Minor League free agency isn’t as talked about as it’s big league version and there is obviously a good reason for that. But minor league free agency still matters. Most of the time you aren’t going to find players who make a big difference at the big league level in this area, but every so often you can and do. Even when you don’t do that, though, you can find useful players that can supplement the bullpen or bench, and at times even provide some starting pitching depth in the short term. The Cincinnati Reds lost 20 players this week to minor league free agency.
Overall there were 574 minor league free agents (you can see the full list of all players at Baseball America right here), with nearly half of them coming from the Triple-A level. And that makes sense because unless you are released, it takes six seasons after you sign your first contract to reach free agency. Between that and guys who have already reached free agency but were good enough to be re-signed and remain in pro ball, a lot of your free agents will be older but players good enough to stick around for a while.
The Cincinnati Reds saw 20 players become free agents and 13 of them have big league experience. That’s going to cause some depth issues in the upper levels if they can’t replace most of them with similar types of guys over the next 4-5 months.
Here’s the breakdown of the players who are now free agents:
Don’t be surprised if a few of these guys wind up back with the Cincinnati Reds before the 2026 season begins. Several of the guys on the above list were free agents in 2024 and came back – P.J Higgins, Levi Jordan, and Edwin Rios all wound up re-signing. If those three come back again it would be a bit of a surprise given that none of them got to the big leagues with the Reds in 2025 and will likely be looking at a different opportunity that may give them a better chance of doing that if they get the job done in 2026.
Among the 20 players that are now free agents, 15 of them were pitchers and just five of them were position players. That split is interesting as last year it was a 10/10 split. The Reds are likely going to have to do a lot more shopping around for arms this offseason than they did last year as there are likely more spots to fill (guys returning from injury may cut into the number of spots needed).
One player who was going to be a free agent is sticking around. Jose Franco would have been on this list but Cincinnati added him to the 40-man roster in order to retain his services. Now that he’s on the 40-man roster he will be around for at least the next six seasons if the Reds want him to be, and could be around for the next nine years in a scenario where he is optioned the next three seasons and doesn’t accumulate a year of service time in those three years before then being in the big leagues the following six years after that, which is when he would then reach free agency.