Philly Front Office

UPDATE: Vlad Guerrero!

Over the last week there have been a flurry of contract extensions given out throughout baseball. None of which have been for the home team. You can read my thoughts on possible Phillies extensions here, including how JT has us by the balls. At least by the looks of things below, none of them have changed Realmuto’s market.

Vladamir Guerrero Jr. – 14/$500m – Toronto Blue Jays

Vladdy will not be breaking up with the Blue Jays after previously thinking their differences were irreconcilable. The crazy part of this deal is how ordinary it is. There is no deferred compensation like Shohei Ohtani meaning the AAV is a straight $35.7m and Vladdy will get all his money as earned. There are no opt-out clauses meaning he won’t cash in again like Manny Machado. There is a no trade clause so it won’t be like the Marlins signing Giancarlo Stanton; these two are married for the life of this deal. It is very much like Bryce Harper’s deal with the Phillies, just bigger.

When Juan Soto signed his deal, people in the industry were immediately afraid that it had becomes the new normal, that players like Guerrero were going to try to reach those same heights. Apparently not. This puts him right in the middle of the two outliers (Soto and Ohtani) but ahead of the rest (Trout, Betts, and Judge). It makes sense too. He just turned 26 and has triple crown level talent. Granted he hasn’t been the steady producer of a young Trout or Betts, but he also is making less than them when you consider inflation from the time of their deals. Trout’s $426m deal in 2019 is the equivalent to a $532 now. Even Alex Bregman will be making more the next few years than Vladdy.

Of course, the difference between the contract and the rest of the higher value guys is the 14 year period. Trout, Harper, and Betts made this trend popular when they signed for 12, 13, and 12 years respectively. They were all topped by Soto’s 15 years. Teams sign these life pacts in order to give out big dollars while lowering the AAV for tax purposes. They know the ends of the contracts will not be productive, but money will not be as valuable then anyway. This seems like a fair deal for everyone involved.

Aside from the obvious, there is one clear winner and one clear loser in this extension. The winner is Kyle Tucker. He now becomes the far and away best player in free agency next season. Maybe he was thinking somewhere in the $400m range before, but he now has a legitimate shot at using Guerrero’s deal as his floor. He is older, and while not as fearsome at the plate, is better rounded. I don’t think he is worth more than Vladdy, but he will have a better market because… The loser is the NY Mets. This is partly me trying to stick it to them, but the Pete Alonso negotiations made it clear that they had their eyes on Vladdy the whole time. Going Lindor, Soto, Guerrero would have been the scariest top 3 in baseball history. They will probably look to overpay Tucker now.

Ketel Marte – 7/$116.5m – Arizona Diamondbacks

This deal is misleading. It includes the 4 years of contract Marte still has left, so it is more like a 3/$64m contract but with nifty incentives spread throughout the full length of the deal. If he finishes top-3 in MVP voting, each subsequent year gets bumped by $3m. A 4-6 MVP finish bumps up each subsequent year by $2m. He can also reach $2.5m in annual plate appearance bonuses. Marte can cut out one year early on the deal if he wants, forfeiting his final $11.5m+ year’s salary. There are significant deferrals in the contract, totaling $46m. This lowers the yearly tax hit and gives the Diamondbacks some cash wiggle room. The motivation of the deal might have been tax manipulation, but it works.

This is a very strange extension. Marte is 31, already under contract for awhile longer, and coming off damn good production. Marte had his best season last year finishing 3rd in MVP voting and bashing 36 homers. Could it be that a team just wants to reward a player for doing well? That’s unheard of! Someone tell Atlanta you are allowed to do this. The deal will keep Marte in Arizona until at least 2030 and his age 36 season. Since he wasn’t close to free agency, this seems like a solid way to keep everyone happy going forward.

Kristian Campbell – 8/$60m – Boston Red Sox

This is an Atlanta special right here. Campbell is one of the top prospects in baseball and part of a triumvirate in Boston expected to lead the team into a new era. We have no idea how his career is going to go, but if he hits, this is an insane value for the life of the deal. Like all of the Atlanta specials, this deal includes two club option years. If both are exercised, this becomes a 10/$96m deal.

Young players do these deals because they lock in their futures in case of injury or ineffectiveness, but they are possibly leaving considerable money on the table. Campbell is a second baseman by trade. For comparison, let’s look at Luis Arraez who is known to be defensively challenged, but has a few batting titles under his belt and a solid but not crazy average WAR. Arraez was a super-2 guy meaning he was eligible for 4 years of arbitration instead of 3. In his 6 years, he has made $34m. Campbell will make a guaranteed $27m over the same amount of time, albeit money now is worth less than it was then, so the difference is much more. If Campbell plays even average defense (he will), his value will be considerably more than Arraez.

Those arb years aren’t the problem though. With no extension, he would have hit free agency before he turned 28, 2 years before the current high-water mark for 2nd basemen Marcus Simien. At age 30, Simien signed a 7/$175m contract. A solid career makes Campbell even more marketable than that considering inflation. Instead, Campbell won’t hit free agency until he turns 32. He could still get a nice second contract at that point, but his prime years would be over. Ask Ozzie Albies or Ronald Acuna how they feel about this? Both would have hit free agency right after MVP Level seasons. Instead, they are making criminally low salaries in Atlanta (Albies especially, there is no one in baseball with a worse contract than him). Both did not roll the dice and probably lost out on hundreds of millions of dollars. Of course, then there is also famously extended Phillie Scott Kingery who was not so successful but kept his $24m.

Jackson Merrill – 9/$135m – San Diego Padres

Merrill cashed in off a fantastic rookie season last year. He was a good prospect, but no one saw a 4.5 WAR season as a 21 year old. This deal has a ton of incentives that could get the total up to $200m+ including an option for a $30m 10th season. Even if it never gets that high, it is still more than double the guarantee that Campbell received. Granted, Merrill already did it for a year, but still. The extension does not kick in until next year, meaning Merrill will hit free agency at age 31 at the earliest. He could obviously blow up and be the next Kyle Tucker who might get $500m this year. It’s not GREAT, but it isn’t the worst either.

Garrett Crochet – 6/$170m – Boston Red Sox

Crochet was acquired from the White Sox by Boston in the off-season. On one hand, he has a long injury history and pitched less than 150 innings last season to a 3.50 ERA. On the other, he struck out 200+ and walked only 33 batters. WTF! The Phillies were very much in on him last year and this winter, but Boston got their man. Now that man got paid. This deal buys out next season of arbitration and 5 years of free agency.

The one oddity of this contract is if there is an injury that causes him to miss 120 days of a season. This would actually add an additional club option for $15m at the end of the contract as well as void his opt out after the 2030 season.

The contract puts Crochet on top of the second level of pitchers. Ohtani is way on top, but that’s a little different. In the pitcher-only top tier Zack Wheeler, deGrom, Snell, Cole, and Burnes are all making between $35-$42m AAV. Below them in the $27m tier is Glasnow, Fried, Yamamoto, and Carlos Rodon. Crochet comes in at $28m. I can’t blame a guy with pretty severe injury history to take life changing money, but he would have been 7/$250+ with another good season.

Brandon Pfaadt – 5/$45m – Arizona Diamondbacks

Phillies fans remember Pfaadt for throwing all of his pitches out of the zone in the playoffs and us chasing every single one of them. This deal buys out 4 arbitration years and at least one free agent year. Like so many other pre-arb extensions, this one comes with a club option for another year and then a mutual option for the next year. These options are for $21m and $25m respectively. He ends up locking in $24m for his arb years. Despite his playoff performance 2 years ago, Pfaadt still has a WAR of ZERO for his career. He seems like he has the potential to be a good arm, but so far the results haven’t been consistent. Maybe both the team and the player felt there was a lot of pressure on him and decided to work to get a deal done so he didn’t have to worry about it?

Cal Raleigh – 5/$99.4m – Seattle Mariners

This is being reported as a 6/$105m deal but that includes this season. The reason for this? Luxury tax manipulation. The Mariners get to report this deal as $17.5m per year on the tax sheet instead of the $20m it really is. I’m not mad at them for it, but it does drag down the catcher market just a bit. Before this contract was signed, I was wholly unfamiliar with Raleigh’s game. He’s a 28 year old catcher who has hit 91 homers over the last three seasons. His batting average is Schwarber-ish, but without the gaudy walk totals. Still, for a good defensive catcher to be able to pop off homers like that? That’s an incredible bonus to a lineup.

What I don’t like about the deal is the continued suppression of the catcher market. Outside of JT Realmuto, Salvador Perez, and Yadier Molina before them, catchers simply have not been getting paid. Sean Murphy signed below market with the Braves, getting about $15m post arb per season and Will Smith signed a 10/$140m monstrosity that technically sees him average $14m per season, but comes with $50m in deferred money and a much longer time frame to keep the average down. I get why he did that, but JT is about to get another contract and Raleigh will be eligible at age 33-34 ($20m option) whereas Smith is locked in. Smith’s contract is good for him and good for the Dodgers, but bad for the overall catcher market. At least Raleigh is a step in the right direction, even if clearing $20m AAV should have been the outcome. At least he will be making over $24m per season toward the end of the deal.

Alejandro Kirk – 5/$58m – Toronto Blue Jays

Raise your hand if you thought Alejandro Kirk was going to anchor a potent Blue Jays lineup a few years ago? In 2022, Kirk hit .285 and was a 4 WAR player with more walks than strikeouts. His offensive production has not continued. He still doesn’t strike out very much and he is great behind the plate, but Kirk has settled in to being a solid glove first catcher who isn’t a black hole at the plate but also isn’t going to be hitting in the 3-4-5 spots.

For this, he is getting solidly paid. Kirk is only 26 and had a year of control left. He is basically getting what Will Smith got with the Dodgers, albeit with much less guaranteed. Kirk will make about $12.5m per year post arb, which is about what Smith gets in current value considering his deferrals. Kirk wasn’t going to be the one to bust the market.

Thank you to MLB Trade Rumors for getting all the details. They are the best.