I get that nobody wants to be alone at the No Extensions Summer Festival Dance, and I also get that locking in tens of millions of dollars in guaranteed money is really not something any of us should judge another person for. When a young baseball player hasn’t even hit arbitration yet, he’s always just a couple missteps away from his career being over before he earns a relative dime.
But things have gotten really out of whack, man:
Second baseman Ozzie Albies and the Atlanta Braves are in agreement on a seven-year, $35M contract extension that includes a pair of club option, a source familiar with the deal tells ESPN. It will keep Albies under club control past his age-30 season, a key for teams these days.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 11, 2019
Told two option years for Albies are $7M each with $4M buyouts. So if both picked up, #Braves get Albies for 9 years, $45M.
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) April 11, 2019
Albies, 22, is still a couple years away from arbitration, which certainly does color the level of this extension – it’s guaranteed money that the Braves don’t otherwise have to guarantee for a good long while.
But, if you can leave that aside for a moment, what on the freaking earth is Albies’ agent letting his client do? Albies has already had the look of an above-average big league regular with plus defense at second base, and he’s done it over a 226-game sample. And he just gave away NINE YEARS of control for a guarantee of only $35 million, with upside of only $45 million. On the seven-year part of the deal, he averages $5 million annually. I cannot wrap my head around how a young star signed away the entirety of his 20s for that. It cost the Cubs nearly half that in guaranteed money to extend David Bote!
This deal is going to be criticized about as loudly as any deal you’ll have heard in recent years. Good for Albies for getting life-changing money for himself and his family, but this is just a brutal deal within the context of the baseball market.
It's typical that agents criticize competitors' deals. But I've now heard from executives, players, analytics people, development side and scouts who are saying the same thing: The Ozzie Albies extension might be the worst contract ever for a player. And this is not hyperbole.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 11, 2019