The Reds officially announced the signing of third baseman Jeimer Candelario to a three-year contract with a club option for 2027. Candelario, a client of Premier Talent Sports and Entertainment, is guaranteed $45MM. The option could take the total to four years and $60MM.

Candelario, 30, is coming off one of the finest seasons of his career, having turned in a combined .251/.336/.471 batting line with 22 home runs (a career-high), 39 doubles, three triples and an 8-for-9 showing in stolen base attempts. That production came in a season split between the Nationals, who signed him to a one-year $5MM deal after the Tigers non-tendered him last winter, and the Cubs, who originally signed Candelario, traded him to Detroit in 2017, and reacquired him this past July.

Prior to his big league debut, Candelario was a touted prospect who ranked near the top of the farm systems in both Chicago and Detroit. He enjoyed an impressive rookie showing in 2017 (.283/.359/.425 in 38 games) but struggled to replicate that production in 2018 and saw his offense crater in 2019. Candelario bounced back with the Tigers both in 2020 and 2021, but Detroit cut him loose after a down year in 2022, wherein he posted a .217/.272/.361 slash in 467 plate appearances. Though Candelario’s time with the Tigers came to an unceremonious end, the switch-hitter has now played at a roughly three- to four-WAR pace in three of his past four seasons between the 2020 season, when he hit .297/.369/.503 in the shortened 60-game campaign, and his strong showings in 2021 and 2023.

That performance has positioned him nicely as one of the offseason’s top positional free agents. MLBTR ranked him thirteenth on our annual Top 50 MLB free agents list while projecting him for a four-year, $70MM deal. Only Shohei Ohtani, Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, and Teoscar Hernandez ranked higher than Candelario among free agent position players this offseason. Our projection came in higher than Candelario’s actual guarantee, which saw him receive a slightly lower AAV and one less guaranteed year than we projected him for.

While the Reds are an unexpected fit for Candelario at first glance, given the club’s glut of young infield talent, they were first linked to him several weeks ago. Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer reported this morning that the Reds met with Candelario’s reps twice during this week’s Winter Meetings and could look to add Candelario to the roster, thus pushing utilityman Spencer Steer to the outfield and possibly opening the door for the Reds to deal an infielder for rotation help. With Candelario, Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain and Christian Encarnacion-Strand all seemingly lined up for regular playing time on the infield dirt, it’s possible that Jonathan India or Noelvi Marte could find themselves dangled in trade talks as the odd man out, with the other likely getting regular reps at DH.

That the Reds are poised to enjoy such an embarrassment of riches around their infield could certainly behoove them if they look to trade from their depth to address other areas of need on the roster. This offseason’s positional class of free agents is among the weakest of the past several years, and has left plenty of teams on the lookout for potential upgrades to their lineup. The Reds, by contrast, are in need of pitching upgrades (even after landing right-handers Nick Martinez and Emilio Pagan late last month) after posting the league’s third-worst rotation ERA (5.73) and landing in the bottom six in terms of overall team ERA (4.83).

To that end, it’s hardly a surprise that the Reds have been connected to the likes of right-handers Tyler Glasnow of the Rays, Shane Bieber of the Guardians, and Dylan Cease of the White Sox in trade talks this offseason. Any of those front-of-the-rotation arms would represent a major improvement over Cincinnati’s current rotation, which currently figures to be headlined by youngsters Hunter Greene and Andrew Abbott. If the Reds are indeed successful in leveraging their excess infield depth to land an ace-caliber arm for the rotation, signing Candelario will have allowed the club to make such a deal without dealing more significant damage to a promising young core of hitters, similarly to how the Marlins shored up their rotation depth by signing Johnny Cueto just days before shipping Pablo Lopez to Minnesota in a package that brought back Luis Arraez last winter.

While the $15MM average annual value of Candelario’s deal makes the club’s new infielder their most expensive asset, the signing only boosts the Reds’ projected payroll to $86MM for 2024, according to RosterResource. That’s roughly in line with the payroll the club ended the 2023 season with, and a far cry from their all-time high of $126MM (per Cot’s Baseball Contracts) back in 2019. In other words, the Reds should have plenty of room to make additional moves to shore up the club on the heels of an 82-win 2023 season that saw them finish just two games back of an NL Wild Card spot, even after adding Candelario to the mix.

Mike Rodriguez first reported the Reds and Candelario were in advanced discussions. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand was first to report an agreement had been reached. Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer reported the three-year, $45MM guarantee with a fourth-year club option that could tack on another $15MM.