NEWSLETTER
For all the talk over the years about the Cubs failing to extend their core position players – and about how they’ve now turned that page with Nico Hoerner and Ian Happ – we almost never talk about extensions for pitchers, where Kyle Hendricks’ deal four years ago was the last one.
Now, unlike the positional group, there was a very different reason for that on the pitching side: the Cubs simply didn’t have a lot of younger, up-and-coming arms they might want to extend. Hendricks made a lot of sense. Not many others did.
But now that’s not the case, as the Cubs have loads of interesting young pitching working their way up to the big leagues and, in some cases, toward arbitration. You’d have to at least start thinking about whether there are any of these guys you’d like to lock down for a little longer. (I could make the argument in either direction, given the success the Cubs have had in free agency and given the volume of pitching on the way. So this isn’t necessarily me saying the Cubs NEED TO lock down anyone in particular.)
That is all a preamble to the news that the San Francisco Giants have signed starter Logan Webb to a new five-year extension:
Webb, 26, was already signed this year at $4.5 million via arbitration. He was set to hit arbitration again in 2024 and 2025, so this deal buys out those years and then three years of free agency. Webb put together back-to-back 4+ WAR years the last two seasons, and clearly the Giants believe he can continue his success for many years to come – they’re guaranteeing $90 million to Webb two years away from free agency. There’s a lot of risk there.
In return, the Giants get an $18 million AAV on a guy who could easily outperform that price tag for five more years if he stays healthy. But the risk baked into a deal like this is significant enough that, to be honest, I’m not sure this one is a good get by the Giants (especially on a pitcher whose peripherals dipped quite a bit from 2021 to 2022, and he lost a MPH on his fastball in his mid-20s).
