Who could the Reds cut before today’s non-tender deadline?

The non-tender deadline is (update) 5pm ET on Friday afternoon. So what exactly does it mean to non-tender someone? Players on the 40-man roster are technically under contract for next season. Their salary, though, may not yet be set. Pre-arbitration players will make the league minimum. Players who are arbitration eligible will either head to arbitration and argue their case against the team for their salary or will come to a “new contract” and avoid going to an arbitration case.

To non-tender someone, though, would be to say that we do not want this player on our team next year. So they non-tender the player rather than tender them that 2026 contract. This is almost always about money. Usually players get non-tendered who are arbitration eligible because the team believes the system will require them to pay more for that player than the team either wants to pay them or believes that they are worth. If a player is non-tendered they become a free agent.

MLB Trade Rumors published their list of non-tender candidates around MLB. They had three Cincinnati Reds players among their list: Infielder Gavin Lux, outfielder Will Benson, and reliever Sam Moll. Last year the Reds only non-tendered one player – Ian Gibaut. They would eventually re-sign him to a minor league deal in February.

Gavin Lux is projected to make $5,000,000 next season in arbitration if the team keeps him around. Will Benson is projected to get a raise to $1,700,000 for 2026 through arbitration. And Sam Moll is projected to get a raise to $1,200,000 if he’s kept around and heads to arbitration.

Cincinnati would potentially save $5,560,000 if the projected arbitration numbers are spot on perfect and they were to non-tender these three and also replace them on the roster with players making the league minimum (which is $780,000 in 2026).

With these specific players the question is about how they have performed, how they should be expected to perform, and can the team replace them and get better production and or value from someone else.

Gavin Lux was a below-replacement level player in 2025 according to the Baseball Reference version of WAR (-0.2 WAR), and slightly better than a replacement level player according to the Fangraphs version of WAR (0.3 WAR). Lux was roughly a league average hitter who has a good average and on-base percentage, but showed very little power. The big detractor in his value is that both places agreed that he was a terrible defensive player in 2025. While he’s never been regarded as a good defensive player he was nearly seven times worse in value in 2025 than he was in his previous worse season. That kind of change does make you question just how valid it was in 2025 and if it’s something you should expect to happen again.

Will Benson is kind of a highly debated kind of player within certain Reds fan circles. His “hit metrics” look good. He hits the ball hard and the highly questionable but often cited “expected” stats on those batted balls say he should be finding success at the plate. But when you look at what he’s actually done at the plate, it’s not great. In 2025 he hit .226 and had a .273 on-base percentage while mostly facing right-handed pitchers. The year before he struggled, too, hitting .187 with a .274 on-base percentage.

And then there’s Sam Moll. He pitched well in both 2023 and 2024 with Cincinnati. But in 2025 he struggled. He made the team out of spring training, but gave up four runs in 2.0 innings to start the season and was sent to the injured list. A week later he began a rehab assignment with Louisville and spent the full 30 days with them he was allowed, then he was optioned there and remained with the Bats for the next five weeks. He returned to the Reds in July and then stayed with them for two months, but on September 2nd he was sent back to Triple-A where he remained for the rest of the season.

With the Reds his ERA was 6.38 on the year while throwing 18.1 innings. In Triple-A his ERA was 5.00 while throwing 27.0 innings. Moll will also be 34-years-old next season. The team didn’t trust him in a playoff run in September. The writing may very well be on the wall here, but stranger things have happened than retaining him and hoping he can get back to where he was two and three seasons ago.