Oakland fans have cause to celebrate. The Athletics announced Thursday that they’ve extended designated hitter/outfielder Khris Davis through the 2021 season. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports (via Twitter) that Davis will earn $16.75MM in each year of the contract, meaning he’ll take home $33.5MM in new money over the next two campaigns. Davis, an Octagon client, would have been eligible for free agency following the 2019 season.
“Oakland has been a special place for me since I arrived,” said Davis in a statement accompanying the announcement. “I love playing here in front of our fans, and my teammates make this feel like a family. I never hid the fact that I wanted to stay in Oakland because that is how I feel and I’m glad that I can continue to call the city of Oakland my baseball home. This team has a bright future, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”
Davis, 31, has been a source of immense power and stunning consistency since coming to the A’s by way of trade from the Brewers. There may be no more remarkable piece of trivia in baseball than the slugger finishing four consecutive seasons with a .247 batting average. Of course, while that number doesn’t stand out as particularly impressive, Davis offsets that average with respectable on-base skills and elite power; he’s a .247/.322/.539 hitter since being acquired by the Athletics (this season included) and averaged 44 homers per year in each of his three full seasons in green and gold.
It’s not particularly surprising to see the sides line up on a new deal, especially in this year of the extension. The A’s have proven willing to commit multiple seasons to a DH in the recent past. Though they came to regret the Billy Butler signing, the club has had a lengthy opportunity already to evaluate Davis in person. He has proven capable of putting the ball over the fence in one of the game’s least homer-friendly ballparks. And he’ll continue to earn at the same level he is in 2019, a salary that the club obviously feels it can manage even with its typically bottom-barrel payroll.
From Davis’s perspective, the market has been distinctly unfriendly to defensively limited sluggers. J.D. Martinez hit free agency with a better track record and at a much younger age than Davis would have, but settled for $110MM over five years. And that’s the very top of the market. The aging but highly accomplished Nelson Cruz settled for one year and $14MM this past winter. He took down four seasons and $57MM when he hit the market in 2014, but things have clearly changed since that time.
If there was an upside scenario for Davis in the 2019-20 market, it was probably embodied in Carlos Santana’s three-year, $60MM deal. Santana was a similar age to Davis; he lacked Davis’s power abilities but was a much bigger on-base threat. That contract came in higher than MLBTR predicted; it also quickly proved undesirable for the Phillies. Santana’s contract was one of several first base/DH accords to be swapped around the league this winter. Perhaps Davis could still have earned more on the open market, in AAV if not also years, but it’s understandable that he wasn’t anxious to test his luck.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
I hope the per year salary ends in 247. Like, 15,000,247/year lol
Seriously.. there are several ways to have made this work. 2/47 million, 24.7 million annually. Overpay the man, damnit, if only to make the numbers right!!
Why not just give him 247 million?
per, defered over the next 247 months
A team option for $247 mil. It kicks in if he hits .247 every year.
Winner!
He said he’d accept 3/45, gets a year less but higher AAV.
Honestly I’m relieved. If you can’t extend a generational power hitter who WANTS to stay in Oakland and is willing to take LESS to do it, that leaves little hope for the future – new stadium or not. Thank goodness.
He’s a 2 WAR DH. you really think he gave up money to stay in Oakland?
WAR for a DH only player isn’t very informative. He’s routinely 25-35% above league overage offensively. Higher than that thus far. Now, I don’t think he left too many dollars on the table here. He’s a DH only. That takes out half the teams in the league. The other half of the AL isn’t going to spend 16+ mil on a DH or are rebuilding. Then you have teams like the Sox and Yankees who would spend that money but they’re set there. That leaves maybe 3-4 teams in on Davis so I highly doubt he was going to make too much more than this.
I wouldn’t count the Red Sox out if JDM opts out. Granted, it’s a moot point now.
No one is giving a 20 grade defender $100M, especially in 2019. This is a nice deal for Davis, now all Beane has to do is throw 8/200 on the table for Chapman and see if that moves Boras’s needle a little. Or 3/50 each for Kimbrel and Keuchel would certainly make the A’s -2019- playoffs hopes a massive boost. I’d have them 2nd overall behind Houston if they did that, actually. A’s really are those 2 players away from being a frontliner.
why would Kimbrel sign with someone to be a set up guy??
If the money is right Kimbrel ought to do it. Now to suggest the A’s would give him 50+MM is laughable. 0 chance.
Who said he’d setup?
Blake Treinen – 99mph fastball and 98mph sinker. With heavy movement.
+
Lou Trivino – 98mph fastball, 93mph cutter, 86mph vulcan (split-finger) change, 80mph curve – starter’s arsenal, relievers heat, can spot the curve on the edge of the zone for strikes and make Jose Altuve look like a novice at the plate.
We don’t need another closer, we need another really good setup man.
Mike Trout is the only generational anything in baseball right now. His career slug % is 50 points higher than Davis.
Generational means once in a generation. One every 25 years or so. Davis won’t even sniff the Hall of Fame, yet ever be considered generational anything. He is a solid DH. Exactly the type of player you would expect to be an everyday DH. The A’s paid him well for his position and I am glad to see they actually retained a good player.
Lets gooooooo!!!! Bout time
That’s a nice deal for both sides.
I like this deal.
hopefully this can be the start of ending the narrative of the a’s not keeping fan favorites
That narrative is true though. I have doubts theyll sign semien and treinen after 2020. Money factor and also if they think mateo and trivino can replace them. Chapman long shot mainly because boras
If Mateo keeps hitting the way he’s currently hitting, he’s going to be the heir apparent.
Great news! Now lock up Chapman!
YES!
Not gonna happen, they tried before the 2018 season, given his agent is Boras, there’s basically zero chance of this happening before the middle of his last arb year.
8/200 probably gets Boras’s attention.
I’d say the huge amount of extensions signed over the offseason probably moved the needle a little bit on that deal
I definitely agree with you there, but look at how many of these are Boras clients, none of them.
8/200 would definitely get it done but I could never ever see the A’s doing something like that, I’d love to be wrong.
8/200 is a yes even for a boras client. That’s an extension in the players favor. I don’t think the A’s are putting that on the table. He’s 25 not 21 like Acuna or Albies. He can’t hit the open market until he’s already 31. The A’s may not be in a rush because of that very fact. Though conceivably if you were Oakland and could get the end of his prime at 31-33 instead of having to bid on him in FA or let him walk on a 5 year deal that’d also hold intrigue. I also have no doubt boras will do a lot better for his client than those other 2 received.
The man already has 10 homers. And you can pencil in his batting average at the start of the season…
Finally a story where the player doesn’t want every last dime. Great for him and the A’s
Acuña and Albies are your poster children for that argument
Literally every free agent has done this this offseason.
Yet MLB profits are skyrocketing, player salaries are going down. Hm. What do you think should happen here?
“MLB profits are skyrocketing”.. what’s your source on this? I can only find revenue information.
That’s strike four. You can’t expect him to supply any sources. He is just like the the left side in politics, trying to pass off opinions as facts.
Steering clear of politics.. I can’t tell if you are intentionally being ironic. You criticize Strike Four for supplying generalized information without a source.. and then you go on to provide generalized information without a source on a completely unrelated topic.
MLB revenue is higher than it has ever been, while teams are cutting payroll. two years ago, player salaries were around 54 % of MLB payroll. Now they are 48%. That’s huge. And your dumb political take has no place here.
and hit 140 HRs and drive in 330 RBIs. (and hit .247)
Never doubted for a second. He loves playing with this team and ownership loves him too. It was only a matter of time.
The front office loves him. No one is sure if John Fisher is even a fan..
I don’t even think John Fisher could name half of the members of the A’s 25 man roster..
He is. watch a few games, look to the left of the entrance of the diamond level, last row, first seat. The guy wearing the camo A’s hat is Fisher.
Reggie Jackson once told Tony Armas “don’t mind the strike outs, just hit them out. They will love you for that”… Kris Davis can definitely them out. This is a great signing for the talented, young A’s…
exchange with orioles’ chris davis!
Never thought id say this about a player, but he needs to get that batting average down.
nice, equitable deal. i love it as a fan of the game as a whole.
You have the wrong player. Think you mean Krush Davis not Khris Davis.
Dude has been atrociously underpaid for years and this is still an underpay. Everyone knocks DHs and teams do not want to pay them, but several end up being the best hitter on the team. Like they hit 40 hrs and drive in all our runs but bc you dont sit in LF, RF or 1B we dont value you. Soon both leagues will have the DH.
Khris Davis is an interesting model for the logical inconsistency of arbitration. It is statistically improbable how consistent he has been, yet he has made salaries ranging from $5 m to $16.5 m.. There is no way the arbitration panel would have awarded $16m to Khris in his first year of arbitration in 2017, even though that season is grossly equivalent to his current production.
I’m not sure you understand how arbitration works if you think that’s the error. If he were to make 16 million in his first season of arbitration he’d be due 30MM now. Yes, the process needs to be reworked for a number of reasons but that doesn’t really illustrate that.
I’m not saying there’s an error, it’s just a curious construct. Logically good players make more than average players in arbitration, so the system is theoretically based on value. But his case demonstrates that the system rewards arbitrary (sorry couldn’t help myself) values based on the same production.
That’s just not how it works. You get a first-year salary and raises thereafter. It’s cumulative.
He should of waited.
Remember JD can opt out this year.
Davis could of easily gotten more than 32 mil.
Why settle for much less 5 months from free agency when injury isnt that common fo a dh?
Wow really locked him up long term. That should make him an A for life.
And to think, putting aside a prolific power hitter, a guy by the name of Kimberl wanted about 20 miles for a closer role and Keukhel 25 mil yearly who’s ERA has been dancing around these past few years, currently averaging 3.66. Maybe it’s mostly their agents then. Either way, way in over their heads and good for Davis.
Wow. Is this even in English? Or just a bad translation?