The idea of paying some $10 million for a 5th starter type isn’t wholly outlandish. Heck, you only have to go back to last year to see the Cincinnati Reds paid Alex Wood nearly that much to throw just over 35 IP, and even if he’d been healthy he’d have slotted somewhere towards the back-end of their stellar rotation.
Still, it’s yet to be determined whether Kevin Gausman has a future as a starter in the big leagues at all, much less in a crowded Reds rotation heading into 2020. And if he’s slated to be a reliever - and not even the team’s most high-leverage reliever - paying that much seems a bit more than the market rate.