Unless you have been living under a rock in Redsland you have heard that Homer Bailey and the Reds are on the verge of a rumored 6-year and $100M deal. That is a big chunk of change and when you couple that with the deals held onto by Votto, Bruce and Phillips the Reds have a lot of money locked up moving forward in those guys. We don’t know exactly what the Reds are working with in terms of future payroll, but given the market size, I can’t imagine they are going to ever be in the top 10 in payroll moving forward unless baseball fixes the system of the haves and have nots.
Do the Reds have enough money left to sign one more of the Cueto/Latos group? I certainly can’t see a way where they can extend both guys without a serious, serious discount from one of them. Mike Leake, while a good pitcher, isn’t going to command the same kind of money of those guys, though he probably won’t come cheap either. Moving forward I think the Reds are banking on Homer Bailey, Tony Cingrani and Robert Stephenson with the hopes of also keeping one of Cueto/Latos. Tony Cingrani is going to be cheap for two more seasons and then his pay will start to escalate, but will still be relatively cheap for that third year too.
Let’s just assume that the Reds can swing a contract for both Homer Bailey and one of Cueto/Latos, that is probably going to run them around $35M per season after 2015 (when Cueto and Latos would be reaching free agency). As much as Reds fans and probably their front office wish they could act like the Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers, they simply aren’t going to be able to without a drastic overhaul to how MLB handles their money and there is no reason to believe we are going to see that any time soon. That would put the Reds into two big time paid pitchers in their rotation, Tony Cingrani and then two open spots looking a few years into the future.
Top pitching prospect Robert Stephenson is being counted on to take one of those spots at some point. Over his first three seasons of control, he is going to make under $2M combined, which will give the pitching staff plenty of salary relief. For the last two years, the Cincinnati Reds have had one of the best pitching staffs in baseball. In 2013 their team ERA+ (ERA adjusted for ballpark) ranked 2nd in the NL. In 2012 they led the Majors in ERA+. From a pure rotation perspective the group moving forward of Homer Bailey, Tony Cingrani and one of Cueto/Latos should certainly be able to keep the Reds near the top if the other two pitchers can be average or better. Robert Stephenson has all of the looks of a guy who could be a top of the line starter. You never know until a guy comes out and does it at the big league level (once upon a time Homer Bailey and Phil Hughes were the top pitching prospects in the game and Homer Bailey has the only two seasons as a starter between the two since both made their debut in 2007 as an above-average starting pitcher. Still, if you could build a starting pitcher from scratch, he would closely resemble Stephenson.
With the extension of Bailey on the horizon, Stephenson may have his debut pushed back some as the need may not be there quite as quickly without a spot opening up with the departure of Bailey after 2014, when he does arrive his low cost on the payroll will be huge. If he can also make a quick transition to the Majors and perform well, his addition could be huge on two different fronts. For a team like the Reds especially, having cost controlled players who can also produce at an above-average level it continues to allow them to be able to spend money on guys like Homer Bailey or Joey Votto or Jay Bruce. Producing Tony Cingrani from the system is going to help on both fronts moving forward. Having Robert Stephenson follow Cingrani gives the Reds a big edge.