch they are losing on the local TV deals and spend.
If Martinez takes the QO, that’s probably it. Might even be if he don’t.
In the current NL Central it is, but yeah, they weren’t spending much on payroll in the first place.
Full sentence reads “at or above 2024 by one dollar”.
I thought it said “by one cent”.
“At or above.” “So you’re saying there’s a chance…”
Sounds like a Cubs end of the year press conference. Pretending to say something while actually saying nothing at all.
I think Hoyer has been given money to work with, but he just chooses not to spend. If I remember correctly Craine Kenny said as much about this before.
Lol, continue to field a championship caliber team. Lol. Have the reds won 81 games in a season…in the last 20 years??
In fairness, he doesn’t say ‘continue to field a championship caliber team’.
He said he’ll continue to give resources to the current management to field a championship caliber team (as in, in the future)
Even though they never gave those type of resources.
The people turned out to watch a sub .500 team last year. It’s time you repay the fans for that or there will be a lot of fans disguised as empty seats in 2025.
Otherwise…#SellTheTeamBob.
They won 82 games in the ‘23 season. 83 wins in 2021. They had 3 seasons of 90+ wins between 2010 and 2013 as well. Might want too do some research before posting:)
You want people to do research before spouting off? Shame!
I hate the Reds ownership!! Screw the fans by making them pay to stream games and they pocket as much as they spend!! I’ve been to 18 MLB games the last two years and I’ve not spent a dime with the Reds. I’ve been to Miami (3x), Tampa (4x), Atlanta (4x), St. Louis (2x), Cubs, While Sox, Pirates and Indians. When we get new owners I’ll head back to see the Reds., but not a day before.
Indians haven’t been around for 3 years. Been the guardians since 2022. Thanks for playing.
They will always be the Indians no matter what you think.
The truth hurts right pedro.
Turn-off
There will always be some bigots who cannot let go, no matter what we think.
You name sports teams after things that are strong and things you want to emulate. Bears, Tigers, etc. No one is naming their team the pansies. Agree to disagree, going straight to bigot shows how intolerant YOU are.
I’m with you Tim ! I want nothing more than a de la cruz jersey yet refuse to spend a dime on the reds due to how the team is ran
Boycotting works in many situations, but not with top level pro sports franchises, as it just cuts their revenue even further and makes them less able to spend money on the MLB (or whichever pro league) payroll.
If you want the Reds to spend more money, then you need to spend money on them first, especially when they actually have a decent team and are likely to get better next year as their young core continues to develop.
People came out last season for a sub .500 club.
It’s time for the team to reciprocate.
Otherwise, #SellTheTeamBob.
@Lanidrac On an individual level, the only way you can really voice your opinion to the team is to vote with your feet and leave, or complain to your account rep if you happen to be a season ticket holder. The Reds have burned many bridges with their fanbase and do not get the benefit of the doubt with spending on the team.
“They will give Francona what he needs.” Okay. We need a power hitting cleanup hitter. We need an everyday right fielder. We need a setup man that can shut the door before Diaz. We need another starter like Walker Buehler.
So basically:
Anthony Santander
Tanner Scott
Walker Buehler
Not unreasonable
No, but it will never happen.
Well.. the Reds really don’t want/should pursue Buehler.. The risk is too high for a club that cannot see that amount of “dead” money on their payroll.. The feeling is it’s not when Buehler will be back on the IL, it will be how often Kikuchi, Manaea, Flaherty or Boyd could be better choices.. Scott is interesting enough, however, expensive. A trade for a non-closer/higher leverage RP would make sense.. Other than Soto, the Reds won’t do much better than Santander.. imho..
They had dead money on their payroll last year in Montas, Pagan, and Candelario. We saw it in the past with Wil Myers.
They have a history of hoping rather than planning.
The Candelrio contract is really hurting them now.
Trade for Robert, move Lodolo to co-closer and sign hometown hero Buehler to a long term contract.
Championship caliber ; D
Dunno about dropping Lodolo from the rotation in favor of signing an even bigger injury risk. But Graham Ashcraft could be great in the bullpen.
Robert would be an upgrade but the Reds lineup is already righty-heavy. If they don’t outbid the market for Santander, someone like Joc Pederson or Michael Conforto would make sense.
Agreed on Ashcraft. If he is hindered as a starter by pretty much being a two-pitch pitcher (and hasn’t seemed to find a good third pitch), than they should slide him into the pen. The dude can throw hard, too, and get some groundballs. Souinds like a pretty good one inning pitcher with potential to be a closer.
You are getting a full season of Lowder, Matt McLain and CES. That’s a starting pitcher and some thump to the lineup. Plus a good manager.
You HOPE you are getting a full season of those guys. Tito is definitely a plus. Maybe he will even keep a stable lineup.
The payroll was already under $80 million at seasons end and even 1 or 2 legitimate expenditures won’t push them much over $110 mil.
More than likely Krall will hold another all-spring-long tryout camp like the last few years for Tito to sort through
Krall does seem to like his AAAA players. He keeps hoping one will work.
Welp, looks like the Reds won’t be Boras’s mystery team for Soto.
“And we will continue to give Nick Krall, Terry Francona and the entire Reds baseball operations the resources they need to field a championship caliber team at the major league level.”
Say what?
WAIT!!?? Isn’t the Reds revenue going to drop precipitously without DSG? Won’t their payroll drop? Did you seriously buy that garbage?
Two teams lost their contracts with DSG in 2023. MLB promised to pay any team that was affected by an RSN bankruptcy 80% of lost revenue, and we know exactly how much they paid the Padres and Diamondbacks because they put that info in the DSG bankruptcy filings.
In 2023 the Padres lost one payment of $8.5 million that DSG defaulted on in 2023 and MLB paid them $6.8 million. MLB never paid them another cent which means they didn’t lose any more broadcast revenue.
MLB never paid the Diamondbacks any money which means that they didn’t lose any broadcast revenue, and they increased payroll by $36 million and then another $66 million in 2024.
Now we know that the Reds are going to keep payroll the same or raise it in 2025 after losing their contract DSG. What does that tell you?
It probably doesn’t say anything other than that the Reds have already been cutting their payroll the last few seasons. They were running payrolls well above $100M before the cost cutting began.