It's extension season!

[Second Base]

Many different seasons in baseball.  The regular season, the post season, the preseason, the hot stove season.  This is a new one that precedes the regular season but comes at the end of Spring Training, extension season. 

Trout gets an extension.  The Astros extend Bregman. The Nats are discussing an extension for Rendon.  The Rockies extended Arenado.  The Red Sox are still throwing figures at Mookie Betts and Chris Sale in order to try and secure an extension.  The Rays just extended Brandon Lowe, who is still basically a prospect.  The White Sox just extended Eloy Jimenez before he takes his first major league at bat.

Am I missing any?

[Dtwncbad]

Just now, Second Base said:

Many different seasons in baseball.  The regular season, the post season, the preseason, the hot stove season.  This is a new one that precedes the regular season but comes at the end of Spring Training, extension season. 

Trout gets an extension.  The Astros extend Bregman. The Nats are discussing an extension for Rendon.  The Rockies extended Arenado.  The Red Sox are still throwing figures at Mookie Betts and Chris Sale in order to try and secure an extension.  The Rays just extended Brandon Lowe, who is still basically a prospect.  The White Sox just extended Eloy Jimenez before he takes his first major league at bat.

Am I missing any?

Simmons.

[Dick Enberg]

Do Dick extensions count?

[Second Base]

Go ahead and add Paul Goldschmidt and Blake Snell to the list. 

[T.G.]

It's Extension-Palooza!

[totdprods]

Free agency is close to dead. 

It was never the ideal way to build teams but it isn’t quite as fun having it be this limited in the offseason.

With how young players are becoming, and how quick old players are squeezed out, I am warming to an idea where players hit FA sooner or have a season or two of less club control / pre-arb.

Edited March 21, 2019 by totdprods

[arch stanton]

5 hours ago, totdprods said:

Free agency is close to dead. 

It was never the ideal way to build teams but it isn’t quite as fun having it be this limited in the offseason.

With how young players are becoming, and how quick old players are squeezed out, I am warming to an idea where players hit FA sooner or have a season or two of less club control / pre-arb.

But it’s serving a purpose. Even moving forward it’ll be the way to supplement a roster when it’s time to go for it. 

It’s better for everyone involved to let these guys start making their money a year or two earlier. 2 years pre-arb and 2 years arb or start the clock from the time they go on the 40 man and make them RFA after 6 years from then. Anything has to be better than watching competent ball players twist in the wind in late March because they finally made it to free agency and can’t get past the QO

[Second Base]

17 hours ago, totdprods said:

Free agency is close to dead. 

It was never the ideal way to build teams but it isn’t quite as fun having it be this limited in the offseason.

With how young players are becoming, and how quick old players are squeezed out, I am warming to an idea where players hit FA sooner or have a season or two of less club control / pre-arb.

If teams are able to successfully extend their homegrown talents at a young age for many years of control and a reasonable comparative compensation, then yes, it will in essence "kill free agency."  But it appears to me that FA is a necessity for players that don't wish to stay with their current organization.  

Take the Nats for example, they offer Harper 10/300 and after months of drama, Harper signs for 320.  All of that to squeeze an extra 20 million in his pocket even though he's already a hundred-millionaire.  I don't think Harper cared one way or another about DC, but he wanted lots of money and be done with it.  

Trevor Bauer is another example.  He's very open about the fact that he has no intention of signing a long term deal to stay in one spot, isn't married to the idea of him being in Cleveland, and is very true to himself which rubbed folks in Arizona the wrong way and hasn't done any favors for him in his relationship with teammates, fans or the front office in Ohio.  He's a man made for free agency.  He'll remain a yearly investment and teams are going to shell out extra money because it's only one year, and if he's bad, the downside of the investment isn't present.  So he's going to make a lot of money in a short period of time. 

But for someone like Trout, who never came within two years of free agency, and didn't care for the attention or theatrics of it, FA isn't for him.  And for all the prospects around the game between ages 20-25 that just want a secure future and to play baseball (90% of them), if a team offers 30 million for all your prime years, you say yes pretty much every single time.  The reason is simple.  Sure you may have made more money going the FA route, but taking the money secures the financial futures of you, your children, grand children and great grand children, all because you happened to be better at playing this game than everyone else you grew up with.  You really don't care about the different in lifestyle behind having 30 million at age 29 and having 150 million at age 30.  All you care about is the fact that if your body doesn't hold up for some reason, then you're done by 25 and will have made nothing. 

And I don't blame the kids for taking the extensions.  Fact is, there's a lot more to life than money, and if you can have enough of it that money is no longer in the equation, then you can go on living your life.  And playing baseball, isn't who these guys are.  It's what they do.  The difference between vocation and avocation. 

And for the owners and GM's, who are constantly accused of being greedy and playing a numbers game rather than treating these guys like actual humans, it's a way of being true to both sides.  They make smart investments that save a hundred million, and secure rights to more success for their team, while at the same time compensating and taking care of their players in a way that is a very human, tangible example of compassion and mercy.  And it might be better this way.  The elite players stay put, the mid-level players sign early and are compensated at a fair but lower level than 10 years ago, and the other guys that do actually reach FA make it into more of a rule 5 draft, where teams are just looking to strike gold on someone that another team hasn't used properly. 

So maybe free agency should die.  

[Stradling]

Red Sox and Chris Sale are close to an extension. 

[Angel Oracle]

7 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Red Sox and Chris Sale are close to an extension. 

Sale is one of the very few lefties who can get it done in that park.

[Rico]

 

 

[Docwaukee]

3:17pm: Cole seems to have snuffed out any possibility of a deal coming together in his case. He says “there have been no contract negotiations,” as Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

[Jeremiah]

I think this approach of extending younger players to long-term deals is good for baseball. It allows teams to build winners with players that the team and the fans have been able to identify with for some time already. It can also get teams from smaller media markets much deserved attention nationally as well. Pundits can occasionally shut up about the Yankees and Red Sox. In the meantime, free agency will still be there, as Strad said, for the players who want to move on and/or chase the dollar.

[nando714]

[Docwaukee]

27 minutes ago, Jeremiah said:

I think this approach of extending younger players to long-term deals is good for baseball. It allows teams to build winners with players that the team and the fans have been able to identify with for some time already. It can also get teams from smaller media markets much deserved attention nationally as well. Pundits can occasionally shut up about the Yankees and Red Sox. In the meantime, free agency will still be there, as Strad said, for the players who want to move on and/or chase the dollar.

I think it will eventually lead to more trades as well.  

[Pancake Bear]

1 hour ago, Dochalo said:

3:17pm: Cole seems to have snuffed out any possibility of a deal coming together in his case. He says “there have been no contract negotiations,” as Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

Cole's not itching to come home, he just wants to max out his contract. He'll make bank. Doubt he comes to Anaheim.

[Stradling]

1 hour ago, Dochalo said:

I think it will eventually lead to more trades as well.  

Yep.  I see a trend away from free agency and into trading and locking down players.  Which also means 32-37 year old free agents will come at a bargain.  

[Jeremiah]

16 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Yep.  I see a trend away from free agency and into trading and locking down players.  Which also means 32-37 year old free agents will come at a bargain.  

As a fan I always found trade season to be very exciting in terms of potential fits. I think teams will now have a better sense of just what their players are worth going forward too, making trades that make more sense.

[Docwaukee]

39 minutes ago, Sean-Regan said:

Cole's not itching to come home, he just wants to max out his contract. He'll make bank. Doubt he comes to Anaheim.

if he's available, at least there's a chance.  Main reason I don't see him coming here is that Eppler won't wait till March for him to make a decision.  

[Jeremiah]

Sale agrees to 5yr/$145M extension.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26332268/sources-sale-red-sox-agree-5-year-extension

Edited March 22, 2019 by Jeremiah
Link

[Lou]

3 hours ago, Dochalo said:

3:17pm: Cole seems to have snuffed out any possibility of a deal coming together in his case. He says “there have been no contract negotiations,” as Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

 

1 hour ago, Sean-Regan said:

Cole's not itching to come home, he just wants to max out his contract. He'll make bank. Doubt he comes to Anaheim.

 

what was it in his comments that led you to this conclusion?

[Docwaukee]

32 minutes ago, Lou said:

 

 

what was it in his comments that led you to this conclusion?

because duh!  when have the angels signed anyone to a big contract?  

for real though, Cole is going to sign with whoever pays him the most.  

[ettin]

3 hours ago, Jeremiah said:

I think this approach of extending younger players to long-term deals is good for baseball. It allows teams to build winners with players that the team and the fans have been able to identify with for some time already. It can also get teams from smaller media markets much deserved attention nationally as well. Pundits can occasionally shut up about the Yankees and Red Sox. In the meantime, free agency will still be there, as Strad said, for the players who want to move on and/or chase the dollar.

 

3 hours ago, Dochalo said:

I think it will eventually lead to more trades as well.  

This isn't really that new, the Indians and Rays have been executing this extension strategy for years now quite successfully (e.g. Archer, Kluber, et al). It's just becoming more common place around the rest of the League.

[Lou]

39 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

Cole is going to sign with whoever pays him the most.  

that seems to be a disturbing trend lately 

[T.G.]

Cole grew up a Yankee fan and even though he was drafted by them out of high school, he chose to go to UCLA instead. 

I don't think anyone can guess what he will do.