2024 StatusPre-Arb Eligible, Earliest Arb Eligible: 2026, Earliest Free Agent: 2029 (bb-ref) -- Seems to me that they can keep Bello for another year before making up their mind whether to keep or trade him.
Brayan Bello signed to a 6 year, $55 million extension
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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Of course they can wait, but either he pitches well and the buy out price goes up, or he pitches poorly and they go year to year. The only way to get a good deal is to take a risk, pay him less overall, and hope that he will continue to improve the way your (the team's) metrics predict.
This is right on time, if you wait until he's arb eligible the price goes way up. Would it be safer if he had a three year track record? Sure, but you're going to pay for that. Right now he's got two years of minimum wage that he's getting paid for, which reduces the long term money.
You have to be able to make these bets without perfect data based on, what you hope, are good analyses by your staff. If they like that bet, I’d love to see them be decisive here.
I'm very excited about this. Nothing is a sure thing, but good young pitching is a ridiculously important asset.
Of course the flip side would have been locking up Benintendi long-term, he looked like he'd be a very good player his first year or two in the league.
Finally. Something to be at least a bit excited about. He will never be Pedro (nobody will) but he oozes potential.
I went to look up Longoria's deal signed with the Rays in 2012. Don't let John Henry see this, but from the AP story
Longoria’s comparable deal was signed in 2008, which was a max 9/44. That initial deal was an excellent deal; now why they decided to an extension so early on was always the question.
I think that the issue with Frodo was a perceived lack of ceiling, which seems to have borne out with time. If they think that Bello has growth potential, it's a no-brainer. Tough to get all of these calls right of course, but there was a perception that the former was more a finished product when he broke in.
Pre-arb players getting signed to extensions is how the league works now. Not all of those contracts will work out, but one way to look at it is that these contracts are still much cheaper than comparable free agent contracts. Paying Montgomery or Snell for 7-8 years is much higher risk.
I actually don't really like this unless it's nuts cheap. I would do this kind of thing with any young hitter but only rarely with pitchers. Even besides injury risk, plenty of chance he never gets better than he is right now and you control him for a long time anyway.
I like that they are betting on their own evaluation though, at least they are making some bold decisions and hopefully they're right.
I like that they are betting on their own evaluation though, at least they are making some bold decisions and hopefully they're right.
Great news, great decision by the FO.
Bello was very good last season. His stretch from May through mid-September was as good as we've seen here in a while, in terms of innings and run prevention, outside of Sale at his best.
And he has room for improvement.
Any deal can go south for unforeseen reasons, but this is what smart clubs do. Kudos to Breslow.
Bello was very good last season. His stretch from May through mid-September was as good as we've seen here in a while, in terms of innings and run prevention, outside of Sale at his best.
And he has room for improvement.
Any deal can go south for unforeseen reasons, but this is what smart clubs do. Kudos to Breslow.
I was actually thinking the same thing, that the risk with pitchers is different and higher than the risk with hitters. However, each of the factors that Toe correctly identified, presumably, has been combed through, not only with ownership, but with the entire pitching infrastructure. Nothing is without risk, and I applaud their willingness to do something bold, even though more knowledgeable members might not agree with the evaluation.
Edit: 8slim said it better (and quicker)
Edit: 8slim said it better (and quicker)
And he did it in front of one of the worst defensive teams I have ever seen. It's a bit up in the air as to how much better this year's team will be defensively, but I really can't (and don't want to) imagine them being worse.
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I agree with this. Some of the risks -- though different -- may balance out. But, in addition to the lower cost of failure, the one finite and incontrovertable risk that is avoided is age-related decline.
I like that we basically heard about this close to when it was already a done deal. Whatever else one can say about the front office, they do seem to have things buttoned up to avoid leaks, which seems like a good thing long term.
Yes. Locking up a player like Bello who shows the promise that he does and buying out his Arb/FA years is a no-brainer. If he doesn’t turn out to be a #1 or #2 starter, that won’t change that fact.
Do you disagree?
I guess it's nice that the team likes Bello enough to give him a guaranteed contract. But it doesn't change the construction or forecast for the team one bit for the next 5 years. He was under control through the 2028 season anyway.
Nice to see them offer guaranteed money to someone whose arm isn't about to fall off. Take the dub.
All depends on the cost and how many years they lock him up for. It could easily NOT be a no brainer.
In principle I like the idea but the numbers matter.
That it's a good move "no matter what happens over the 6-8 years"? Yes, of course I disagree. If Bello falls flat on his face -- which is not uncommon for pitchers -- it certainly won't look like a good move. And even if you want to judge the process and not the result, can we maybe see terms first?
This might be a risk worth taking, especially if it's structured where some of the cost comes this year, that would otherwise go unspent. But we already had control of Bello for 5 more years, including the ability to non-tender him if it comes to that. 5 years is an eternity. That such a deal goes south is not some remote possibility.
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Yeah, I just disagree on your thought process then. It is a good decision right now regardless of how it turns out.
The flip side is you don’t sign him, he becomes what we think he is going to become, and then we are trying to sign him to a $30-50M a year deal at some point.
The point is that management is at least making bold move, consistent with market trends to lock up young talent. I don’t think anyone will disagree with the proposition that the numbers matter as to whether this was the appropriate situation for that, but at least it’s a clear indication that baseball ops Under Brez are a lot different than under Bloom.
I think we can reasonably assume that the terms will mirror other similar deals that have been done. There is a pretty obvious give and take with these deals — the player gets the money now and the assurance of life-changing money regardless of injury and performance. The team gets to avoid paying market rates 6-10 years out.
In 2013, the highest paid SPs were Cliff Lee and Johan Santana at $25M. In 2023, the highest paid SPs were Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander at $43M. 10 years from now, elite SPs will likely be making $60-75M a year. Whatever the Red Sox give to Bello today won’t matter — it will be a significant discount to that.
If you think he has a chance of being an elite SP, you do this every time.
Meanwhile, we're still waiting and no other outlet is reporting that a deal has been reached, let alone the details. Are we sure this source is credible?
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But that is going to be the case anyway unless this is like a ten-year deal, which would add greatly to the risk. Most likely they are buying out a year or two of his FA years which means if he becomes a superstar then you are getting a discount on the pre-arb and the beginning of is FA years and then you still have to pay market rate or extend him again.
Again this is wise with hitters because they are pretty projectable. Young pitchers are really really hard to project. Certainly the Red Sox have an evaluation of the likelihood he will be good / his health over the life of the deal but if they were really good at that then they would have more young pitchers.
If the discount is big enough, then sure it's a good deal no matter what happens. If it's not a huge discount then you're just taking on the risk instead of the player and in the Sox position with almost no contract obligations long-term I don't see a great reason to do that for a pitcher. We have to wait for the terms - my guess is they will be pretty reasonable since Bello hasn't actually done much yet but we don't know.
There's a possibility that the team might be holding off an announcement until this weekend. Hard to resist the PR bump that might come from announcing a contract extension with their rising star Dominican-born pitcher while in the D.R. to play a couple exhibition games.
That's (and you probably know this) Longoria's 2nd long-term extension with the Rays. In 2008 he made his MLB debut on 4/12 and the Rays signed him to a 6-year/$17.5M extension just 6 days later on 4/18. It also included 3 option years for 2014-16 that could bring the total to $44M. That contract was excellent for the Rays.
Bello:
2024 (25) - pre-arb - something like league min ($740k)
2025 (26) - pre-arb - something like league min ($760k)
2026 (27) - arb 1 - something like $8m
2027 (28) - arb 2 - something like $15m
2028 (29) - arb 3 - something like $20m
2029 (30) - free agent
So for 2024-25, Bello will make $1.5 million combined. Then from 2026-28, and I'm guessing here, he might make something like $43m combined ($14.3m average). That means that over the next five seasons, he probably would make about $44.5 million - let's round up to $45 million, or an average of $9m per season.
Then he hits the open market, heading into his age 31 season. Yes, if he's great at that point, he'll cost a fortune, but he also would be on the wrong side of 30. Probably some good years left in him, but also it's the old "do we give a long, lucrative contract to a 31-year old pitcher" question. And at that point he'd be looking at, what, like $50m a season? Maybe more, given how fast contracts are rising?
So a deal where they buy him out through 2029 only buys out one year of free agency, and if they give him on average $20 million a year from 2024-2029, that's five seasons (2024-2028) x $20m = $100m, which would be more than twice what it will cost him just letting him go his normal path over those years as outlined above. But that 2029 season would still only cost $20m, which would be far less than what a free agent season would cost.
The point is, it's worth it if the Sox can maybe sign him now to a long-term deal at between $20-25m through 2032 or something like that. But if they only sign him through 2029, it's probably not worth it financially, because they'd be paying a hell of a lot more for 2024-28 than normal, PLUS they'd be taking on enormous additional risk given how pitchers break down these days.
2024 (25) - pre-arb - something like league min ($740k)
2025 (26) - pre-arb - something like league min ($760k)
2026 (27) - arb 1 - something like $8m
2027 (28) - arb 2 - something like $15m
2028 (29) - arb 3 - something like $20m
2029 (30) - free agent
So for 2024-25, Bello will make $1.5 million combined. Then from 2026-28, and I'm guessing here, he might make something like $43m combined ($14.3m average). That means that over the next five seasons, he probably would make about $44.5 million - let's round up to $45 million, or an average of $9m per season.
Then he hits the open market, heading into his age 31 season. Yes, if he's great at that point, he'll cost a fortune, but he also would be on the wrong side of 30. Probably some good years left in him, but also it's the old "do we give a long, lucrative contract to a 31-year old pitcher" question. And at that point he'd be looking at, what, like $50m a season? Maybe more, given how fast contracts are rising?
So a deal where they buy him out through 2029 only buys out one year of free agency, and if they give him on average $20 million a year from 2024-2029, that's five seasons (2024-2028) x $20m = $100m, which would be more than twice what it will cost him just letting him go his normal path over those years as outlined above. But that 2029 season would still only cost $20m, which would be far less than what a free agent season would cost.
The point is, it's worth it if the Sox can maybe sign him now to a long-term deal at between $20-25m through 2032 or something like that. But if they only sign him through 2029, it's probably not worth it financially, because they'd be paying a hell of a lot more for 2024-28 than normal, PLUS they'd be taking on enormous additional risk given how pitchers break down these days.
Well, he's already committed to the team long term, right? He doesn't really have much of a choice there. This would be just making it slightly longer term.
Yes this is true. But as you said he didn't really have a choice. I don't think he's making this deal if he doesn't like it here.
Curious about how your math adds up with the comparisons to Hunter Greene and Spencer Strider's actual deals, as mentioned above?
Betts was committed "long term" too, by that measure. But he rebuffed extension offers in favor of hitting the market. There is something to the fact that Bello is possibly leaving money on the table by taking the extension rather than betting on himself to hit free agency as early as possible and cash in.
I haven't looked at those contracts. If they're more expensive, then it's shaky to extend Bello along the same lines. If they're less expensive than I outline above, then it's a better deal for Boston than I explore here.