Who, aside from Casas, would be a good candidate for an extension? Crawford? Pivetta? Houck? Duran?
Who Should The Sox Extend?
- Thread starter Hank Scorpio
- Start date
Rob Bradford had a tweet earlier in spring training where he reported that Houck and the Red Sox had talked extension but nothing was imminent. So perhaps him.
I would also explore an extension for Pivetta. They’ll need innings next year, too.
I agree on Pivetta. To me, Pivetta and Casas are the only two I’d be trying to extend right now.
The thing keeping me from wanting to extend Pivetta is his age. He's adding new pitches, too, that will cause him probably to need to torque his elbow more. It's possible he stays healthy, of course, but he seems like a candidate for an arm injury pretty soon.
I don't think it would be long term. Maybe 33/3, starting this year (so effectively 24.5 mil for the next two years, with a 3.5 mil raise for this year kicked in).
Pivetta seems like an interesting test of the tension between the right mechanics and the wrong age. I'm very curious about how that plays out.
fWIW, Fangraphs has his value around $15M last year, and roughly that averaged out over the last three seasons. 3/33 seems like a hard no from him this close to free agency, and with his current role probably elevating his value unless he goes off the rails.
https://www.fangraphs.com/players/nick-pivetta/15454/stats#value
Then maybe a bit more. But that’s the model. Take advantage of the fact that he’s otherwise locked into 7.5 for this year.
Yeah, maybe he takes 3/$42? Although I wonder if he's in bet-on-myself mode, in which case he just wants to hit the market.
That seems high — a 2 year 34.5 mil extension after this year?
But we agree on the structure — Bres and Pivetta’s agent can hammer out the exact $$
Defo agree on the concept and I'd love just a straight up 3-year deal total, but because of the years involved it could be tricky for Pivetta. You could do a mutual option for a fourth year maybe, if you are buying out his prime. Or you could call it four with an opt-out after 3. Lots of options. His age 32-33 seasons will represent his peak earning power. 3/45 I'm pretty sure he would take, and worry about the next contract later. But less than that, it might require a bit more security in potential years.
A 3 year / $42m extension to Nick Pivetta? Is this bizarro SOSH? I think you have to at least see how he looks the first half of the year, don’t you? Is there really a fear of him pricing himself much beyond that, “worst case”?
If you believe Fangraphs he's already been worth more than that in his last three seasons. We need pitching. He's in his prime. Retaining your guys is probably a healthy strategy compared to the alternatives.
Also to answer your question, yes there is. He would take it as a sign of lack of faith, and if he's two months from free agency, no way he signs anything.
I thought it was a touch high. But only a touch. Look at what Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo got. Mediocre innings eaters aren't cheap in FA.
Wacha has 3.5 bWAR the last two seasons, Pivetta 4.9. He's above their stature, and younger. But if they aren't in the exact same neighborhood, it's just a few blocks north.
Seth Lugo just signed a 3/45 deal. Not sure that 3/42 for Pivetta is bizarre in comparison.
I’d go 3/48 for Pivetta. Roll the dice on a guy who can eat innings, we’ve seen his floor but maybe not his ceiling, and he has that edge and fire in him that when he is going well, will be a valuable mid rotation guy. Just watch him pitch and forget about some of the other stuff. His stuff plays, he was great for 4 months last year and he cares.
Me too. That little sweetener on top is for his prime years and proximity to free agency.
Houck did say recently that he’d had talks with them about an extension. That could be interesting, especially if he’s kind of a breakout candidate. Maybe he’s happy taking something close to the contract his buddy Whitlock signed. OTOH, they’re already under control through roughly the same time (one year apart).
A ton of analysts think Crawford is a major breakout candidate this year. I’m really psyched to see how it goes for him. That said, we’ve already got him through his age-32 season, and his arm action seems a little violent to me.
I wouldn’t hate a modest Pivetta signing but it’d just mean I’d be scheming to trade him for a few more years. I think they ideally want him to pitch very well the next three months and trade him for a Top 100 prospect this summer. (Then maybe it’s time for Fitts?).
Maybe Rafaela? O’Neill?
A ton of analysts think Crawford is a major breakout candidate this year. I’m really psyched to see how it goes for him. That said, we’ve already got him through his age-32 season, and his arm action seems a little violent to me.
I wouldn’t hate a modest Pivetta signing but it’d just mean I’d be scheming to trade him for a few more years. I think they ideally want him to pitch very well the next three months and trade him for a Top 100 prospect this summer. (Then maybe it’s time for Fitts?).
Maybe Rafaela? O’Neill?
My priority list for extensions:
Casas: 8/110m
Pivetta: 3/48
Duran: 5/24
Crawford: 4/30
Rafaela: 5/32
Casas: 8/110m
Pivetta: 3/48
Duran: 5/24
Crawford: 4/30
Rafaela: 5/32
Yeah, I think Casas, Grissom, and maybe Rafaela are the guys worth extending. We already control the prime years of everyone else; not sure I see the upside. Two years on Pivetta would be fine, too.
Have we seen enough of Grissom to be comfortable extending him at this point?
It's thought that we might be a bit MI heavy with guys coming up, I'm not sure they try to lock him up just yet.
How about Chris Martin? Turns 38 this year with only 303 MLB innings in his career. I bring this up somewhat in jest since extensions are usually not for guys approaching 40 but I'd love to see him here for another year and also potentially extend Hendricks once he shows he's healthy.
Yeah, I think folks are going a bit too extension happy when they're suggesting extending a guy who hasn't even seen the field yet in a Sox uniform (not to mention suggesting extensions that don't actually extend the team's control over the player at all). I'm optimistic about what Grissom can bring, but they've got him for six years already. There's really no need to worry about locking him up for a seventh or eighth year yet, and that's without even considering the depth of middle infield prospects that Sox have. Ditto for most of the other names brought up in the thread.
I'd love to see Casas locked up for sure. If Crawford and Houck would take extensions in line with what Whitlock did, I'd do that all day. Beyond that, I'm good with a year-to-year approach until guys reach at least their fifth service year.
From Baseball Prospectus - COTS contracts....Here's what I have. (In my view, "Best Time" to extend is to buy out last two years of Arbitration and 3 years of Free Agency. That will give the player some life changing money and the team a deal. That changes when the player is a clear All Star or when he's a Super Star). This does not include Dever, Story, Yoshi, Giolito, Martin or Jensen - due to age, injury, already extended. (I feared that...the formatting sucks)
| Player | Pos. | Age as | MLS | Opts | Length / Total Value | Projected 40-man Year-End Payrolls (salary+pro-rated bonus) | |||||||
| 7/1/24 | 1/1/24 | 1/1/24 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | Candidate? | Extend | Best Date | What if All Star | If No - Reason | |
| Pivetta, Nick | rhp-s | 31 | 5.166 | 0 / 3 | 1 yr/$7.5M (24) | $ 7,500,000 | Y |
Jul-24 |
|||||
| O'Neill, Tyler | lf | 29 | 5.059 | 45294 | 1 yr/$5.85M (24) | $ 5,850,000 | N | Free Agency | |||||
| Whitlock, Garrett | rhp-s | 28 | 3 | 3-Mar | 4 yr/$18.75M (23-26) | $ 3,500,000 | $5 | $7.5 | Y |
Jan-25 |
|||
| Hendriks, Liam | rhp-c | 35 | 9.164 | 0 / 3 | 2 yr/$10M (24-25)+26 m opt | $ 2,000,000 | $6 | $2 | N | Age | |||
| Bello, Brayan | rhp-s | 25 | 1.082 | 3-Feb | 6 yr/$55M (24-29)+30 cl opt | $ 1,166,667 | $3 | $6.17 | $8.67 | $16.17 | N | Extended | |
| Rodríguez, Joely | lhp | 32 | 4.096 | 0 / 3 | 1 yr (24) | $ 1,000,000 | A3 | FA | FA | N | Relief Pitcher | ||
| Houck, Tanner | rhp | 28 | 2.1 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$770,000 (24) | $ 770,000 | A1 | A2 | A3 | FA | Y |
Jan-26 |
|
| Reyes, Pablo | 2b-of | 30 | 2.043 | 0 / 3 | 1 yr/$764,000 (24) | $ 764,000 | A1 | A2 | A3 | FA | N | ||
| Casas, Triston | 1b | 24 | 1.032 | 3-Mar | 1 yr/$760,000 (24) | $ 760,000 | A1 | A2 | A3 | Y |
Jan-26 |
Jan-25 |
|
| Crawford, Kutter | rhp-s | 28 | 1.136 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$760,000 (24) | $ 760,000 | A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | Y |
Jan-26 |
|
| Dalbec, Bobby | 3b | 29 | 2.115 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$760,000 (24) | $ 760,000 | A1 | A2 | A3 | FA | N | AAAA | |
| Duran, Jarren | cf | 27 | 1.151 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$760,000 (24) | $ 760,000 | A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | Y |
Jan-26 |
Jan-25 |
| Winckowski, Josh | rhp | 26 | 1.074 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$760,000 (24) | $ 760,000 | A1 | A2 | A3 | Y |
Jan-27 |
||
| Wong, Connor | c | 28 | 1.079 | 3-Jan | 1 yr/$760,000 (24) | $ 760,000 | A1 | A2 | A3 | Y |
Jan-27 |
||
| Abreu, Wilyer | of | 25 | 0.041 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$749,500 (24) | $ 749,500 | A1 | A2 | Y |
Jan-27 |
|||
| Campbell, Isaiah | rhp | 26 | 0.086 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$746,000 (24) | $ 746,000 | A1 | A2 | N | Relief Pitcher | |||
| Murphy, Chris | lhp | 26 | 0.081 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$743,500 (24) | $ 743,500 | A1 | A2 | N | Age | |||
| Rafaela, Ceddanne | 3b-of | 23 | 0.035 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$743,500 (24) | $ 743,500 | A1 | A2 | Y |
Jan-27 |
Jan-26 |
||
| Valdez, Enmanuel | 3b | 25 | 0.077 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$743,500 (24) | $ 743,500 | A1 | A2 | N | AAAA | |||
| Weissert, Greg | rhp | 29 | 0.088 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$743,500 (24) | $ 743,500 | A1 | A2 | N | Age | |||
| Grissom, Vaughn | 2b | 23 | 0.094 | 3-Feb | 1 yr/$742,000 (24) | $ 742,000 | A1 | A2 | N?? | Too Early | |||
| Mata, Bryan | rhp | 24 | 0 | 0 / 3 | 1 yr/$740,000 (24) | $ 740,000 | A1 | A2 | N | Prove it | |||
| Slaten, Justin | rhp | 26 | 0 | 3-Mar | 1 yr/$740,000 (24) | $ 740,000 | A1 | A2 | N | ||||
| Refsnyder, Rob | 2b-of | 33 | 5.048 | 0 / 3 | 1 yr/$2M (24)+25 opt | $1,850,000 | N | ||||||
| McGuire, Reese | c | 29 | 4.027 | 0 / 3 | 1 yr/$1.5M (24) | $1,500,000 | N | ||||||
| Anderson, Chase | rhp-s | 36 | 8.141 | 3-Jan | 1 yr/$1.25M (24) | $1,250,000 | N | ||||||
| Bernardino, Brennan | lhp | 32 | 0.153 | 3-Jan | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Criswell, Cooper | rhp | 27 | 0.142 | 3-Jan | 1 yr/$1M (24) | ||||||||
| González, Romy | 2b | 27 | 1.083 | 3-Feb | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Gonzalez, Wikelman | rhp | 22 | 0 | 3-Mar | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Hamilton, David | ss-2b | 26 | 0.02 | 3-Feb | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Heineman, Tyler | c | 33 | 2.02 | 3-Feb | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Jacques, Joe | lhp | 29 | 0.09 | 3-Feb | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Kelly, Zack | rhp | 29 | 1.038 | 3-Mar | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Perales, Luis | rhp | 21 | 0 | 3-Mar | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Uwasawa, Naoyuki | rhp-s | 30 | 0 | 3-Mar | 1 yr (24) | ||||||||
| Walter, Brandon | lhp | 27 | 0.054 | 3-Feb | 1 yr (24) |
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https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/03/players-who-sign-extensions-prior-to-mlb-debut-are-not-ppi-eligible.html
Interesting to learn that players who get extended before playing in MLB (like Chourio and Keith) aren't eligible for PPI ROY draft picks incentives. I'm not sure who this benefits.
Interesting to learn that players who get extended before playing in MLB (like Chourio and Keith) aren't eligible for PPI ROY draft picks incentives. I'm not sure who this benefits.
Casas is obv the priority and the hope. I think something above the Chourio deal has to be the starting point. Chourio is the more complete player, tools wise, but Casas has obviously proven more at the MLB level.
Conversely, he hasn’t shown nearly as much as Matt Olson, so I can’t imagine he’s looking at 8/$168m, or at least that would be totally unreasonable from the agent perspective.
I think they should approach him with two options. 8/$120m (he’d be a free agent after his age 31 season) or 10/$170m (after his age 34 season). More than Chourio / less than Olson, at least in terms of AAV.
Pivetta is the only other one I’d be looking to extend at this point. The Seth Lugo deal is exactly what I’d offer him.
The others, waiting makes more sense. They’ve shown very little to warrant such a bet right now, unless it was incredibly team friendly.
Grissom - if he hits this year the way he did his first season in Atlanta, I’d be looking to extend him in the off season, bit not yet.
Conversely, he hasn’t shown nearly as much as Matt Olson, so I can’t imagine he’s looking at 8/$168m, or at least that would be totally unreasonable from the agent perspective.
I think they should approach him with two options. 8/$120m (he’d be a free agent after his age 31 season) or 10/$170m (after his age 34 season). More than Chourio / less than Olson, at least in terms of AAV.
Pivetta is the only other one I’d be looking to extend at this point. The Seth Lugo deal is exactly what I’d offer him.
The others, waiting makes more sense. They’ve shown very little to warrant such a bet right now, unless it was incredibly team friendly.
Grissom - if he hits this year the way he did his first season in Atlanta, I’d be looking to extend him in the off season, bit not yet.
Heh, not the same topic, he can just go year to year with contracts, but I hear you.
The point of the PPI ROY picks is to encourage teams not to waste player potential with service time shenanigans. I guess If a player has signed an extension before playing in the majors, the team no longer has any reason to mess with their service clock as the player is being paid either way.
No. That's no longer the case. It all depends on the contract language. The team is obviously not interested in tearing up this year's contract/salary for most of these guys, but they certainly can if they want to.
The money for the player is the same either way, I'm just interested in taking some of the tax hit this year while they have the space that will presumably otherwise go unspent.
Yeah, that's the basic idea - player benefits from cash in hand. Club benefits from either discounted arb years (if the player becomes super valuable) and/or discounted FA years. The timeline to consider is the first 6 years of control (3 arb) plus whatever FA years a player is willing to give up.
Casas is 24 and a FA to be in 2029 (his age 29 season). So, he's likely to be a productive hitter into his early 30s and is ripe for an extension. 3 years of FA gets you ages 29-30-31.
OTOH, Houck and Crawford (for example) are 28. Houck's a FA in 2028 (age 32). Crawford is a FA in 2029 (age 33). So assuming their arb years are at a rate lower than FA (club is getting fair value for them), you're looking to buy out the FA years of guys in their early 30s. But are they starter years or reliever years? Do you really want to buy 3 years of Crawford's FA today? They'd be his age 34-35-36 years. I'm not sure I do just yet.
I had a thought the other day. Well, really it lasted for several days and wouldn't let go of my brain. Would you sign Mayer, Anthony, and/or Teel to the Bello extension with some sort of adjustment to make the duration longer to better mimic the Bello deal?
Bello was signed for 6/55 so I'm thinking something like 7/56.5 or 8/58.
It's obviously a gamble, like all contracts. There's a pretty good chance they're going to be worth far more than that. There's also a chance they wash out completely before they even hit the majors. I think that's probably pretty unlikely. There's also a pretty good chance they fall short of expectations while still being functional major league players. I didn't come to any conclusions, but I was leaning towards doing it.
What are the chances they're not worth $7.25 million a year?
Bello was signed for 6/55 so I'm thinking something like 7/56.5 or 8/58.
It's obviously a gamble, like all contracts. There's a pretty good chance they're going to be worth far more than that. There's also a chance they wash out completely before they even hit the majors. I think that's probably pretty unlikely. There's also a pretty good chance they fall short of expectations while still being functional major league players. I didn't come to any conclusions, but I was leaning towards doing it.
What are the chances they're not worth $7.25 million a year?
3/48m, which is what I thought was a fair extension for him in ST is starting to look unrealistic if he keeps pitching like this.
Will Smith just got 10 years and $140 million, for reference.
edit: my bad- I didn't realize he was in his 6th year of service.
edit: my bad- I didn't realize he was in his 6th year of service.
If you suddenly start extending all your minimum salaried guys, aren’t you losing a lot of the benefit of having them around? Or at least transferring a lot of that value to fairly far out in the future? I think you probably have to pick and choose a bit.
I think it’s still probably pretty close. Figure he and Rodriguez (4/$80m) are roughly the same age. Rodriguez has ~ an 18 bWAR with a 4.00 ERA. Pivetta is ~ 8 bWAR and 4.80. Now, sure, if Pivetta puts up last night’s line over a full season he’d cost more, but at present something in the realm of 3 yrs and between $40m - $50m seems pretty fair for both parties.
But as others mentioned, the further into the season, the less incentive there is for Pivetta to take an extension. It’d be nice to get it done and have the 2 and 4 slots in the rotation (both with potential for more) filled for the medium term.
Casas for sure, but I don't think this will be easy despite all his happy talk. There's a great deal of self confidence radiating from his comments, which is a good thing in many respects, it just means he's pretty confident in his long term value, and he's not open to the customary negotiation gamesmanship. This is one where I think the risk in lowballing is very high. I hope they got that nonsense out of their system.
I'm less sure about Houck and Crawford. Despite stretches of competence+, there's still too little to grab a hold of - maybe that's just in the nature of assessing young pitchers.
I'm less sure about Houck and Crawford. Despite stretches of competence+, there's still too little to grab a hold of - maybe that's just in the nature of assessing young pitchers.
Do we know if it's too late to offer Pivetta a deal that replaces his contract for this season?
E.g., could we offer him something like 4/$55 starting *this season*, replacing his 1/$7.5? That would tack on 3/$47.5 of new money, but shift a bit of CBT hit into this year. Even 5/$70m would be pretty interesting.
E.g., could we offer him something like 4/$55 starting *this season*, replacing his 1/$7.5? That would tack on 3/$47.5 of new money, but shift a bit of CBT hit into this year. Even 5/$70m would be pretty interesting.
Crawford makes sense if the valuation is low enough. He's risky, but if the FO believes he's a real mid-rotation starter, the time to commit is before that fact is obvious to everyone. Crawford is 28 and in his second pre-arb year, and given his age, he's unlikely to ever get a huge contract. Could we get him to bite on a five-year deal at $35m (i.e. including one additional year of control), with a $15m club option/$5m buyout for another year? That would have an $8m AAV, I think.
I couldn't agree more with this. In addition, he wants to be here, he knows what its's like to pitch in a playoff atmosphere (2021) and he pitches with a chip on his shoulder and his heart on his sleeve. A good fit for here.