{"id":948085,"date":"2026-10-31T22:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T22:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/948085\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T22:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T22:40:09","slug":"reds-decline-mutual-options-for-eugenio-suarez-pierce-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/948085\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds Decline Mutual Options For Eugenio Su\u00e1rez, Pierce Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Reds have declined their 2027 mutual options for third baseman Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a> and right-hander Pierce Johnson<\/a>, the team announced. Both players are now free agents, leaving the Reds with five openings on their 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

Neither decision comes as a surprise, especially considering it has been over a decade since both a team and a player triggered a mutual option. Su\u00e1rez\u2019s $16MM option did not come with a buyout. Meanwhile, the Reds chose to pay Johnson a $1MM buyout in lieu of the $8MM they would have owed him had both sides exercised the option.<\/p>\n

Unless the 35-year-old Su\u00e1rez sticks around on a new deal, this will wrap up his second stint in Cincinnati. The right-handed slugger previously played there from 2015-21, when he put together three seasons of at least 4.0 fWAR and two with 30-plus home runs. He also earned his first of two All-Star nods during that stretch.<\/p>\n

The Reds first moved on from Su\u00e1rez when they sent him<\/a> (and outfielder Jesse Winker<\/a>) to the Mariners in a blockbuster trade three weeks before the 2022 season opened. He then spent two seasons with Seattle and one and a half in Arizona, which traded him back to the Mariners ahead of the 2025 deadline. Between the D-backs and AL pennant-winning Mariners last year, Su\u00e1rez swatted 49 homers for the second time in his career and slashed .228\/.298\/.526. Despite a low batting average and on-base percentage, he put up a solidly above-average wRC+ of 125.<\/p>\n

The Reds likely expected more of the same from Su\u00e1rez when they guaranteed him $15MM last offseason, but the move didn\u2019t pan out as hoped. When the All-Star break rolled around in mid-July, Su\u00e1rez owned a dismal .208\/.285\/388 line. Thanks in part to his struggles, the Reds were sitting on a 43-52 record then. Su\u00e1rez woke up in a big way from August onward, as he recorded an .852 OPS that month and a .935 mark in September, but the Reds finished 75-87 and fell miles short of a second straight playoff berth. In late August, a month before their season ended, the Reds placed<\/a> Su\u00e1rez on revocable waivers. They would have saved around $2.5MM had somebody claimed him, but the rest of the league passed.<\/p>\n

More to come\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Reds have declined their 2027 mutual options for third baseman Eugenio Su\u00e1rez and right-hander Pierce Johnson, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,6105,591,10543,85],"class_list":["post-948085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-eugenio-suarez","tag-mlb","tag-pierce-johnson","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}