Astros sign Alex Bregman to 5 year/$100 million extension:
A lower AAV is driving the timing of a lot of these extensions. The Astros were $23.8 million under the luxury tax line. This will take them with the Pressley deal right up to the line. I think they are using their cap space now so they will have more in later years - and still have the flexibility to go over late in the year if they need to do a trade.
The Phillies did this with their extensions like with Nola. Higher AAV now becomes lower AAV later.
Makes one wonder if AAV or just going back to actual payroll is a better solution here.
Interesting tidbit from Jason Stark:
Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Nolan Arenado:$1.32 billion worth of contracts just for four guys.
Tampa Bay Rays total payroll in franchise history:$1.01 billion worth of contracts - for 21 seasons!
White Sox close to finalizing an extension for uber-prospect Eloy Jimenez:
The next Kingery zero service time deal. Guarantee is almost twice as much ($43 vs $24 million).
Maybe Eloy can actually hit.
Ichiro retires. Kind of wish he was able to get a hit or two in his final game:
Nobody held it against him
Well the Rays have made this one right (much like the Phillies did with Nola)
Another extension close to completion, Goldschmidt and the Cardinals:
Next up for an extension, Chris Sale and the Red Sox:
The rush to include the current low paid year in the multi-year AAV continues.
The way Free agency has gone for some of these guys, we are going to see accepting of the one-year deal or extensions before hitting FA, I bet.
Just shows how important it was to get Harper, and the importance of developing your own stars, or trade bait to bring them in as the Phillies did with Realmuto.
And another extension: Justin Verlander and the Astros, 2 years/$66 million:
This is getting really interesting. I wonder if it will effect Keuchel. If I was a team (including the Phillies) who thought they'd wait to get a FA pitcher next year, well...
Boras also reps Gerrit Cole though so he probably won't get locked up.
Yet another extension, Jacob DeGrom & the Mets, 5 years/$137.5 million:
Unclaimed. He makes too much money. ($2.5 million) for what he gives you (which includes really poor offense lately). According to MLBTR he can reject the assignment but then he loses the contract, his service time is still too low.
Another day, another contract extension announcement, Kyle Hendricks and the Cubs:
