The Brewers agreed to a five-year, $30.1MM extension with pitcher Yovani Gallardo today. The deal buys out all three arbitration seasons and one free agent year, and has a $13MM club option on another. SI's Jon Heyman tweets that Gallardo can void the club option by obtaining points based on Cy Young voting, while MLB.com's Adam McCalvy gives no-trade clause details. The contract is a bit loaded toward the front, with the free agent year costing only $11.25MM. MLBTR named Gallardo as an extension candidate in January and predicted the contract amount once the agreement was reached this morning. Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel first reported the agreement, with the AP adding contract details.
Gallardo is an interesting case, as he had two years and 108 days of service time heading into the season but only 320 innings under his belt due to a torn ACL that caused him to miss most of '08. He would've been arbitration-eligible for the first time after this season. Coming into the season Gallardo had 22 wins, 325 strikeouts, and a 3.57 career ERA. McCalvy deduced that Jon Lester was the comparable used, as Gallardo's new deal mirrors that contract and exceeds it by $100K. Gallardo now appears to own the biggest contract signed by a pitcher with less than three years service time.
