The Royals had themselves a productive weekend. The kind where you re-organize the garage and get your meal prep done for the week before the Sunday Scaries set in. On Friday, news broke that the team was finalizing a deal to extend third baseman Maikel Garcia. The contract spans five years, including all four of Garcia’s arbitration-eligible seasons, with a guaranteed value of $57.5 million that could reach $85 million with options and escalators. He will make $4 million in 2026, $7 million in 2027, $10 million in 2028, $13 million in 2029, and $19 million in 2030, and the team holds a $21 million club option for 2031, with a $3.2 million buyout. Then, following the news of the Garcia signing, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported on Saturday that the Brewers were sending outfielder Isaac Collins and right-handed reliever Nick Mears to the Royals in exchange for left-handed reliever Angel Zerpa. We’ll get into a more detailed discussion of both moves in a minute, but first let’s put this in the larger context of the Royals as an organization.

A lot of sitcoms have that one oddball character that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the cast. The person that requires viewers to suspend their disbelief, because in real life, there’s no way the other main characters would associate with this weirdo. Your Phoebes, your Kramers, your Kimmy Gibblers, etc. These characters are a part of the main cast or have regularly recurring roles, and though they frequently find themselves integrated into the show’s primary conflicts, they’re typically situated off to the side doing their own thing. Writers insist on including these characters because they provide interesting narrative texture to group dynamics. In real life, we tend to gravitate toward like-minded people with common interests, which is great for forming meaningful connections but makes for boring TV.

Fortunately, MLB teams behave more like TV characters than real life besties, which makes for better entertainment. And with 30 teams, the league doesn’t limit itself to just one Phoebe. Several squads are singing about fetid felines and boycotting Pottery Barn, and among them we have the Royals. Kansas City has never seemed tempted to jump on the latest trends in roster construction or follow the crowd as it attempts to implement whatever the “new Moneyball” is at any given point in time. No, the Royals tend to stay true to themselves, even if that means zigging while everyone else zags or using unorthodox tactics to make sure everyone in the organization stays focused on baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Just think how wrong it would’ve felt. Two years from now, watching Salvador Perez, who signed with the Royals as a 16-year-old in 2006, squatting behind the plate in Miami blue. Salvador Perez, who put the “everyday” in “Kansas City Royals everyday catcher” starting in 2012, launching dingers through the thin mountain air in Rockies purple. It’s enough to make you cry, but luckily, this dystopian future has been avoided. According to Anne Rogers of MLB.com, the 35-year-old backstop has signed an two-year extension that will keep in him in Royals Blue through the 2027 season. It’s better this way. The deal is for $25 million, with some deferrals and a $7 million signing bonus.

To be clear, Perez wasn’t at risk of leaving anytime soon. His previous four-year, $82 million deal that started in 2022 had a $13.5 million option for 2026, and general manager J.J. Picollo told reporters in September that the catcher would be returning one way or another. Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors explained the reasons for the deal: “While the specific salary structure and deferrals have yet to be reported, it stands to reason [the Royals will] negotiate a lower ’26 salary than the option value while giving Perez the security of the second guaranteed year.” So it’s the classic extension trade-off. The Royals get a discount and Perez gets an extra year of job security. It also allows him to avoid free agency amid whatever shenanigans occur when the collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2026 season.

That extra year is a big one in terms of increasing the likelihood that Perez retires as a lifelong Royal. One day in the not-too-distant future, we’ll endure a knock-down-drag-out battle about Perez’s worthiness for enshrinement in the Hall of Fame, and we’ll be lucky to live through it. In the meantime, he’s improved his shot at wading into the fray wielding single-team bona fides. As for why the Royals would feel the need to get out in front of things and lock down the age-37 season of a catcher who has exceeded 0.8 WAR just once in the past four years, well, it makes more sense than you think. Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox got to work on their 2026 bullpen over the holiday weekend, signing closer Aroldis Chapman to a contract extension that keeps him in Boston for at least one more season. Chapman’s one-year, $13.3 million deal comes in the form of a $12 million salary for next season, a $1 million signing bonus, and a $300,000 buyout if a $13 million mutual option for 2027 is not exercised. That option becomes guaranteed if he pitches 40 innings in 2026 and passes a physical exam after the season.

After appearing to be in decline for at least a few years and falling out of the conversation of baseball’s top closers — and at times losing the closer’s role altogether — Chapman is dominating in his first season with the Red Sox. Entering play Tuesday, he has a 1.00 ERA and a 1.78 FIP over 54 innings with 77 strikeouts and 14 walks. No, you didn’t misread that last part: Chapman has issued only 14 free passes this season across 54 innings, which works out to a rate of 7.1% and 2.33 BB/9 — by far the lowest marks of his career. Even at his absolute best, Chapman would walk three or four batters per nine innings, a reasonable trade-off for the rest of his skillset. However, as he aged, that control degraded, and from 2021 through 2024, he walked 15% of the batters he faced. So, for him to suddenly put up the best control season of his career, at age 37, is an impressive feat.

ESPN’s Buster Olney talked a bit about how Chapman’s approach changed in the spring, but the basic explanation for what we’re seeing is he has stopped throwing his fastball down the middle. Instead, on the advice of Boston catcher Connor Wong and with the assistance of PitchCom, Chapman is now actually trying to spot his heater. While this is the type of anecdote that sometimes sounds like folklore, the data do suggest that Chapman is suddenly locating his fastball with dramatically more competence than in the past. According to Stuff+, Chapman’s Location+ of 179 for his fastball is the fifth-best number ever tallied (min. 40 innings), compared to the 94 he ran over his past four seasons. His sinker, once a sideshow in his repertoire, has become its focal point in the way the slider once was. This isn’t a sinker thrown to induce a groundball but to be an out pitch, a 100-mph sinker high and outside against righties, high and hard on the hands of lefties. Only one player in Statcast history has ever finished with a better whiff rate on his sinker than Chapman’s 38.9% this season: Josh Hader in 2019 (40.7%) and 2021 (40.5%). Read the rest of this entry »

The Baltimore Orioles came into this year with a few goals. Foremost among them: reach the playoffs, find reliable pitching, and sign some of their young core to contract extensions. Goal one is out of the question. Goal two is up in the air. But goal three? Goal three is going strong after the Orioles and Samuel Basallo agreed to an eight-year, $67 million contract extension, with a team option and escalators that could push the total value to $88.5 million. Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner first reported the deal.

Basallo, currently the third overall prospect in baseball, debuted in the majors last week after a whirlwind tour of the minor leagues. He overpowered A-ball at 18 in 2023, mastered Double-A in 2024, and was hitting .270/.377/.589, good for a 150 wRC+, in Triple-A before the O’s called him up. He’s been far younger than his opposition at every level, and it just hasn’t mattered; his colossal raw power has papered over any weaknesses or growing pains again and again.

Throughout his ascension through the prospect ranks, the biggest question about Basallo has been whether he’ll stick behind home plate or have to move to a less demanding defensive position, likely first base. While Basallo’s offensive performance has been consistently excellent, his defense hasn’t been quite so exciting. A stress fracture in his elbow has slowed him, costing him valuable reps at catcher. He played DH about as frequently as he caught in Triple-A this year, and the same was true in 2024. Read the rest of this entry »

Friends, Red Sox fans, FanGraphs readers, lend me your ears,
I come to analyze the contract extension, not to bemoan it.
The free agency status that teams despise lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their luxury tax penalties.

Here, under leave of Meg and the rest,
For they are honorable editors,
Come ZiPS to speak at Anthony’s signing,
It is my computer, faithful and just to me.

While the Red Sox have quite the mixed record of letting players leave in free agency or trading them before they can sign elsewhere, the organization has been fairly aggressive at signing players with limited service time in order to buy out free agent years in advance. Brayan Bello is signed through 2030, at least if a club option is picked up, and both Kristian Campbell and Ceddanne Rafaela, well short of arbitration status, are under club control into the 2030s. When the Red Sox acquired Garrett Crochet, they didn’t muck around either, making sure he’d be kept in town on a six-year, $170 million contract extension that he signed a few months after the trade.

Now it’s Roman Anthony’s turn. The guaranteed portion of the contract calls for $130 million over eight years, beginning next season, with $125 million total in salary through the 2023 campaign and a $5 million buyout on a $30 million club option for 2034. If the Red Sox pick up the option, the total value of the deal would be nine years and $155 million. There is also a Halloween bucket full of various incentives that could net Anthony a maximum $230 million over the next nine years. However, that high-end figure will be quite hard to meet. As MassLive’s Chris Cotillo points out, for Anthony to earn that $230 million maximum, he would have to finish top two in the Rookie of the Year voting this season, make the All-Star team in all eight seasons of the extension and also in the option year, and win the next nine MVP awards — one for every year of the extension, plus the option season. Nobody has ever won nine MVPs; Barry Bonds has the most, with seven. So, in order to hit every incentive in his new contract, Anthony would have to become, without exaggeration, the best baseball player ever. If, in the pretty-much-impossible event that this happens, the Red Sox would be getting literally the greatest of all time for less money than the Angels are paying Anthony Rendon. Read the rest of this entry »

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. broke off contract talks with the Blue Jays on February 17. It didn’t seem like there was any animus between the two sides at the time, but the four-time All-Star didn’t want to distract himself during his walk year by negotiating all season long. The deadline was arbitrary, but nonetheless immovable. The Blue Jays tested Guerrero’s resolve with a renewed offer on Opening Day, but he held firm.

Then he changed his mind. I try to avoid the impulse to tell baseball players what to do with their careers, but I’ll say this: $500 million is a really, really good reason to abandon one’s previous position.

Guerrero’s $500 million contract extension with the Blue Jays starts next year, runs for 14 years, and contains a full no-trade clause but no opt-outs. The intention, then, is to keep Guerrero in Toronto for the rest of his career. Read the rest of this entry »

They have a ritual out in Arizona. Every three or four years, they repeat it. The team is clicking. The squad is on the rise; the vibes in the desert are good. It’s time to sign their exciting, switch-hitting second baseman to a contract extension. And so, in keeping with tradition, Ketel Marte and the Diamondbacks have agreed to a new extension. The deal is for seven years and $116.5 million, including his $11.5 million player option for the seventh year, but it’s a little more complicated than that, because it replaces four years of an existing deal. Let’s get into the backstory, because as I’ve noted, this isn’t an isolated occurrence for Marte and the Diamondbacks.

In 2018, Marte signed a five-year, $24 million deal. He was a young, talented player still finding his footing in the majors; over the previous three years, split between Seattle and Arizona, he’d hit just .264/.319/.361, good for an 84 wRC+. But he was toolsy and exciting, and a buzzy breakout pick coming into the season. The pact felt like a good one for everyone involved. Marte went from having career earnings of $1.3 million to being rich for life overnight, while the Diamondbacks signed a nice player to a good contract.

Then Marte took off. In 2018, he hit for more power while striking out less. In 2019, he went nova, clubbing 32 homers with a .389 on-base percentage and 150 wRC+ en route to a 6.3-WAR season that garnered him a fourth-place MVP finish. He didn’t quite keep up that pace in the next two years, but from 2019 through 2021, Marte was the 34th-best hitter in baseball per WAR, right around Pete Alonso, Matt Olson, and Manny Machado. A dalliance in center field, where he never quite figured things out, hurt his defensive value. A series of lower-body injuries also hindered both his availability and his explosiveness when he was on the field. But injuries and all, he was the 11th-best hitter in the game by wRC+. We’re talking about a legitimate star, albeit one who played less than a full schedule thanks to his IL stays. Read the rest of this entry »

Kristian Campbell has come a long way in a short time. Less than two years after being drafted by the Red Sox out of Georgia Tech, with just 137 minor league games under his belt, he placed seventh on our Top 100 Prospects list in February, and won the starting second base job during spring training. Now, with just a week of major league service time under his belt, Campbell has agreed to an eight-year, $60 million extension that includes a pair of team options and escalator clauses that can push the contract’s value past the $100 million mark. It’s a deal that provides both security for Campbell and some opportunity for growth, though it’s not hard to notice the much more lucrative extension that the Padres announced for Jackson Merrill on Wednesday as well and wonder whether Campbell should have waited. Either way, the Red Sox have ensured that another talented youngster will be part of their foundation in the coming years.

The 22-year-old Campbell is raking at a .400/.500/.750 (258 wRC+) clip through the first week of his major league career. So far, five of his eight hits have been for extra bases, including a 431-foot homer off the Rangers’ Jacob Webb on Saturday. He celebrated the news of his extension on Wednesday night with a pair of opposite-field doubles off Orioles starter Zach Eflin.

While Campbell was a co-favorite to win AL Rookie of the Year honors in our annual staff poll, nobody expects him to continue at this breakneck pace. Still, buzz about an extension had been circulating in recent days, and while this move isn’t nearly as big as the six-year, $170 million extension the Red Sox announced on Monday for lefty Garrett Crochet, the team clearly views Campbell as an important piece of its future. Read the rest of this entry »

During the offseason, I examined Jackson Merrill’s excellent rookie season and concluded that his next big developmental step would have to involve getting on base more. A week into his sophomore season, we don’t know if Merrill is going to walk more. But if he does, he’ll have plenty of walkin’ around money.

Yeah, I feel good about that little bit of wordplay. Let’s move on.

On Wednesday morning, the Padres announced that they’d signed their precocious young outfielder to a nine-year contract extension. The contract is worth $135 million and kicks in next year, leaving his $809,500 salary intact for 2025, but incentives and an option for 2035 could push the total value of the deal to $204 million. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in December, the Red Sox acquired pitcher Garrett Crochet with the intention of signing him to a long-term contract, and that’s just what they did on Monday, extending the big lefty on a six-year, $170 million deal that kicks off starting in 2026. There’s no deferred money in this deal, nor is there a no-trade clause, though there is a $2 million bonus in the event that he is traded. There is also the typical incentive clause (up to $10 million) for Cy Young Award finishes and an opt-out after 2030. In an extra bit of injury protection, the Red Sox get a $15 million team option and the opt-out disappears if Crochet misses 120 consecutive days to a significant arm injury. Crochet was the main reason to watch about 20% of White Sox games in 2024, as he threw 146 innings over 32 starts, put up a 3.58 ERA, a 2.85 FIP, and 4.7 WAR, and earned his first All-Star selection. He then changed his Sox over the winter in that trade from Chicago to Boston.

I talked a little about this a few weeks ago, when I discussed what I’d do as a brutal despot of MLB. What I demanded — without, as I remind you, any legal authority to do so — was that the Red Sox close the deal with Crochet. The extension was, in my view, one of the most obvious things that should happen in baseball right now. The Red Sox appear to be on the verge of a return to contention, supported by a very good farm system, and they really needed a high-end pitcher for the top of the rotation. Before the extension, Crochet was set to hit free agency after next season, and keeping him around long term was essential for both baseball and public relations reasons; an ace pitcher was unlikely to come cheaper for the 2027 season, and his departure might have opened up old Mookie Betts-related fan wounds that have healed to an extent.

Suffice it to say, ZiPS likes him quite a bit. I discussed the projections for Crochet in the aforementioned article.

After also taking into account his $4.5 million salary for 2025 and the fact that he’s still arbitration eligible for 2026, ZiPS suggests offering Crochet a seven-year, $175 million contract starting this season. That doesn’t need to be Boston’s final offer, but it is a solid framework for what an extension could and should look like. Yes, there are risks, but the Red Sox shouldn’t sit at the high rollers table if they’re not willing to push in their chips.

That projected deal was a bit lighter than his actual six-year, $170 million contract, with the main difference being that I had it going into effect this year, when he’s scheduled to get paid $4.5 million. Projections aren’t static things, however, and Crochet is coming off a dynamite spring in which he struck out 30 batters in 15 2/3 innings and allowed just a single run. He also had a decent, though not amazing, Opening Day start against the Texas Rangers. Spring training and one regular-season start aren’t enough to drastically change most projections, especially for established players, but they do nudge them in one direction or the other. Let’s stuff some stats onto the ZiPS griddle and flip off some projection flapjacks.

With a projected $18.1 million salary in 2026, which would’ve been Crochet’s final season before free agency, ZiPS would offer him a six-year, $176.6 million extension (though in both the previous and current projections, I think ZiPS is being too optimistic on his final arbitration year salary given how large a jump it is). The opt-out clause in Crochet’s new contract isn’t a major one in that it only allows him to exit a year early, so it doesn’t have the same dramatic effect as one after 2026 or 2027 would have.

You could say that this is a lot of money for a pitcher with 224 career innings in the majors, an injury history, and a résumé that was more speculation than results at this time last year. You’d be right that it’s a lot of money, but the projections already factor in these risks. Crochet, with a lengthy track record and a spotless injury history almost certainly would’ve received a larger sum of cash. I actually accounted for this by telling ZiPS to assume that Crochet throws 200 innings in 2025, and to insert pre-injury projections of him as a starter in 2022 and 2023. With that lengthier and more durable track record, ZiPS would project him to get a six-year, $270 million contract! You can look at this actual extension as the Red Sox saving about $100 million for the risks they’re assuming, on top of the injury protection clause in the contract.

Anyway, back to non-imagination Crochet. You should ignore the games started total in the projections, as ZiPS is a little befuddled on his exact usage because of his very unusual workload pattern. More than half his 2024 starts lasted fewer than five innings, as the White Sox were (rightly) extremely careful with him as he was coming off Tommy John surgery and being converted to a starter. The innings totals, though, are far more solid, and this projection is generated based on Crochet never having better than coin-flip odds to qualify for the ERA title. ZiPS projects Crochet to be the fifth-most valuable pitcher in baseball through the 2031 season, behind Tarik Skubal, Logan Webb, Paul Skenes, and Corbin Burnes, and just ahead of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Hunter Greene. Who among those names would you likely get for merely $170 million if they were free agents soon?

Crochet clearly wanted this deal, making public statements last year to the effect that he was seeking a long-term contract no matter where he ended up. The Red Sox clearly wanted this deal; while they have better prospects, I doubt they would have traded Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, and Chase Meidroth if they had zero expectation of extending Crochet. And Red Sox fans ought to have wanted this deal. Crochet is a true no. 1 starter who, in just six years, is projected to become the fifth-most valuable lefty in Red Sox history. The last day of March 2025 was a good day for the Boston Red Sox.