11:29 a.m.: The Mariners are finalizing an extension with center fielder and AL Rookie of the Year candidate Julio Rodriguez, MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reports ( Twitter link ). It is expected to guarantee Rodriguez more than $200 million. There are options, incentives and escalators that could make the deal worth about $450 million over a yet-to-be-determined period of time. Rodriguez is represented by the Octagon. Rodriguez, 21, broke camp with the Mariners this season and, after a rough two weeks to start the year, has instantly exploded into stardom and established himself as one of the frontrunners for the Rookie of the Year award. He’s currently hitting .269/.328/.471 with 20 home runs, 19 doubles, three triples and 23 steals (in 29 attempts) — plus above-average defensive contributions in center. Those numbers are at least slightly skewed by a poor start to the year in which Rodriguez hit .136/.208/.159 with a 45% strikeout rate. Dating back to April 22nd, Rodriguez has hit at a .285/.342/.508 clip. That production is about 46% better than the league average after weighting for park and league, as measured by wRC+, which puts Rodriguez in a three-way tie with Alex Bregman and the also-recently-extended Austin Riley for 12th best among eligible Major League hitters. Rodriguez also ranks 13th in the Majors in both average exit velocity (92 mph) and hard-hit rate (49.6%) over that span, and his 14.9% barrel rate over that stretch is the ninth-best MLB mark. Add in the fact that he’s done all of this at the age of 21 and having bypassed the Triple-A level entirely, and Rodriguez’s rookie season becomes even more remarkable. Given his youth and lack of seasoning in the upper minors, it’s quite possible that even though Rodriguez already ranks among the best hitters in the game, we have yet to see the best he has to offer. Defensively, Rodriguez has more than held his own in center this season, earning positive marks in Defensive Laps Saved (2), Ultimate Zone Rating (0.3) and Outs Above Average (5). Many scouting reports written prior to his MLB debut indicated that as Rodriguez ages and continues to fill out, he could be destined for a corner outfield position, but given his 70 or even 80 raw power and the good work that has homered in center this season, he’ll have both the bat and likely the defensive chops to contribute above average in right or left field. The $210 million guaranteed in that contract would give Rodriguez the record for the longest contract ever signed by a player with less than a year of Major League service. That distinction currently belongs to Rays shortstop Wander Franco, who signed an 11-year, $182 contract last November. Rodriguez will topple that mark with ease, though it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Franco wasn’t promoted until midseason and signed his deal in the winter, when the Rays had six full seasons of club control. Because Rodriguez made the Opening Day roster, he would have a full year of service in 2022 and would have “only” five additional years of club control. In that regard, Rodriguez could technically be considered more of a one-plus player (between one and two years of service), though even when looking at the contract through that lens, it’s still a record deal. Ke’Bryan Hayes’ $70mm extension in Pittsburgh was the previous record for a player with one to two years of service. Regardless of which service group one believes most aptly applies to Rodriguez, this new 14-year deal is now the largest contract ever promised to a player with less than two years of Major League service. In that regard, Rodriguez and the Major League Baseball Players Association are certainly happy to see the precedent for young, superstar extensions move even further. All that said, there’s still a chance the contract could be quite favorable for the Mariners. Rodriguez would likely earn close to the league minimum salary over the next two seasons (plus any payouts from the new pool of collective bargaining bonuses for pre-arbitration players). A player with his upside and early dominance would likely do very well in arbitration, and while we can never know exactly how much he could have earned through this process, arbitration is generally based on precedent. Looking for recent comparables, Mookie Betts secured $57.5 million over his three seasons of arbitration. If we put Rodriguez in that broad vicinity, the remaining five years of club control might have earned him somewhere in the $60 million range — maybe a few million more if he picked up an MVP award and/or pushed Betts’ precedent. a bit further. If Betts is even a loosely accurate barometer for Rodriguez’s arbitration, the Mariners appear locked into what would be nine seasons of free agency with a total cost in the $150MM range. That annual value of $16.67 million obviously pales in comparison to what Rodriguez could earn on the open market if he went year-over-year and hit the free-agent market before his age-27 season, but that is the nature of early contract extensions. There is obviously a high risk of injury or declining performance for Rodriguez, all factored into the relative discount rate for these open market seasons. It’s also worth keeping in mind that if the contract has player options and/or opt-out clauses, as Passan suggests, Rodriguez could very well hit the “eject” button on the deal and enter free agency at an earlier date. $210 million is the minimum he’s guaranteed if he plays out the 14-year term of that deal, but an opt-out in his late 20s or early 30s could change the calculus (as could any incentives/ award-based ladders and club options — all of which are typically traded in expansions of this kind). From a payroll standpoint, there’s plenty of room for Seattle to make such a commitment. A significant part of the team’s recent restructuring was devoted to clearing long-term clutter from the books – e.g. the Robinson Cano trade – and the team’s long-term commitments are now rather minimal. Left-hander Robbie Ray is signed through the 2026 season, as is shortstop JP Crawford, but they will combine for just $37 million at that point. This would only be Rodriguez’s fifth season in the big leagues, so the salaries on his contract will not have scaled to the maximum levels yet. Looking at the shorter term, books are still useful too. The Mariners, who will see veterans Mitch Haniger and Adam Frazier hit free agency at the end of the season, had just over $63 million in guaranteed money in their 2023 payroll before this deal. That number doesn’t include an $8MM pick on righty Chris Flexen, nor does it include a handful of arbitration raises: Luis Castillo (making $7.35MM this season), Diego Castillo ($2.315MM), Paul Sewald ($1.735MM), Ty France (pre-arb) and Erik Swanson (pre-arb). That said, Rodriguez’s salary will be fairly low in the early seasons of the deal, so it shouldn’t affect the team’s bottom line at all in 2023. More to come.
