One such item would be where to bat Schwarber in the lineup in relation to Bryce Harper. Much has been made this offseason about Harper seeing the least amount of pitches in the zone of any qualified hitter in MLB.

The MLB Winter Meetings were not kind to Mets fans. One day after Edwin Díaz fled Flushing to join the Dodgers, Pete Alonso took a monster five-year, $155 million contract with the Orioles.

Had Schwarber taken the Reds' deal, the quickest way to shed salary would be to trade from their pool of arbitration-eligible players.

How serious were Reds? "I would say that they were not pulling (my) chains, and they were wanting to try to get me to Cincinnati," Schwarber said.

On Tuesday, after Kyle Schwarber had agreed to a new five-year, $150 million deal to return to the Philadelphia Phillies, it was reported by Jeff Passan of ESPN.com that the Reds were not able to offer what other teams were.

Williams: The Cincinnati Reds legitimately tried to land Kyle Schwarber. Despite failing, it's a positive sign they're serious about winning.

On Wednesday, The Athletic named Cincinnati a potential suitor for both Brandon Lowe and Ketel Marte.

Kyle Schwarber talked to a lot of people the past couple months. The conversations started in Philadelphia. He had a good chat with Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski shortly after the Phils’ season ended in disappointment in October at Dodger Stadium.