NEWSLETTER
If the Fernando Tatis Jr. situation was going to impact future teams’ willingness to ink monster extensions with very young superstar players who are still years away from arbitration (let alone free agency), the Seattle Mariners aren’t showing it. Which, I think, is reasonable? Every case is different, right? Just thinking out loud, because this deal caught me off guard today.
Rookie outfielder Julio Rodriguez, a 21-year-old who is already posting a .269/.328/.471/132 wRC+ slash line in the big leagues, is set to ink a massive extension with the Mariners:
Until we see the full structure – which is apparently very complex – it’s hard to evaluate the deal completely. But consider the guarantee, alone: it is more than double the guarantee Ronald Acuña Jr. got from the Braves when he signed a rookie-year extension three years ago. Now, his was for just 8 guaranteed years as opposed to 14, but it is a deal that, in hindsight (and foresight, actually) is regarded as a massive steal for the Braves. So, maybe Rodriguez deserved to do a whole lot better, as he did.
More on this soon, I’d imagine. It’s fun to think about these kinds of lifetime-associated-with-one-team-type stars as baseball moves forward, even if a part of you – a non-Mariners fan – also thinks about this as another star who will never really hit free agency. Bah. That wasn’t going to be for another six and a half years anyway for Julio Rodriguez, so let’s just go back to dreaming about Shohei Ohtani …
UPDATE: OK, so it kinda sounds like getting that second $200 million is going to require Rodriguez to be a monster well into his mid-30s, and having the Mariners want to keep him until he’s literally 40 years old:
In other words, it kinda seems like you can ignore the $450 million talk. Maybe one team option gets exercised at the end (or it’s possible his player options extend into his mid-30s, and he doesn’t even get all that $210 million within the first 14 years). I suspect this is pretty much a 14-year, $210 million deal, with a bunch of complications from there, but that are unlikely to change what he actually winds up getting.
UPDATE 2: OK, this thing is COMPLEX. The bottom line mostly stays the same – the $210 million guarantee is kinda the main thing for today – but it’s super weird overall:
