Jordan Lawlar To Miss Six To Eight Weeks With Broken Wrist
Diamondbacks outfielder Jordan Lawlar has a right wrist fracture, manager Torey Lovullo tells reporters, including Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic. The Diamondbacks have placed him on the 10-day injured list. Catcher Adrian Del Castillo was reinstated from the 10-day IL in a corresponding move. Arizona also made a move on the pitching side. They selected the contract of right-hander Taylor Rashi and designated fellow righty Joe Ross for assignment. Prior to the official announcement, Piecoro noted that Rashi had the locker previously occupied by Ross.
It’s yet another unfortunate chapter in the Lawlar story. The youngster has been one of Arizona’s top prospects for years but hasn’t been able to cement himself in the big leagues. He has often been blocked by more established players. When an opening would appear, Lawlar would himself be hurt or would struggle. He finished 2025 with a .165/.241/.237 line in 108 big league appearances.
The club grew impatient with his infield defense and moved him to the outfield for 2026. He earned an Opening Day spot and was hitting well. He hit his first major league home run last night, pushing his season-long batting line to .333/.400/.556 by the end of the game. Unfortunately, he was hit on his wrist by a pitch in the seventh inning. He stayed in the game to run the bases but was replaced defensively in the top of the eighth. Now Lawlar is slated for another notable absence, once again delaying his path to becoming an established big leaguer.
For the Snakes, their outfield takes a hit. They still have Corbin Carroll in right and Alek Thomas in center but Lawlar’s injury means they will have to figure out what to do in left. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Pavin Smith could be part of the solution down the road but both are currently on the IL. Del Castillo is unlikely to help, as his outfield experience consists of two Triple-A innings back in 2023. He was likely only called up because the Diamondbacks have no one else to turn to. Every position player on the 40-man roster is either on the active roster or injured list. For now, they will likely use some combination of Jorge Barrosa, Tim Tawa and Ildemaro Vargas.
More to come.
Blue Jays Sign Patrick Corbin
The Blue Jays announced that they have signed left-hander Patrick Corbin to a one-year deal and optioned him to Low-A Dunedin. It’s worth $1MM, per Mitch Bannon of The Athletic. There are also incentives worth $1MM, per Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. The Jays had 40-man vacancies and don’t need to make a corresponding move. Corbin has enough service time where he can’t be optioned without his consent, so he has presumably agreed to be sent down to get built up.
More to come.
Braves Acquire Víctor Mederos
The Angels have traded right-hander Víctor Mederos to the Braves in exchange for international bonus pool space, according to announcements from both clubs. The righty was designated for assignment a few days ago when the Angels added Shaun Anderson to their roster. Francys Romero of BeisbolFR says the pool space changing hands is $250K. By rule, pool space can only be traded in $250K increments. Atlanta transferred righty AJ Smith-Shawver to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot. Mederos was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett.
Mederos, 25 in June, has a small and unimpressive major league track record to this point. He has tossed 25 1/3 innings over the previous three seasons with an 8.53 earned run average. Atlanta is presumably more interested in his minor league work. Last year, he made 16 starts at the Triple-A level, posting a 3.39 ERA in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He got some help from a 78.4% strand rate and only struck out 18.6% of batters faced but he features mid-90s velocity and a five-pitch mix.
The Halos nudged him off the roster but found enough interest on the trade block to net some international pool space in return. Atlanta gave up that pool space because they could use some extra pitching depth. In the past few weeks, they have lost Spencer Schwellenbach, Hurston Waldrep, Joey Wentz and Spencer Strider to injuries.
They currently have a rotation featuring Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, Grant Holmes, Bryce Elder and Martín Pérez. Sale has a lengthy injury history and is now 37 years old. López only made one start last year due to shoulder surgery. Holmes was diagnosed with a partial tear of his ulnar collateral ligament last year and is healthy now but it wouldn’t be a shock for that injury to flare up again. Elder had a 5.30 ERA last year. Pérez is a soft-tossing veteran.
Atlanta does have Didier Fuentes and JR Ritchie in Triple-A but those two are fairly lacking in experience. Ritchie still hasn’t cracked the majors. Fuentes has made it to the show but has allowed 21 earned runs in 17 innings. Mederos will give them some extra Triple-A depth and could be called up to the big leagues at some point, if needed.
As for Smith-Shawver, his transfer to the 60-day IL was inevitable. He underwent Tommy John surgery in June of last year. He could return at some point in 2026 but presumably not until after the All-Star break.
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images
Brewers Designate Steward Berroa For Assignment
The Brewers have designated outfielder Steward Berroa for assignment, per a team announcement. His spot on the 40-man roster goes to top infield prospect Cooper Pratt, whose contract has been selected to the 40-man roster now that his previously reported eight-year extension has been finalized. Pratt will remain in Triple-A Nashville for the time being, according to the Brewers.
Berroa, 26, came to the Brewers in a cash swap with the Dodgers back in July. He appeared in two games with Milwaukee last summer, going hitless in six plate appearances but contributing a stolen base after he drew a walk. He’s totaled only 51 major league plate appearances between the Brew Crew and Blue Jays — the team that originally signed him. In that fleeting cup of coffee, Berroa is 6-for-42 (.167/.314/.190) with a double, eight walks and six steals.
In parts of four Triple-A seasons, the switch-hitting Berroa is a .255/.353/.373. That production has come in a sample of 673 plate appearances, during which he’s popped a dozen homers, tallied 25 doubles and three triples, and gone 69-for-86 (80.2%) in stolen base attempts. Statcast credits the 5’9″, 193-pound burner with 89th percentile sprint speed. Berroa has primarily been a center fielder in the minors but has more than 1000 innings in each corner outfield spot over the course of nine professional seasons. He’s drawn above-average grades for his range and arm during his limited MLB run in the outfield (5 Defensive Runs Saved, 3 Outs Above Average in only 120 innings).
This is Berroa’s final minor league option year. A team looking for some speed and/or outfield depth could be drawn to Berroa’s wheels, defensive versatility and knack for drawing walks. Anyone who picks him up would be able to send him to Triple-A without exposing him to waivers. Milwaukee can trade Berroa or place him on waivers at any point within the next five days. Since waivers are a 48-hour process, we’ll know the result of his DFA by this time next week.
Brewers Sign Top Prospect Cooper Pratt To Eight-Year Extension
April 3: The Brewers announced Friday that Pratt has signed his eight-year extension. He’s been selected to the 40-man roster and optioned to Triple-A Nashville. Outfielder Steward Berroa was designated for assignment in a corresponding move.
March 30: The Brewers and prospect Cooper Pratt are reportedly on the verge of finalizing an eight-year contract worth $50.75MM. There will also be two club options worth about $15MM per year, though the value of those options can increase via escalators. The Brewers will need to make a corresponding move to add the Boras Corporation client to their 40-man roster.
It’s a surprising, out-of-nowhere extension. Pratt is 21 years old and hasn’t made it to the majors yet. He only just made his Triple-A debut a few days ago. He wasn’t even going to be eligible for the Rule 5 draft until December of 2027.
Extensions for players with no major league experience are becoming more common but this one feels even a bit more extreme than some of the others. Most pre-debut extensions have been for guys very close to cracking the big leagues. The Brewers themselves did one with Jackson Chourio just over two years ago, an $82MM guarantee, though that one was a bit less surprising. Chourio had finished the prior season at the Triple-A level and seemed highly likely to break camp with Milwaukee in 2024 as he was one of the top three prospects in the sport.
Pratt, on the other hand, mostly features on the back of top 100 prospect lists. Baseball America is the high outlet, putting him at #50. MLB Pipeline has him at #62, ESPN at #70, The Athletic at #99 and he’s not even on the FanGraphs list. He had an okay season at Double-A last year, with a .238/.343/.348 line and 107 wRC+, and only just cracked the Triple-A level to start this season.
Perhaps it speaks to the Brewers being quite high on Pratt’s future. Though his offense was middling last year, the plate discipline was clearly good. His 12.7% walk rate and 15.2% strikeout rate were both strong figures. He only hit eight home runs but could perhaps add more power in time. He stole 31 bags last year and is considered a solid defender at shortstop.
If the Brewers have faith in Pratt’s long-term future, there’s sense in locking him up now. That’s especially true with him being a Boras client. That agency isn’t quite as extension-averse as its reputation but the extensions they have done have almost always been for guys who have reached their arbitration years. According to MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, which has data going back to 2006, the Carlos González deal from back in 2011 is the only pre-arbitration extension for a Boras client.
In that context, perhaps the Brewers felt it was worth it to take a gamble on Pratt, even though he is still so early in his career. If they waited until he had been in the big leagues for a few years, the price would go up if he had any kind of success. From the perspective of Pratt, this is a chance for him to lock up some notable earnings and stave off any chance of a bust. Perhaps he will find himself underpaid if he becomes a star, but he’s not the level of surefire, can’t-miss prospect that Chourio was. He could play out this contract, including the options, and still reach free agency after his age-30 season.
What remains to be seen is how this impacts Milwaukee’s short-term plans. Even if Pratt is signed to a big league deal, he doesn’t need to be on the active roster, as he could still be kept in the minors on optional assignment. Joey Ortiz was their everyday shortstop last year. He put up a rough .230/.276/.317 line at the plate but stole 14 bases and was credited with 12 Outs Above Average. He is still in that job and has a massive .455/.500/.455 line so far this year but in a tiny sample of 12 plate appearances.
Ortiz is still under club control for many years but the club may pivot away from him at some point if he can’t post better offense over a sustained stretch of time. He does have options and could be sent to the minors, or perhaps be moved into a utility role since he has experience at second and third base. Pratt has fairly limited experience off the shortstop position but could presumably handle second or third if the Brewers asked him to. For now, Brice Turang is a strong option at the keystone. Third base is a bit more open, with David Hamilton and Luis Rengifo in the mix at the moment.
Looking further down the road, most of those guys still have lots of club control. Rengifo is on a one-year deal but Ortiz, Turang and Hamilton aren’t slated for free agency until after 2029. Prospects Jett Williams, Jesús Made and Luis Peña are generally considered top 100 guys who will be in the mix at some point. Williams has already played at the Triple-A level, Made at Double-A and Pena at High-A. At some point over the horizon, the infield could feel quite crowded, which could perhaps lead to a trade.
In the near term, the deal could have other notable impacts. With the deal in place, the Brewers may not worry about Pratt’s service time, since he would be under club control for the ten years regardless. The Prospect Promotion Incentive could also be interesting here. Pratt would be PPI eligible since he is on the aforementioned prospect lists. Even though he missed the first few games of the season, it’s still early enough for the Brewers to call him up for a full year of service time.
However, a player who signs an extension prior to his major league debut is not eligible to earn PPI picks for his team. Unless the two sides agree to the deal in principle and then don’t officially sign it until after Pratt’s debut, then PPI is off the table.
Altogether, it’s a surprising and curious extension, one that seemingly leads to more questions than it answers. Perhaps the coming days will provide some more clarity on the deal and what it means for all the other moving pieces in Milwaukee.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today first reported that the two sides were working on an eight-year deal worth more than $50MM, including those club options. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported the specific guarantee. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that there are escalators on the options. Photos courtesy of Dave Kallmann, Imagn Images.
Pirates Promote Konnor Griffin
April 3: Pittsburgh has formally selected Griffin’s contract, per a club announcement. Infielder Enmanuel Valdez was designated for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot.
April 2: The Pirates are calling up shortstop Konnor Griffin, the top prospect in all of baseball, to make his major league debut in tomorrow’s home opener, Pirates insider Jason Mackey reports. The team has confirmed Griffin’s promotion but has not yet formally selected his contract to the 40-man roster. They’ll need to do so and make corresponding 26-man and 40-man transactions prior to first pitch tomorrow.
Griffin was in the mix to break camp on Pittsburgh’s Opening Day roster but was reassigned to minor league camp late in spring training. The two parties have continued talks on what would be a record-setting contract extension — expected to be both the largest ever for a player with little to no major league service time (surpassing Colt Emerson‘s recent eight-year $95MM deal with the Mariners) and the Pirates’ franchise-record contract ($100MM for Bryan Reynolds).
It’s possible the Bucs simply wanted Griffin to make his debut at home, popping ticket sales throughout the weekend and further boosting excitement for fans after an uncharacteristically aggressive offseason. It’s also feasible that the two parties have become close enough on a long-term contract that the Pirates are making the move to promote him now and will announce an extension not long after his debut. The benefits in that scenario are straightforward. Players who sign extensions before making their MLB debut are not eligible to net draft picks for their club under MLB’s prospect promotion incentives; players who sign extensions after debuting remain PPI eligible. So long as any contract is finalized after Griffin has debuted, he’d net the Pirates an extra draft pick either by winning 2026 NL Rookie of the Year honors or with a top-three finish in MVP voting in 2026-28. (A player can only generate one total PPI pick for his team.)
Griffin is still three weeks away from his 20th birthday, but the 19-year-old phenom will get his chance to prove he’s ready for the big time. A physical beast already standing 6’3″ and weighing 225 pounds, Griffin is perhaps the most touted No. 1 overall prospect in recent memory. He draws plus (60) to plus-plus (70) grades on the 20-80 scale for all of his tools across the board. Griffin is an elite runner who scouts believe can stick at shortstop while hitting for both average and power.
Selected with the No. 9 overall pick in 2024, Griffin has played just one full professional season, and the results were borderline comical. He sprinted through the minors last year, climbing from Low-A to Double-A and absolutely raking at each of his three stops. Griffin totaled 563 plate appearances overall and slashed .333/.415/.527 with 21 home runs, 23 doubles, four triples and an eye-popping 65 stolen bases in 78 tries (83.3%). He walked at an 8.9% clip and struck out at a 21.7% rate.
Those numbers are staggering on their own. By measure of wRC+, Griffin was 65% better than an average hitter across those three levels. That ignores the context that the Mississippi native was among the youngest players — if not the youngest player — at all of those stops. Griffin hit just .171 in 46 spring plate appearances with the Pirates but still popped four home runs. He’s taken 21 plate appearances in Triple-A to begin this season and gone 7-for-16 with three doubles, three steals, five walks and only four strikeouts.
With the Pirates, Griffin will immediately step in as the team’s everyday shortstop. That’ll push Jared Triolo to a bench role for which he’s probably better suited. Triolo is an adept defender at multiple infield spots but carries just a .234/.319/.343 slash in 1054 plate appearances at the major league level. He can mix in at any of the four infield spots now, though he’s not going to supplant starters Spencer Horwitz (first base), Brandon Lowe (second base) or Nick Gonzales (third base) unless there’s an injury or a prolonged stretch of poor play from Gonzales as he acclimates to the hot corner.
Griffin steps into a big league lineup that has been substantially revamped since last season. The Pirates didn’t get the biggest fish they pursued this winter (e.g. Kyle Schwarber, Josh Naylor, Kazuma Okamoto), but they still brought in several established veteran bats who’ve unequivocally bolstered the offense. Lowe and outfielder Jake Mangum came over from the Rays alongside lefty reliever Mason Montgomery in a three-team trade sending young righty Mike Burrows to Houston. Ryan O’Hearn signed a two-year, $29MM in free agency. Marcell Ozuna later came aboard for a year and $12MM. Griffin now joins newcomers like Lowe, O’Hearn and Ozuna in the heart of a vastly improved lineup that Pirates hopes will better support the team’s excellent young pitching staff.
Service time considerations seemingly weren’t a factor in Griffin’s promotion. He’s still being called up in time to get a full year of major league service even without a Rookie of the Year win. His timelines for reaching arbitration and free agency would be rendered moot if Griffin eventually signs an extension, as many expect, but as things currently stand he’d be on track for arbitration eligibility following the 2028 season and free agency following the 2031 season, when he’d be just 25 years old (and going into his age-26 season). Griffin is so young that even a record-setting extension could still position him to reach the open market well ahead of his 30th birthday.
Griffin is the first of many young Pirates hitters who could impact the team this season. Pittsburgh also picked up touted outfield prospect Jhostynxon Garcia in a trade with the Red Sox, and he should get a look in the majors before too long. Infielder Termarr Johnson‘s stock has dipped in recent seasons, but he’s still just 21 years old and coming off a nice 2025 showing in Double-A. Catcher/first baseman Rafael Flores Jr., another trade acquisition (from the Yankees in last summer’s David Bednar swap) had a big season between Double-A and Triple-A last year and could hit his way into a bigger audition in 2026 as well.
For now, all eyes are on Griffin — both to witness the debut of one of the best prospects in recent memory and also to see whether he signs a franchise-altering extension that’d lock him in beyond his original six seasons of club control.
Pirates Designate Enmanuel Valdez For Assignment
The Pirates have designated infielder Enmanuel Valdez for assignment, per a club announcement. His 40-man roster spot goes to the game’s No. 1 overall prospect, shortstop Konnor Griffin, whose previously announced promotion to the majors is now finalized.
Valdez has seen action in parts of three major league seasons, including 102 plate appearances with Pittsburgh last year. The 27-year-old carries a lifetime .230/.288/.392 batting line in the majors and has tallied 14 big league home runs in 474 plate appearances. He’s a left-handed hitter who’s spent the bulk of his time at second base but also has experience at both infield corners and in both outfield corners.
Originally an Astros signee out of his native Dominican Republic, Valdez went from Houston to Boston alongside Wilyer Abreu in the lopsided deal that shipped catcher Christian Vazquez to the Astros in 2022. The Red Sox traded him to the Pirates in Dec. 2024, acquiring minor league reliever Joe Vogatsky in return.
While Valdez has yet to hit much in the majors, he’s a career .250/.343/.467 hitter in parts of four Triple-A seasons. He’s graded out as a poor second base defender in the majors but posted above-average marks in a small sample of 190 innings at first base. Valdez is in his final minor league option year, so any team that plucks him off waivers or swings a small trade for him would be able to send him to Triple-A without restriction — at least for the remainder of the current season. (He’ll be out of options next year.)
The Pirates can trade Valdez or place him on waivers at any point in the next five days. Waivers are a 48-hour process, so within one week’s time the outcome of this morning’s DFA will be known.
Twins Acquire Garrett Acton
The Marlins announced that they have traded right-hander Garrett Acton to the Twins for minor league righty Logan Whitaker. Acton was designated for assignment by Miami a few days ago when they acquired infielder Leo Jiménez. Minnesota transferred righty David Festa to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding 40-man roster move.
Acton, 28 in June, has a very limited major league track record. He made six appearances for the Athletics in 2023 and then one more with the Rays last year, with Tommy John surgery wiping out his 2024. He has allowed eight earned runs in 6 2/3 innings. In the offseason, he went to the Rockies and then Marlins via waivers.
The Twins are surely more focused on his minor league track record, where he has shown intriguing strikeout stuff, though home run troubles have led to lot of runs crossing the plate. Dating back to the start of 2022, he has thrown 160 minor league innings, mostly at the Triple-A level. In that time, he has a 4.56 earned run average. His 10% walk rate was a bit high but he managed to strike out 29.5% of batters faced.
Acton still has a pair of options, meaning the Twins can send him to the minors for some extra bullpen depth or add him immediately to the active roster. In either case, he may shuttle between the majors and minors throughout the season whenever the Twins need to freshen up the relief corps.
For the Marlins, they just claimed Acton off waivers two months ago. They are presumably happy with that sequence of events, which has netted them Whitaker. Minnesota took Whitaker with a 19th-round pick in 2024. Last year, he tossed 38 1/3 innings between High-A and Double-A. His 2.11 ERA in 2025 looks good but he only punched out a pedestrian 21% of batters faced. His 6.4% walk rate and 44.5% ground ball rate were a bit better than average. He seemed to get some help from a 78.9% strand rate. He doesn’t really show up on prospect lists but, as mentioned, Miami should be pleased to get a lottery ticket prospect for a guy they just grabbed from the waiver wire two months ago.
As for Festa, he was injured in February and began the season on the 15-day injured list. The Twins listed his injury as a triceps strain and shoulder impingement. His current timeline is unclear but this transaction indicates the Twins don’t expect him back before late May, which would be 60 days from his initial IL placement.
That doesn’t necessarily indicate bad news about his recovery. Even if he were declared healthy today, since he missed all of spring training, he would effectively have to start ramping up from scratch. The Twins should provide more details about his status in the future.
Photo courtesy of Jim Rassol, Imagn Images
Tigers Release Phil Bickford, Colin Poche
The Tigers have released right-hander Phil Bickford and left-hander Colin Poche, reports Jason Beck of MLB.com. Both pitchers signed minor league deals with Detroit this offseason. They will now head back to the open market to search for their next opportunities.
Bickford, 30, was invited to big league camp but wasn’t able to pitch in any official spring action. He was diagnosed with a triceps strain in late February. He was reassigned to minor league camp a few days later. His current health status is not known.
He has 189 innings of big league experience under his belt, split between the Brewers, Dodgers, Mets and Yankees. Overall, he has allowed 4.62 earned runs per nine frames with a 26.1% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate.
His last big league appearance was in 2024. He spent 2025 in Triple-A, signing minor league deals with the Cubs and Phillies. Between those two organizations, he had a 3.52 ERA, 28.5% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate in 46 Triple-A innings. That wasn’t enough to get him to the big leagues last year. He did get a camp invite with the Tigers a few months ago but the injury scuttle any chance of him making the team.
Poche, 32, has a better overall track record but has fallen on hard times lately. At the end of 2023, he had 171 career innings pitched with a 3.58 ERA. His 9.3% walk rate was a bit high but he struck out 28.2% of batters faced. In 2024, his strikeout rate fell to 21.6%. His ERA didn’t suffer greatly, as he finished that year with a 3.86 mark, but the Rays non-tendered him.
He signed a minor league deal with the Nationals for 2025 and made the Opening Day roster but was designated for assignment on May 1st after 13 appearances. He had allowed 11 earned runs in 8 2/3 innings while giving out walks to 12 of the 46 batters he faced, an awful 26.1% clip. He spent most of the rest of the year with the Mets at the Triple-A level, where he walked 17.3% of opponents.
The Tigers gave Poche a minor league deal but didn’t invite him to big league camp. His transaction tracker at MLB.com says he was placed on the Triple-A Toledo injured list last week, without specifying the issue.
Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images
Pirates, Konnor Griffin Reportedly Working On Extension
April 2nd: Olney now reports that the sides are working on a nine-year deal worth $140MM, though he cautions that the deal isn’t done as they are still working on some things.
April 1st: The Pirates and prospect Konnor Griffin are reportedly deep into extension negotiations, per Buster Olney of ESPN.
It doesn’t appear that anything is done or agreed to yet but it seems the two sides aren’t too far apart. Olney’s report frames Pittsburgh as hoping to get something done that is comparable to Corbin Carroll‘s $111MM eight-year deal with Arizona while Griffin’s camp is targeting Roman Anthony‘s $130MM eight-year pact with Boston. Given that the gap is less than $20MM, perhaps something can get done. A couple of weeks ago, Jon Heyman of The New York Post suggested the Pirates could be willing to get to the $110MM range. Last week, Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the two sides had indeed discussed an eight-year deal worth $110MM.
Griffin is not yet 20 years old and hasn’t played in the majors yet but he is the top prospect in the game right now and many consider him the best prospect seen in years. Last year, he slashed .333/.415/.527 while hitting 21 home runs and stealing 65 bases.
He topped out at Double-A yet seemed to have a chance at breaking camp with the club here in 2026. He hit four home runs in spring training but his other numbers were not great, as he slashed .171/.261/.488. Part of that was a .125 batting average on balls in play but Griffin also struck out at a 28.3% clip and only drew a walk in 4.3% of his plate appearances.
That surely didn’t do anything to dampen the club’s long-term hopes for Griffin but the Pirates decided to start the season with him at the Triple-A level. He has a .462/.588/.692 slash in four games to start the season.
Extensions for players with little or no major league experience have become far more common in recent years. Earlier this week, Colt Emerson and the Mariners set a new benchmark for pre-debut guys, signing an eight-year deal with a $92MM guarantee.
Emerson is one of the 10 to 15 top prospects in the league but, as mentioned, Griffin is the clear #1 and is perhaps the best prospect in quite some time. With that in mind, he should sail past Emerson’s guarantee and it seems like the talks are already past that point.
For extensions signed quite early in a player’s career, Carroll and Anthony are some of the most notable. Carroll and Anthony each signed within two months of their respective debuts. Julio Rodríguez has the record for a deal for a player with less than a year of service time. Towards the end of his rookie season, he and the Mariners signed a convoluted deal with a $210MM guarantee and multiple club/player options.
The largest contract in Pittsburgh’s franchise history is the $100MM deal they signed with Bryan Reynolds a few years back. It seems they are willing and hoping to break that record to lock up Griffin as part of their core. The longer they wait, the harder that will become. Young players generally gain earning power as they push further into their careers and closer to free agency, as the Rodríguez deal shows. For guys with two years of service time, Bobby Witt Jr. got a $288.8MM guarantee while Fernando Tatis Jr. got $340MM. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. got $500MM when he was just a few months from free agency.
It’s been over a decade since the Pirates last made the playoffs but it’s possible better days are ahead. They have already graduated a number of exciting young players onto their major league roster in recent years, headlined by Paul Skenes. Their farm system is currently ranked by many outlets as the best in the majors. That’s in large part due to Griffin but they also have Edward Florentino, Seth Hernandez and other exciting young prospects on the way. They had a busy offseason, adding Brandon Lowe, Ryan O’Hearn, Marcell Ozuna and others as they try to take a step forward.
Griffin will be a key part of the competitive window that appears to be opening but the Bucs would naturally love to extend the relationship if they can. From Griffin’s perspective, he would have to be willing to delay his path to free agency. Going year to year could potentially mean hitting the open market after his age-25 or -26 season. Signing a deal now would lock in an upfront guarantee while perhaps still giving him a chance to become a free agent before his 30th birthday.
Without a deal officially signed, there’s a notable ticking clock with Griffin’s service time. A major league season is 187 days long but a player only needs 172 days in the majors to be credited with a full year of service time. That means Griffin can still hit that one-year mark if called up in the next week. If he does so without an extension in place, he would be eligible to earn the Pirates an extra draft pick via the Prospect Promotion Incentive, though players who sign pre-debut extensions are not PPI eligible. If Griffin is still in the minors by the end of next week, he wouldn’t be able to get a full year of service the old-fashioned way but would be credited with one year retroactively if he is eventually called up and places in the top two in National League Rookie of the Year voting.
Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images