Mariners, Julio Rodriguez agree to extension

4:37 pm: Rosenthal adds some additional details (All Across Twitter): The club option is worth at least eight years and $200 million, but it will climb to $240 million over eight years with top-ten or three-time finishers, to $260 million over eight years with four top-ten finishes and to $280 MM over eight years if he wins the MVP title and finishes in the top five again or He finished in the top five on the Most Valuable Player poll on three occasions. Option value could escalate to $350 million over ten years with two MVP wins or Four times in the top five.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez’s five-year $90 million player option (which only takes effect if Padres buys the team option) could escalate to $125.5 million based on his endings in a Silver Slugger vote and All-Star appearances. The deal also includes a $15 million singing reward.

2:32 pm: The contract will also contain a complete no-trade clause, Tweets Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.

1:14 pm: ESPN’s Jeff Passan provides a breakdown of what is already a very complex structure (Twitter theme). The contract actually begins in the current season, and Rodriguez guarantees $120 million over the next eight years, until 2029. After the seventh year of the contract, the sailors must decide whether to effectively re-extend Rodriguez for eight or ten years, with size and value ” This long-term club option depends on how Rodriguez ends up in the MVP vote for the first seven seasons of the decade.

At the very least, Seattle will decide whether to extend the contract for eight years and another $200 million, but the option can grow to up to ten years and $350 million in extra money (most likely, with multiple MVP wins). This will push the contract to 18 years and $470 million in total value.

If the sailors do not exercise their multi-year option after year seven, Rodriguez will have a five-year player option worth $90 million that he can exercise after year eight of the contract. That $90 million figure is guaranteed money (as are all player options), and therefore the $210 million guaranteed portion of the deal. This structure indicates that, contrary to initial reports, the secured portion of the deal extends to 13 years. This may also indicate a maximum of 18 years, as opposed to the 20 years previously reported.

There is, of course, a scenario where Mariners do not opt ​​for an 8- to 10-year “club option”, and Rodriguez also rejects a five-year, $90 million “player option”, which would then allow him access to free agency after eight years, when he heads into his campaign. At the age of thirty.

11:44 am: The Mariners are locking up one of the sport’s brightest young stars on a record contract as they are said to have agreed a 14-year, $210 million contract extension with AL Rookie of the Year nominee Julio Rodriguez. The deal is said to contain player and club options that could extend the term of the contract and push the total value upwards of $450 million. Rodriguez represents the octagon.

Rodriguez, 21, broke camp with the Mariners this season, and after two grueling weeks to start the year, he shot to stardom immediately and established himself as one of the frontrunners for the Rookie of the Year awards. He currently hits .269/.328/.471 with 20 home runs, 19 doubles, triples and 23 steals (in 29 attempts)—plus above-average defensive contributions in the center field.

Those numbers are at least slightly skewed due to a poor start to the year that Rodriguez fought .136/.208/.159 with a 45% strike rate. Dating April 22, Rodriguez has mashed up a .285/.342/.508 clip. This production is about 46% better than the league average after park and league weight, on the WRC+ scale, putting Rodriguez in a three-way tie with Alex Bergman It was also recently extended Austin Riley Ranked 12th among the best qualifying hitters in the league. Rodriguez also ranks 13th in both average exit speed (92 mph) and hardest hit rate (49.6%) in that time, and his 14.9% barrel average at this stretch is MLB’s ninth best mark.

Add the fact that he did all this at the age of 21 and after skipping Triple A altogether, and Rodriguez’s rookie season is even more awesome. Given this youth and lack of underage seasoning, it’s entirely possible that while Rodriguez is already among the best hitters in the game, we haven’t yet seen his best.

From a defensive standpoint, Rodriguez has held more than his midfield position this season, turning positive marks into defending points saved (2), absolute area rating (0.3), and averaged (5). Several survey reports prior to his MLB debut suggested that as Rodriguez gets older and continues to fill in, he could be destined for a hole in the outer corner, but given his raw strength of 70 or even 80 degrees and the hard work he’s done in the center this In the season, he will have the bats and the defensive pieces will likely be an above-average contributor to the right or left field.

The $210 million guarantee on this contract will give Rodriguez the record for the largest contract signed by a player with less than a year of Major League service time. This distinction currently belongs to Rays shortstop Franco’s walkwho signed an 11-year contract worth $182 million last November.

Rodriguez would easily drop this sign, even though it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Franco was not promoted until mid-season and his deal was signed in the winter, when Rays left six full seasons of club control over him. With Rodriguez on the opening day roster, he will have a full year of service in 2022 and will have “only” five additional years of club control remaining. In this respect, Rodriguez could technically be considered more of a one-plus player (between one and two years of service time), although even when viewing the contract through this lens, it’s still a record-breaking deal; K Brian Hayes“The $70 million Pittsburgh extension was the previous record for a player with one to two years in service.

Whatever class of service one thinks applies more appropriately to Rodriguez, this new 14-year deal now stands as the largest contract ever pledged for a player with less than two years of Major League service time. In that aspect, Rodriguez and the Major League Baseball Players Association are sure to be delighted to see the former stretches of young stars move forward.

After all that said, there is still a possibility that the contract will be in favor of the sailors. Rodriguez’s earnings will likely be close to the league’s minimum salary for the next two seasons (plus any payments from the collectively negotiated bonus pool to players prior to arbitration). A player with early difficulty and dominance would probably do well in judging, and while we can never tell exactly How much is earned through this process, arbitration is generally based on precedent. Find recent comparisons, Mocky Pets He earned $57.5 million for the three seasons of judging. Putting Rodriguez in that wide area, his remaining five years of club control could have netted him somewhere in the $60 million range – perhaps a few more million if he picked up the Homecoming Player of the Year award and/or pushed the Bates precedent a little further. .

If the Betts is even an inaccurate yardstick for Rodriguez’s judging, the Mariners are looking to lock up what would have been nine agent-free seasons at a total cost in the $150 million range. That $16.67 million annual value obviously pales in comparison to what Rodriguez would have made in the open market had he gone year-to-year and hit the free agent market before his 27-year season, but that’s the nature of an early contract extension. Clearly, there is a significant risk of injury or underperformance for Rodriguez, all of which are included in the relative discount rate for those open market seasons.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that if the contract contains player options and/or opt-out clauses, as Passan suggests, Rodriguez could hit the “eject” button on the deal and get into a free agency at an early date anyway. The $210 million figure is his guaranteed minimum if he plays a 14-year term for this deal, but opting out in his late twenties or early thirties can change his calculus (as can any prize-based incentives/escalators and club choices – which are Usually bargaining for all of them in extensions of this kind).

From a team salary standpoint, there is plenty of room for Seattle to make such a commitment. Much of the recent team rebuilding has been devoted to removing the long-term clutter from the books – for example, Robinson Kano Trade – and the team’s long-term commitments are now fairly minimal. the left Ruby Ray He was signed during the 2026 season, as is Shortstop GB CrawfordBut they’ll only be raising $37 million at that point. This would only have been Rodriguez’s fifth major league season, so it’s possible that the salaries in his contract have not escalated to extremes.

Looking at the short term, books are still relevant, too. Sailors, who will see veterans Mitch Hanniger And the Adam Fraser Access to free agency at the end of the season, and you had just over $63 million in guaranteed money on your 2023 payroll prior to this decade. This number does not include an $8 million option for righty Chris Flexenand does not include a handful of arbitration effects: Luis Castillo (earned $7.35 million this season), Diego Castillo ($2.315 million), Paul Swald ($1.735 million), Ty France (before erb) and Eric Swanson (before Arb). However, Rodriguez’ salary numbers will be pretty low in the first few seasons of the deal, so it shouldn’t affect the team’s bottom line at all in 2023.

It’s a momentous day in Mariners history, and one that drives powerfully into the organization’s “win now” mentality as it heads toward a post-season berth that would break a two-decade drought – currently the longest in major professional sports in North America. There are risks to both parties, but the contract is a continuation of the ever-increasing trend of expanding young stars with nine-figure rates guaranteed to a player full of prime. The decade also seals in on Rodriguez as the new face of Baseball Mariners for the next decade and beyond, ensuring them a charismatic, marketable superstar around whom they can build the roster and sell the product to their fan base.

MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez first mentioned The two sides are close to an extension of more than $200 million guaranteed, with a total value of up to $450 million. Jeff Bassan from ESPN mentioned Contract term and exact warranty. USA TODAY Bob Nightingale mentioned The agreement was in place.