While we hosted Extension Week at The Athletic in mid-March, Major League Baseball has held it this past week, with several prominent players signing long-term extensions right as the regular season was getting underway. The biggest of those deals came Monday with the Boston Red Sox agreeing to a six-year, $170 million deal with their Opening Day starter, Garrett Crochet.
No extension happens in a vacuum, and every deal affects those in the future. So let’s run through recent extensions, what they say about the current market and what they might mean for other similar players.
Crochet’s youth is rewarded
When the Red Sox traded a prospect haul to the Chicago White Sox for Crochet, it was clear Boston would want the left-hander for more than his two remaining seasons of team control. Crochet had talked openly about an extension last summer, and thus, one of the likelier extensions of the year is done.
Last summer and again this spring, I projected a Crochet extension at five years and $110 million. As much as this sounds like a rationalization, the lefty’s deal with Boston is in line with that evaluation.
My projections included Crochet’s $3.8 million salary this season, whereas the extension doesn’t kick in until 2026. I had projected the Red Sox buying out three years of Crochet’s free agency at $32 million apiece; they bought out five years of his free agency at $32 million apiece with an opt-out after the 2030 season. Crochet’s relative youth — he was in line to hit free agency ahead of his age-28 season in 2027 — gave Boston the confidence to go longer on the deal.
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A $32 million valuation for Crochet, with one strong season under his belt, is good news for other starters, especially those in the extension market. In the spring, I valued the free-agent years of Tarik Skubal at $35 million apiece and of Logan Gilbert and George Kirby at $30 million apiece.
Skubal can certainly make the case he’s been more dominant than Crochet to this point, and Gilbert and Kirby have more established track records, even if they’re further away from free agency (Skubal will be eligible for free agency after the 2026 season; Gilbert and Kirby are under team control through 2027 and ’28, respectively). Expect them to use Crochet’s valuation as a floor in any long-term discussions.
We’ve found the sweet spot for pre-arb starters
The extensions signed by Tanner Bibee (five years, $48 million) and Brandon Pfaadt (five years, $45 million) fit into a larger cohort of deals for similar pitchers.
Hunter Greene, Brayan Bello and Pfaadt were five years away from free agency when they signed (though Pfaadt’s extension, like Crochet’s, doesn’t start until 2026). Each of these deals buys out one year of free agency in the range of $22 million to $25 million. All four contain a club option for $21 million.
Given that Bibee was a year closer to free agency and had produced two strong seasons rather than one, I’m a little surprised he fits as neatly into this group as he does. When I projected an extension for the right-hander last spring, I suggested a deal above Greene’s. After another season of 3 WAR or more according to FanGraphs, he signed for less than Greene.
Other pitchers who could fit into this group eventually include Spencer Schwellenbach, Spencer Arrighetti, Simeon Woods Richardson, Bryce Miller, Bryan Woo and Andrew Abbott.
Catcher market starts to move
One of the reasons I suggested that Adley Rutschman and William Contreras hold off on extensions is that the catcher market appeared on the verge of being reset. Those two and Cal Raleigh all entered arbitration at similar price points last winter, and whoever signed the first extension would set the negotiating floor for the next two. J.T. Realmuto is a free agent at season’s end, and a short-term, higher-AAV deal for the veteran catcher could push the market forward as well.
Raleigh’s six-year, $105 million extension with Seattle is a solid deal for the solid backstop. As I mentioned in writing up potential extensions for Contreras and Rutschman, the second tier of catchers had hit a ceiling at about a $23 million annual salary. Raleigh’s deal includes three years of team control — I’d estimate his arbitration earnings at about $30 million over those three seasons — and buys out three free-agent years at roughly $25 million apiece. So that’s a small step forward in the market. Expect Contreras and Rutschman to push it further.
That impending movement in the catching market is one reason Toronto’s extension with Alejandro Kirk (five years, $58 million) made a lot of sense from the team side. Kirk’s deal, which starts in 2026, buys out four free-agent years for about $50 million total or $12.5 million per season.
While Kirk isn’t in the same class as Raleigh, Contreras and Rutschman — he’s making less in his second year of arbitration than they all are in their first — he probably could have earned a bit more had his deal been negotiated after Raleigh’s. But much of Kirk’s value comes from his defense, including outstanding pitch framing, and that skill might become less important soon with the introduction of a ball-strike challenge system. So it’s not a bad move to lock in long-term earnings now.
Kirk’s deal could set a framework for catchers in that next tier, like Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers or the Athletics’ Shea Langeliers.
(Photo of Garrett Crochet: Richard Rodriguez / Getty Images)
