Jose Ramirez

Longtime Guardians star Jose Ramirez has agreed to another extension with the team, keeping the star third baseman in Cleveland through his age-39 season in 2032.  The new deal (which will be official pending a physical) both restructures the three years and $69MM remaining on Ramirez’s previous contract, and adds $106MM in new money covering the 2029-32 seasons.  Ramirez is represented by Republik Sports.

The biggest new wrinkle in the extension is $70MM in deferred money.  Ramirez will earn $25MM in each of the seven seasons from 2026-32, but with $10MM in deferrals each year.  This means that the $69MM Ramirez was initially slated to earn from 2026-28 has now been bumped down to $45MM in upfront money, giving the Guardians some extra flexibility to perhaps make other short-term roster additions.  The new deal also includes increased incentive bonuses, such as $500K for an MVP award.

Assuming the extension is finalized, it should ensure that Ramirez remains in a Guards uniform throughout the entirety of his career, only further cementing his place as a Cleveland baseball legend.  Ramirez signed with the organization as an international free agent in 2009 at age 17, and has gone on to hit .279/.353/.504 with 285 home runs and 287 steals (out of 349 chances) over 6759 plate appearances.  Between his strong offense and impressive glovework at third base, Ramirez has amassed 57.6 bWAR over his career — the fifth-highest total of any player in Indians/Guardians history.

Ramirez turned 33 last September but doesn’t appear to be slowing down, as he hit .283/.360/.503 with 30 homers and a career-best 44 steals over 673 PA.  These big numbers and his leading role in the Guardians’ late-season surge to the AL Central title helped Ramirez earn a third-place finish in AL MVP voting.  While the MVP trophy continues to elude Ramirez, he has now recorded a second-place finish (in 2020), three thirds, and three other top-six placements during his outstanding career.

While Ramirez continues to deliver elite production, committing $106MM to a player (especially through his age 36-39 seasons) is no small matter for a lower-payroll team like the Guardians.  The new money included in Ramirez’s extension represents the third-highest guarantee Cleveland has ever given to a player, behind just Ramirez’s previous extension and their seven-year, $106.5MM extension with the since-traded Andres Gimenez in 2023.  That said, the $70MM worth of deferred money will lower the current-day price tag of the extension, and allow some extra payroll flexibility for the front office.

This is the third extension Ramirez has signed with Cleveland, as his first multi-year pact with the team was a five-year, $26MM deal covering the 2017-2021 seasons that included a pair of club options.  Obviously Ramirez vastly outperformed his paycheck in that deal, and after exercising their 2022 option to retain Ramirez, the Guardians and the third baseman worked out the second extension that saw five years and $124MM in new money added in April 2022.

It was known that the Guardians explored trade scenarios involving Ramirez prior to that 2022 extension, as it has long been the organization’s habit to trade star players before reaching free agency.  While not every deal of a star has worked out, the Guards have hit on enough of these trades to replenish their system with younger (and cheaper) talent while avoiding the higher price tags associated with players nearing the end of their arbitration control.

Ramirez is the exception to the rule.  The seven-time All-Star has been open about how much he enjoys playing in Cleveland, and he has backed up that stance by leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table to re-up with the Guards not once, but now twice.  Of course, it remains to be seen how productive Ramirez will still be by the end of the 2028 season, yet this added $106MM could be viewed as something of a thank-you to a star player for his years of service, as well an investment in the idea that Ramirez will continue delivering big numbers.

The timing of the extension is interesting, as there was seemingly no huge rush to tack more years onto a deal that already ran through 2028.  However, the Guards may have wanted to get something done in advance of the next collective bargaining agreement, as rumors persist that the league (as part of their overall desire to curb playing spending) may at least look into some kinds of restrictions against deferred money in contracts.  The Dodgers have most famously included deferrals in many of their high-priced deals in recent years, though Cleveland’s new pact with Ramirez is the latest example of how both big-market and small-market teams frequently use deferred money to complete contracts.

Z101 Digital’s Hector Gomez was the first to report about the agreement and described it as complete, though Jon Heyman of the New York Post added that Ramirez and the Guardians were still “working on” the agreement.  Gomez reported the $106MM in new money, Heyman added the detail about the $70MM in deferrals, and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal had the year-to-year financial breakdown over the seven years.  ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the deal had been agreed upon, pending a physical.

Inset image courtesy of Matt Krohn – Imagn Images