Photo: Redleg Nation Staff
Four Cincinnati Reds players earned bonuses for their performance in the 2025 season according to the Associated Press. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, pre-arbitration players can earn additional money from a “bonus pool” that every team in baseball contributes equally to and is worth $50,000,000. That money is then handed out based on certain MLB Awards and then an unspecified WAR calculation that was agreed to between MLB and the MLBPA to the top 100 players among that group.
Elly De La Cruz got the largest bonus among the four Reds players who got a part of that bonus pool money. He earned an additional $631,080 after playing in all 162 games and hitting .264/.336/.440 with 60 extra-base hits and 37 stolen bases. That is almost as much as he made from Cincinnati for his season as he was making the league minimum. In 2025 that was just $760,000.
Andrew Abbott, who made his first All-Star team in 2025, also got a sizeable bonus from the pre-arb bonus pool. The left-handed starter had his best season as a big leaguer and earned himself $520,065 on top of his league minimum salary after going 10-7 with a 2.87 ERA in 166.1 innings pitched for the Reds.
Center fielder TJ Friedl got in on the bonus pool money this year, too. He played in 152 games and hit .261/.364/.378 with 22 doubles, two triples, and 14 home runs for Cincinnati. That got him an extra $439,167 at the end of the year to go along with his league minimum salary.
The final player from the Reds who got a bonus was second baseman Matt McLain. 100 players qualify for the bonus pool and McLain was the 99th player on the list. As such, he got a lower bonus than everyone but one other player. McLain played in 147 games and hit just .220/.300/.343 but had 33 extra-base hits and went 18-for-20 in stolen base attempts. Depending on where you look, he also was one of the more valuable defensive second baseman in the game. That got him a bonus of $206,056 to go along with his league minimum salary.
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