Retaining Free Agents: Cincinnati Reds closer Emilio Pagan
We are still a bit away from the start of free agency, which doesnโt begin until a day after the World Series ends. But even then it isnโt quite free agency season as teams have five days from that point to have exclusive negotiators with players who are now free agents who were also on their team this past season. After that time is up if players have not agreed to a new contract then they can become true free agents and negotiate with all teams unless they are extended a qualifying offer during that. I donโt remember the last time a player agreed to a new deal before testing the true free agent waters within that 5-day โexclusive negotiatingโ period of time.
The Cincinnati Reds have a few players who are set to become free agents in the next two weeks. We started this series earlier this week whenย we looked at Miguel Andujarย and whether the team should try and bring him back. Today weโre going to take a similar approach and look at how the team should approach things with Emilio Pagan.
Just over two years ago the Cincinnati Reds signed Pagan to a 2-year deal at $16,000,000 where he would make half of that in 2024 and the other half in 2025. He was coming off of a season with Minnesota in 2023 where he had a 2.99 ERA in 69.1 innings for the Twins.
Emilio Paganโs two years in Cincinnati were very similar to his final two years in Minnesota. His second to last season with the Twins saw him post a 4.43 ERA. In 2024 with the Reds he posted a 4.50 ERA. That final year with Minnesota he had a 2.99 ERA and this past season in Cincinnati he had a 2.88 ERA.
The 2024 season was a bit of a disappointing one for Pagan. He missed some time while on the injured list and only threw 38.0 innings and appeared in just 38 games after averaging over 60 appearances a season in the three previous years. He allowed more hits than he had innings pitched and he gave up more home runs than he did in 2023 despite throwing 31.1 fewer innings.
Things made a big turn around in 2025, though. Pagan saw his ERA drop to 2.88 โ the second best of his career (2019)ย โ in his 70 games and 68.2 innings. He would give up one more hit than he did in 2024 but threw 30.2 more innings. Pagan did that while maintaining a good walk rate and a strong strikeout rate, handing out 22 free passes and striking out 81 batters. All of that also came while he was picking up a career high 32 saves for the Reds during the year.
Qualifying Offer
This year the qualifying offer in Major League Baseball is $22,025,000 for a 1-year contract.
Cincinnati made a qualifying offer last year to Nick Martinez and he accepted it (at a slightly lower price). That made him the only player to accept a qualifying offer last year around Major League Baseball.
So the question at hand is should the Reds extend a qualifying offer again this season and should it be for Emilio Pagan? The short answer is no. The longer answer is that no closer makes that much money per season and while Pagan was quite good in 2025 he doesnโt have a long, proven track record of being the kind of reliever that a team should hand out that kind of deal to โ even if it is just for one season. Relievers simply donโt throw enough innings for that kind of thing in nearly any case, but especially a case when the team in question doesnโt spend much money overall.
Should the Reds bring him back?
This is a very different question than the one above. Cincinnati shouldnโt give Emilio Pagan $22,025,000 for one season. But that does not mean that they should write him off as a player they should look to sign.
When the 2026 season starts, Pagan will be 34-years-old. He will turn 35 in early May, though, so he is going to be in his โage 35โ season next year. At his age heโs going to be looking at whatโs likely his last multi-year deal. And coming off of a season where he proved he could close, he will probably get a little more money than he otherwise would have even if his โstuffโ doesnโt profile as an elite-level closer.
It seems likely that he will get a raise from the $8,000,000 per year he made while with the Reds over the last two seasons. The question is how much? Given the inconsistency of his career, his age, and the lack of what is considered โcloser stuffโ, it probably wonโt be too much more than that and the deal wonโt likely be for more than a few years.
The Reds donโt exactly have a lot of reliable options for the bullpen in 2026. Tony Santillan is returning and heโs thrown 159 games for Cincinnati since 2021 and has a career 3.02 ERA. After that thereโs not much reliability in the bullpen. Thatโs not to say thereโs not potential there โ Graham Ashcraft has had some success in the past, Connor Phillips had some success in 2025, the team has more starters than spots in the rotation if everyone is healthy and they could get creative there if they wanted to โ but the team certainly could use a reliable reliever pick up for 2026 given how things look right now.
Itโs probably a fair question to ask if Emilio Pagan is actually a โreliable relieverโ, though. In two of the last three years his ERA has been just under 3.00. But in two of the last four years itโs been over 4.40. In three of the last five itโs been over 4.40. In four of the last six itโs been over 4.40.
The 2025 season is more important than the 2024 season is more important than the 2023 season is more important than the 2022 season. And so on. More recent data is more valuable than older data. But there is something interesting when looking at something very specific with regards to Emilio Pagan โ his fastball velocity.
In his career heโs had an ERA below 3.00 three times in his nine seasons. In those three seasons his fastball averaged 95+ MPH. In five of the other six seasons his fastball velocity was below 95.0 MPH. Only in 2022 was his ERA over 3.00 and his velocity on his fastball over 95.0.
In three of the last four years heโs been over 95 MPH and in the one season he wasnโt he missed a good chunk of time with an injury and rebounded the next year. So perhaps thereโs a bit more of a reason to think that he could be a โreliable relieverโ for the near term future if we are going to look at just this.
That isnโt the only thing we should be looking at, though. Diving into some other things we can see that when Pagan has been very good in his career itโs been when his BABIP was very low. For his career he has a BABIP thatโs well below league average, so thereโs probably something he is doing and capable of repeating over a longer period of time to reduce hits on balls in play against him. But in years where things donโt quite work out that way and his BABIP is near league average or higher heโs struggled and even in some years when he was much better than the league average with his BABIP he still wasnโt exactly good at keeping runs off of the board.
One reason for that is that for his career heโs given up home runs at a high rate. Heโs an extreme fly ball pitcher. Fly balls donโt go for hits as often as grounders do. But when fly balls do turn into hits they are for extra-bases a lot more. And as we know โ grounders never turn into home runs, while fly balls have turned into home runs 13% of the time in Paganโs career.
With that said, his home run per fly ball rate was much higher from 2017-2022 than it has been since 2023 began. Since 2023 his rate is just 9%, while the league average has been 12%. Pagan does give up a lot more fly balls than the league, though, and as such his home runs allowed per 9-innings pitched is a bit closer to league average in this time because of it.
Thereโs a lot going on with Emilio Pagan and whether he can continue to be effective. Can he keep his BABIP low like he has in his career? Will his home run rate be more like it has been over the past three years instead of where it was earlier in his career? At age 35 can he maintain his stuff for the several years it will likely take to re-sign him? Does the dollar and year commitment make sense for the Reds?
The upside with bringing back Emilio Pagan is that he can do all of those things and you get a repeat or close to it of what you got in 2025. Thatโs quite valuable to have. But is that a realistic expectation? Thatโs a lot tougher to say given that heโs had some inconsistencies throughout his career when it comes to his ability to prevent runs. And thatโs where the downside comes in โ he just hasnโt been able to consistently prevent runs from season to season. A lot of relievers canโt do that. Itโs why elite closers get paid a lot of money and just about every other reliever doesnโt. The guys who show that they can do it every year are the guys teams have faith in and are willing to write big checks to for multiple years. There just arenโt that many guys out there who fit that profile.
Yeah, this makes me sound like I want to go cheap, but I think trying to match what other teams may offer Pagan isnโt the game to play. Put more money into the needed bat.
Maxwell and Mey might be the answer, but then again, do you really want to bet the season on them BOTH coming through? Or either one?
There is Tony Santillian, but he canโt pitch every night. The Reds play 162 games in 2026 (well, duh, yeah!) and Tony can probably make a maximum of 70 appearances.A plan. Do the Reds have a plan?
That leaves Santillan as the one guy that is definitely dependable in โ26, assuming health. Suter is a long man. I am discounting him as a leverage reliever.
Yeah, itโs a major problem in my view. Retaining Pagan would go a long way to helping that problem. But it canโt stop with Pagan.
Bullpen needs to be a large focus of the teamโs offseason.
Note: 1964 was close so Sammy Ellis and Billy McCool (two rookies)1970 Wayne Granger and Clay Carroll
1972 Clay Carroll and Pedro Borbon
1975 Rawly Eastwick and Will McEnaney (two rookies)
1976 Eastwick and McEnaney
1990 the Nasty Boys (Randy Myers, Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton)
The best (measured by results) Reds teams have โclosedโ with veterans and โclosedโ with rookies.
Clay Carroll pitched a lot in 1975, although Rawlins J. Eastwick III came up and got 22 saves in the later part of the season. Will McEnany was nigh untouchable for a whileโฆanother left hander.
I think though they could miss the veteran presence of Pagan, Nick Martinez, and Scott Barlow in the pen. They had some ups and downs, but those 3 especially seemed pretty consistent (Martinez not as much in the pen, but still solid overall), and Iโd like to think took some pressure off and helped others like Phillips, Santillan, Ashcraft, grow or bounce back. Somehow Krall will have to keep or bring in solid veterans for the bullpen. But of course you hope those younger players will take the next step on their own such as Phillips, maybe Richardson, etc.
The rotation seems fairly set overall, but the pen will be really interesting to see what direction they go.
I wonder guys like Austin Hedges this year (reportedly have a 1-year deal a few days ago) or Luke Maile in 2023 offseason (re-singned a 1-year deal with 2025 team option) could be considered in the exclusive group Doug mentionsโฆ
It seems the Reds could improve the team letting free agents go and to look for better replacements of themโฆ
With that caveat, the Reds need to spend money on offense primarily. Given the number of returning live arms for 2026 ST, a couple of those guys are going to hit their stride, or return from injury successfully.
While the Reds are hit or miss shopping for bargain rack position players, they do seem to find a bullpen arm or two a year that fill innings successfully and cheaply. I expect them to do that again.
I think Phillips is going to turn the corner first and his stuff is closer Quality. I also thought he changed glove position on his delivery last couple of games and helped him see the plate better/quicker.Williamson might be that bullpen lefty you need too, especially since he will likely facing an innings limit in 2026.
ERA after opening day (24.2 innings): 3.35
2 โ Heโs 35, so prospects going forward are very questionable, in addition to the general issue of bullpen inconsistency aside from the rare elite closers or younger proven lopng-relievers. Again, very few in either of those categories.
3 โ Itโs the Reds. Theyโre losing Martinez already, and itโs extremely doubtful theyโll put that money right back into a similar profile โ very effective, but aging out bullpen talent.Take your pick โ they either got lucky, or the FO did a great job with those two signings. I expect them to try to duplicate that, at slightly lower costs, and use the difference on the offensive side of the roster. Theyโll count on the remaining, and younger, arms, and particularly Phillips, to continue developing. After that, itโs hoping the AAA arms work out, use some of the excess starters in Martinezโs role, and go into FA looking for more in the Barlows/Rogers/etc. salary brackets.
With all that, how do they acquire a power hitting OFer?
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