The A’s have handed out two of the largest extensions in franchise history in recent months. They inked DH Brent Rooker to a five-year, $60MM guarantee in January. Earlier this week, they finalized a seven-year deal with outfielder Lawrence Butler that guarantees $65.5MM.
It’s possible that the Butler deal is the first of multiple A’s extensions in Spring Training. General manager David Forst told Evan Drellich of The Athletic a couple weeks ago that the team had opened talks with a few players. With Butler signed, closer Mason Miller should arguably be the team’s top extension candidate.
Miller told Foul Territory’s A.J. Pierzynski on Friday afternoon that he’s open to talks but hasn’t heard from the team about the possibility. The A’s control the hard-throwing reliever for another five seasons. Miller will qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player next winter. He’d go through that process four times unless he signs an extension.
The A’s may not be eager to commit to a reliever, even one as dominant as Miller, whom they already have under control for a half-decade. There’s downside associated with the general volatility of relief pitching. Miller’s stuff is so exceptional that he’s a safer bet than almost any reliever to remain effective, but there’s more of a risk from a health perspective. He battled shoulder and elbow injuries and pitched fewer than 40 innings in the minor leagues.
[Related Front Office Post: Who Else Could The A’s Look To Extend?]
Forearm tightness wiped out most of his ’23 season and was the main reason the A’s moved him out of the rotation during the 2023-24 offseason. Miller stayed healthy last year aside from an incident where he fractured the pinkie on his left (non-throwing) hand, which reportedly occurred when he hit a training table in frustration after a poor outing. That’s presumably not a concern moving forward, but as baseball’s hardest thrower, he certainly puts a lot of stress on his elbow and shoulder.
There have been a handful of extensions for relief pitchers in the 1-2 year service bucket. Miller would almost certainly look to set a new standard for that class if the A’s were interested in an extension. Emmanuel Clase’s five-year, $20MM guarantee is the current record. That deal, which was signed in April 2022, included a pair of $10MM club options to extend Cleveland’s control window by two seasons. Clase was coming off an outstanding first full season, turning in a 1.29 ERA with 24 saves and 74 strikeouts in 69 2/3 innings. Miller struck out 104 hitters with a 2.49 earned run average over 65 frames last season. He went 28-31 in save chances.
Clase’s deal is a three-year old precedent that has turned into an extremely team-friendly contract. Clase also wasn’t on track to reach Super Two status, which meant he was two years from arbitration and had a much lower earning power through that process. Arbitration salaries escalate annually, and Super Two qualification sets a higher baseline for future raises. Clase didn’t have Miller’s injury history, but the Cleveland closer had served a performance-enhancing drug suspension in 2020 that added a different risk to his profile.
Kurtz and Shea are next?
Go, Sacramento A’s!
I’m not sure Millers arm is going to hold up long term. I’d want to see him pitch more and stay healthy
The same can be said of every pitcher in the modern era. Which is why Miller would be willing to surrender a year or two of control for guaranteed money now.
I guess it’s all dependent on the terms of the deal, he’s a player that has earned the right to the conversation, but what kind of deal could he expect? It would be interesting, unsure if there is a good comp for him.
I think the A’s should extend Langeliers, I got into it the other day with somebody, they criticized his offense and his defense, but I’d say he is one of the better hitting catchers in the league, and I think defensively he gets a bad wrap because of framing and blocking stats. Id argue both are influenced by the pitching staff you handle and Langeliers has been working with a bunch of rookies. Framing stats are also influenced in part by the umpires, the umps going to call his game. I don’t think it’s all that important. I could be wrong about the framing stats but I believe those numbers are prone to fluctuations. But Langeliers will keep base runners honest, he can throw you out, and that’s most important, teams are running more. Get him a seasoned staff, and he will be excellent back there.
I’d also like to say the ABS challenge system sucks and they should scrap ABS all together. Trust in the umps to call a fair game. These challenges distract the players, and challenging a pitch on 1/1 or 2/1, that’s distracting. Players have to think about whether or not they want to challenge a pitch now, they have to think about that strategy, hitters will end up striking out more in my opinion, have to stay focused up there, can’t be thinking unless your called out on strikes and even then its annoying. “Wait a minute, he’s challenged the pitch …. Nope he’s not taking his weak stuff back to the bench taking that 2-2 heater, he will now be awarded first by the ABS. Boring.”
If they only have to risk around $30-35 million, then I’d do it in a heartbeat. That works over 5 years even with a TJ year thrown in. And they can add a couple of club options to make it even better for the team.
He should earn over $30M in three years of arbitration alone if he maintain last season’s pace. $35M won’t do it unless he gets vesting mutual options for close to $20M a year.
Exactly….he’s not deaf, nor dumb nor blind…he knows how much trade value he commands at this juncture so he’s not signing an extension for chump change…..and conversely the A’s are justified in having reservations regarding spending big money on a guy who’s got injury history, and falls into that reliever class of sometimes good….sometimes not…eve though he had a dominate year, that was last year…..this is a what are you doing now for me kind of league or should be at least…..
They control him for 5yrs. That’s an eternity in closer years. Zero reason to start extension talks with that much team control left especially for a historically low payroll team like the A’s
This. There is no other position that makes sense.
Do they really control him for 5 years? With 4 trips through arbitration scheduled (beginning after this year), Miller could easily cost $15-$20M per season the last year or 2 of his contract”control”. Can the A’s afford a closer at that cost? If not, they’d have to deal him and it’s more like 3.5 years of actual control before the rest of the league realizes it’s Jim Johnson in reverse and his trade value goes down.
I agree it’s too early for an extension for Miller. They should to see how they do in Sacramento and how some of their other deals work out.
I believe the point wouldn’t necessarily be to extend team control (beyond an option year or 2), moreso for the team to lock in his salary over the next few years (rather than arbitration) to ensure cost certainty.
At least if it’s similar in structure to the Clase deal
I think age will play a factor. Miller is already 25 and a 7-year deal like Clase’s takes him through 32. Clase was 23 when he signed his deal.
you paying attention Mike Elias?
First, “The A’s control the hard-throwing reliever for another five seasons.”
Then, “…Miller, whom they already have under control for a half-decade.”
Literally six of one and a half-dozen of the other. Or five of one and a half-decade of the other.
Never knew MLBTR had a department of redundancy department.
If I’m Miller I’m not signing any extension I’m betting on myself. I’m going to make them go to arbitration every single year.
The No Location A’s if they handle this in typical fashion will lose him for nothing in free agency. However, since they’ve been throwing money around to any warm body, hopefully they will give money to people that are actually good like him
Closers peak in trade value before they peak in contract value.