The World Series in underway and by the end of the week there is going to be a team holding a trophy on the field and celebrating a championship. Whenever that is then the following day free agency will begin. Sort of. That day begins a 5-day exclusive negotiating window between free agents and their team during the 2025 season. When those five days are up if players and teams 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 don’t remember the last time a player agreed to a new deal before testing the true free agent waters within that 5-day “exclusive negotiating” period of time.
This offseason the Cincinnati Reds have multiple players who are set to become free agents at some point in the next two weeks. We’ve already taken a look at Miguel Andujar, Emilio Pagan, and Zack Littell in this series and today we’re going to look at pitcher Nick Martinez.
Cincinnati found themselves in a similar situation a year ago with Nick Martinez as they find themselves this year. Martinez was brought in at the start of 2024 on a free agent deal after two solid years with San Diego where he pitched mostly out of the bullpen but did step into the rotation when needed. His 2024 with the Reds was the best year of his career. He had a career best 3.10 ERA and a then career high 142.1 innings pitched. Cincinnati decided to extend Martinez a qualifying offer and Martinez decided to accept it and he returned for 2025.
The now 35-year-old made a career high 26 starts in 2025, but he also pitched in 14 games out of the bullpen. His ERA jumped up to 4.45 on the season, which game him an ERA+ of 103 (ERA+ is a players ERA after applying the park factors for all of the parks he pitched in during the season, meaning that after that Martinez had an ERA that would have been 3% better than average). All of that came in 165.2 innings that saw Martinez give up 158 hits, 22 home runs, walk 42 batters, and strike out 116 batters.
In just about every way outside of innings pitched the 2025 season was a step backwards for Martinez. The right-handed pitcher allowed hits at a higher rate, home runs at a higher rate, his walk rate more than doubled (worth noting that it was still a very, very low walk rate), and his strikeout rate dropped off quite a bit from an already low rate by today’s standard. Among the 127 pitchers who threw 100 or more inning in MLB in 2025, the strikeout rate for Nick Martinez (17.0%) was 108th best in baseball. His groundball rate (38.1%) was also closer to the bottom than it was the top of the list, coming in at 89th on the list among that same group of 127 pitchers.
The stuff for Martinez does not stick out. His results in 2025 didn’t, either. And he’s going to be 35-years-old for much of the 2026 season. But there are some areas where he’s found success in the past – even in 2025 when he had a down year compared to the previous three since returning from Japan where he pitched from 2018-2021.
Nick Martinez is about as reliable as it comes. He missed time in 2019 and 2020 with a forearm strain, but since returning from that injury during the 2020 season he’s remained incredibly healthy and has either pitched plenty of innings as a starter or pitched in a lot of games out of the bullpen. He’s been there when called upon for the last five years across multiple organizations. With his history of usage, Martinez can help out as a starting pitcher, a short-inning reliever, or a hybrid-type of long reliever.
You can see the career stats for Nick Martinez here.
The Qualifying Offer
This year the qualifying offer in Major League Baseball is $22,025,000 for a 1-year contract.
Cincinnati made the qualifying offer to Nick Martinez a year ago at a slightly lower price. That makes him ineligible for it moving forward in his career.
Should the Reds bring him back?
Coming off of the season he just had, there’s no chance that Nick Martinez is going to make as much moving forward as he made in 2025. But what could happen is that it’s going to require multiple years in order to bring him back with more total money than what he earned last season.
For the Cincinnati Reds there’s two questions that need to be answered: Where does Martinez fit in/what role will he fill, and does the amount of money make sense for that role?
Not everyone was healthy during the season for the Reds in 2025 and Nick Martinez still got pushed out of the rotation. With the team looking at Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, Brady Singer, Rhett Lowder, and Chase Burns as starting pitching options as they head into the season it’s tough to think that Martinez has a role as a starter.
It almost never happens that throughout the season a team needs just five starting pitchers. Teams usually use double-digit starters throughout a season, so the fact that the Reds have six guys for five spots isn’t exactly a situation where they don’t “need” more pitchers for depth, but a guy like Martinez is going to be expensive for simply adding your “7th” guy in the starting rotation depth.
But adding Martinez as a reliever who could potentially step into the rotation is not the worst idea. For Martinez, though, that may not be the best thing. If a team is willing to give him a shot to start it also means they are likely going to offer him a bit more money than a team who thinks he’s a quality middle reliever with a “we can use him as our 5th starter if we have to” kind of guy.
This seems like a situation where the Reds probably could use Martinez moving forward, but also a situation where Martinez would likely get more money going somewhere else. Maybe that situation doesn’t develop and he would be more willing to come back in a potential hybrid kind of role. That scenario isn’t going to be one that happens in November or December, though. If it were to happen that way it’s likely going to be a situation that happens much closer to spring training.
Umm. No gracias.
Claro. Yo tampoco
Adios Martinez
Claro, yo tampoco
Puedes decir eso otra vez
Jajaja
My thought is we use Martinez salary to. Fill some holes elsewhere. We should be able to fill Martinez’s role from within the organization.
Given his age and this year’s performance, I can’t imagine a realistic number that Martinez would accept. I’d think the offer would be less than half what he made this year. I think I’d rather take a chance on Littel than Martinez.
As much as I’d like to have him back, I don’t see a scenario where that happens at a reasonable salary for our club.
Best wishes to Nick as he finds a contract that suits him. We know he’s going to be a contributor to whatever team snags him.
I would offer no more than 5 million.
He’s been very good, and will likely still be good, but he’s a bit too far out of the Reds budget and contract length. I expect some team will offer him 2 yrs./$20M, maybe even 3 with a lower AAV.
Can’t see the Reds going over 6M for just next season. Possible, but pretty unlikely.
For $20m? Absolutely not.
For less than $10m? Maybe. He could be useful as a swingman in the bullpen.
But he will probably get signed as a starter by someone willing to pay him starter money, so the pint is moot.
Adios, Nick. Thanks for the fish.
I think there is a worry that Nick will turn into a version of Hunter Strickland or Heath Hembree, which is kind-of clunky for an emerging roster. If he gave them a 2025 reprise, great, but he’s also a threat to clog up the pitching staff. Offer him a contract? I am in the 50-50 group.
No mas Nicky Smiles.
It appears that we are being hit by hackers again today. Looking into it a bit today but please have patience.
I have had some of the long delays for comments to post intermittently over the last week or so, but no complete time out errors.
Checking the logs there doesn’t appear to be any suspicious activity until just about 11am today, going back a month. Since 11am there have been more “calls” for specific data than there has been combined for the previous week.
As with many who have already spoken here, I would not be in favor of bringing Nick Martinez back.
Would we get the 2024 version or the 2025 version? Or….something completely different? Based on the 2024 Nick Martinez, the $21 Mil seemed like a good idea. Based on the 2025 version of Nick, no way would that be a good idea.
Not really a risk I would take as a GM or President of Operations, or whoever is running the show for personnel with the Reds.
Looks like he is projected to earn 14.3M per year for two year contract. I am sure some team with more money to spend will take that on but not the Reds.
I’d say thanks for your services Mr. Martinez… Despite this guy obviously enjoy playing for the Reds, I think he will end up playing for another team, hopefully not in NLCD…
Nick Martinez has been very good for the Reds. The fit remains, if the price is right.
Yep. I like Sean Newcomb as a younger option, but it all comes down to the terms of the contract with Martinez.
No mas but he earned his keep the last 2 years. Will somebody offer him a 2/20? Probably. Will the Reds put the savings on Martinez to get what they really need, a $60 million Big Bopper. Probably Not.
I’ve enjoyed Martinez pitching style. He goes right at it, although the salary to retain him is too much. The Reds have the potential to win it all in the next few years if they can land an offensive bopper probably in the DH position.
He is a great team player but was never worth last year’s salary. I don’t think he will get that much from anyone else. His ERA is lousy!!! I feel that he has value but not worth 20 million per year. We have other greater needs.
$10 M only for a veteran closer.
$2-3 M for setup or 7th inning relievers.
He fit in 2024 and 2025 but not so much in 2026.
Reds pitching was good in 2025. Reds hitting was not.
Fix what’s broken.
Dodgers won but it was a great illustration of why the ghost runner is a stupid rule. This is the way baseball should be played.
Dont you think LDS that the pitching is too dominant these days? It took 5 additional hours to score one run. Battters looked silly up there. Announcers seemed disinterested. Not a good look for the league imo.
Perhaps a renentry rule, such as many youth programs and even up through to some levels of college play, could be developed for use in extra inning games which go past a set number of innings, say, maybe 11(starting in the 12th?).
Allow each team 1 reentry per inning, which could be used on either offense or defense. The player would be placed in his original batting lineup spot but could play anywhere in the field. A player displaced by a player reentering would be eliminated from the game.
IMO, a game that lasts almost seven hours has more than overstayed its welcome, especially a midweek game. MLB needs to capture younger fans who remain in the workforce, and having a marquee game last well past midnight is an epic fail for most in North America.
IMO, it’s time to quit dumbing everything down so that the “younger generation”, i.e, the internet zombies are more engaged with their short attention spans. One of the best things about retirement is that I no longer have to try to get productive work out of 20 somethings with no commitment beyond looking at their phone every five minutes.
LOL, I loved and still love working with 20 and 30-year-olds.
Many find it difficult to look up from their phones even when crossing the street.
Truth in commenting moment for me…. Between being ready for bed myself and getting the dogs out and back in from their last nature call of the day, I lost an out in the Dodgers 13th and thought the Freeman flyout with the bases loaded was a game winning sacrifice fly and clicked the screen off.
When I saw this morning that Freeman had the game winner in the 18th, I thought, “I’m sure that flyout was a flyout, not a home run, and it was “only” the 12th or 13th inning. At the time, I had wondered why the Blue Jays CF had even bothered to catch the ball, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it was the third out. 😉 I guess the moral of the story is to unmute the audio when I have to move away from the screen for more than a couple of seconds.
As much as the Dodgers have this great team and payroll, the one player that makes the most difference is Shohei Ohtani (and the highest paid player in baseball).
Where would they be without him? Sure, they would have another pretty good DH, but he is truly a great player. 2 HR, 2 doubles, a boatload of walks last night. Without him, the Blue Jays would have won it in regulation, 9 innings.
I don’t think Martinez would be interested in what would be potentially offered by the Reds. And rightfully the Reds shouldn’t offer anywhere near what his QO was for 2025. Martinez would be a welcomed addition as his versatility is an asset.
No,,, need the cash to go towards a big bat.
His salary is high for his role
Reds are going to need a a veteran hybrid swing man to fill that role of Martinez the last 2 years to save the bullpen and provide stability to the rotation for the inevitable injuries that will occur.
Jim Bowden has a long article up predicting salaries and years and teams for FA.
Littell is only slotted at 1/$10 million and Martinez is only slotted at 1/$11 million.
Martinez has made $35 million in 2 years and been a valuable stabilizing force on a good pitching staff. I could see him running it back 1 more year in the same hybrid role, innings eater, vet pitching leader. Littell would be ok too at that price point but pure speculation on my part, but I bet he wants a definite starter role and more than 1 year guaranteed.
The devil is always in the details but price point always comes first for the Reds.
Junis is also a good fit for that role, and probably half the cost.
Michael Lorezen is likely about to become a free agent since he has a $12m mutual option with the Royals for 2026. Accordingly, Bowden’s article did not include him among the top 50 FAs but used his likely 2026 salary amount (with whomever) as $7m for 1 year as a comp with Martinez.
ML has done very little relief work since leaving the Reds after 2021. However, if he were amenable to the swing role, he might be willing to take a 1 year deal for less than they would need to tie up in Martinez.
Nick has been a great asset for the Reds the past few years. I don’t think the Reds will pay him enough to keep him around. I could see a team that needs a veteran presence for a rebuilding club try to sign him for maybe 3 years as a starter. We have enough backup starters right now that I think it would be best to take the money, he is making to add to better hitting for the team.
Off Topic what an insane World Series game last night 18 innings geez. That’s like 2 whole games. Sorry to see Toronto lost it but Go Blue Jays and let’s hope they can turn it around today.