Photo: Doug Gray
A little more than three weeks ago we looked at what the arbitration raises could wind up costing the Cincinnati Reds in 2026. As things sit today there are still 13 players on the 40-man roster who will be arbitration eligible if they don’t sign a new contract with the team before their arbitration hearing in the spring. Among the players listed in that article was Matt McLain. Usually players don’t become arbitration eligible until the 4th season, but a small percentage of players qualify early based on service time. McLain has two years and 140 days of service time. That is the exact number of days expected by MLB Trade Rumors to qualify a player as a Super 2 player and would make him eligible.
If the actual number comes in at two years and 141 days that is a big deal for Matt McLain. It’s a lesser of a big deal for the Reds, though not exactly nothing, either. If McLain falls one day shy of qualifying as a Super 2 player then he will continue to be paid the league minimum in 2026, which will be just over $750,000. But if he does qualify as a Super 2 then his projected arbitration number is $2,600,000. That’s nearly four times the pay for McLain and something he would certainly enjoy.
For the Reds the difference isn’t quite two million dollars. When the budget is expected to be over $100,000,000 that’s not all that much of a difference. But Cincinnati isn’t exactly known for being big spenders, so having an extra two million to hand out to someone else in free agency or to pay someone acquired in a trade could make a difference. It could, in theory at least, give the front office the smallest amount of wiggle room to make a deal that perhaps they otherwise couldn’t.
Left-handed pitcher Brandon Williamson is also right there at the edge of the “will he, won’t he” qualify number. He is sitting at two years and 139 days of service time. If he winds up qualifying his raise is projected to be minimal – just $800,000 in salary for 2026, which is about $50,000 over the league minimum. That’s not nothing, but it’s also essentially a rounding error for the budget of a Major League Baseball team.
Major League Baseball has not officially announced the amount of service time that will qualify players for Super 2 status yet. We’re going to have to wait a few more weeks for that to come out, but it could play a small role in how the Reds go about their offseason.
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