On Friday, the Cardinals announced they had extended young superstar JJ Wetherholt to an 8-year extension. It was signed for a seemingly reasonable $112.5 million with incentives that could raise it to $132 million. I have not seen any details on how the money is getting paid to Wetherholt. And I’m not sure when they will release that information, but I’m not willing to wait and want to discuss the contract now.
To understand the JJ Wetherholt contract, which on the surface seems very low, one needs to understand the current payment structure of the MLB. It isn’t as much of a steal as you would think. That is not me arguing against the deal. But Wetherholt was going to be worth peanuts over the next five years regardless of what he did – depending on the next CBA I suppose – so this contract is really more about his three free agent years it buys.
The impending CBA does throw a wrinkle into this judging this contract – the payment structure may change, and removing that uncertainty that brings is worth whatever the Cardinals can pay. In theory, you would judge the success on this contract for how good he is in his three free agent years. We get the other five no matter what. Except the Cardinals don’t get that no matter what. The new CBA could remove a team control year, so the Cardinals might be getting four free agent years instead of three.
But this isn’t really an interesting post if I just say “this is worth it just because who knows what the new CBA will bring.” Let’s judge the contract on terms we understand, because maybe the payment structure stays the same. It’s part of why this deal was signed in the first place – this makes sense for both sides given the business side of baseball and if they knew the new CBA would remove a team control year, the contract would look differently.
Let’s start with what we know: JJ Wetherholt’s salary in 2027 and 2028 would be $800,000. He would presumably make more money thanks to pre-arbitration bonus pool, but unless I am mistaken, I don’t think that’s any extra money out of the Cardinals’ pockets. I think they have to give out some money for the bonus pool, but that money is lost no matter who it is going to. That money going to a Cardinals player is great, but not changing the Cardinals’ financials.
In 2029, Wetherholt reaches his first year of arbitration. So obviously, this is going to be hard to estimate. We’re at least three years away from having a comp, which means whatever system is used in the future will be using data that hasn’t happened yet. But there are actually two fairly good comps in the Cardinals’ own division, defensive-oriented All-Star caliber 2B in the form of Nico Hoerner and Brice Turang. Actually, Hoerner isn’t a good comp surprisingly. Hoerner wasn’t good immediately, so his first arb price was actually based on one good season. He only made $2.5 million.
Turang on the other hand made $4.15 million in his Super Two season, which happens to be the season we’re playing. Super Two means you have four years of arbitration instead of three years, because you fall in the top 20% of players between 2 years and 3 years. Turang was about a week short of reaching 3 years of service time. Wetherholt made the Opening Day roster and he would be at exactly 3 years of service time. A Super Two will make a little bit less than someone who reaches 3 years. So Wetherholt would make more than $4.15 million, at least based on information we have now.
It’s a little outdated, but Point of Pittsburgh calculated that a Super Two player made 18% of what they’d make on the open market, and someone reaching arbitration for the first time at 3 years would make 25%. Which means if Wetherholt looked like the exact same player as Turang, he’d make $5.8 million in his first year of arb. Of course, I must point out that Wetherholt is immediately great and Turang was a bad player in his first season and a bad hitter in his second season. Wetherholt is also a better defender than Turang. I’m just going to spitball, but I’ll estimate $7 million instead.
But of course, now we are three years in the future. If I think Wetherholt would make $7 million in his first season based on a comparison to Brice Turang reaching arbitration last season, presumably it would be a higher price by 2029. I’m not going to do any mathematical formula, let’s just say he’ll make $8 million. That honestly might be on the higher side considering how defensive-oriented Wetherholt is, but at the same time, he might have three Gold Gloves by then too. So it might be on the low side too.
If we assign Wetherholt’s first arbitration year at $8 million, that means his second year will be $12.8 million and his third arbitration year would be $19.8 million. That means my estimated price if we took Wetherholt to free agency without the extension is that the next 5 years would cost $42.2 million. Which means that his three free agent years cost an average of $23.3 million. So the Cardinals gave him guaranteed money now so that they can lock in a 3 year, $70 million deal when he reaches free agency at 29-years-old.
And of course there are unknown incentives in this salary, but you would think him reaching those incentives would likely mean he more than easily is worth the contract. So that’s why I haven’t really paid a lot of attention to the possible extra money. Whatever production he needs to accomplish to gain that extra $20 million spread across eight seasons is likely to be worth that extra $20 million.
The Next Extension
I found this comment REALLY interesting. Honestly, even if I expected more extensions, I’m more surprised he said this publicly. If I can read into this literally, he would like to sign more extensions to current players. He wants to lock in the core. Only question is…. who else is he giving a big contract too? Let’s rank the possibilities in order or likelihood:
Jordan Walker
I hear that comment, I think “oh he wants to lock up Jordan Walker.” The rest I’m not sure about, but I feel fairly confident Walker would be one of the extensions, if Dewitt had his way. Because he broke out so late, the Cardinals will “only” get three more years of Walker. I have little idea of what a Walker extension looks like, but in Wetherholt’s first three years of his new deal, he’d make maybe $9 million. I think Riley Greene isn’t the worst comp and he made $5 million in his first year of arbitration. That means Walker would make something like $5 million, $10 million, and $15 million, though him becoming a perennial MVP candidate would raise those prices.
So add on three years to that, imagine what he’d be worth in those three years, maybe put in a 10% reduction, and then add it to these three years, $30 million and you have the makings of an extension. That said, for both sides, I can kind of see it hard to get an extension done. From Walker’s side, he’s set to make free agency at 28-years-old. You’re going to have to really make up for not being a free agent then, so you either go extra years or extra money. And as far money, that probably means no 10% reduction.
From the management side, Walker has only actually done this for one half season and committing many years to him seems like a bigger risk than you would like for this kind of deal, especially when you could just wait to see if he’s for real. He’ll cost more then, but he’ll also be less risky. It’s a tradeoff.
Masyn Winn
Okay, my first thought when I heard Dewitt’s comments were “Oh he wants to sign Jordan Walker” but then I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t necessarily make sense for either side at the moment. So of course my next thought was “Masyn Winn is the guy.” To me, Winn is on the exact opposite end of the spectrum to Walker, because it makes perfect sense for both sides.
In Winn’s case, he’s in serious threat of being what he is, which is an elite defender and below average bat and I’d certainly want to lock in guaranteed money with that profile as Winn. Think a less extreme Ezequiel Tovar. And if you set it up to where he becomes a free agent again at 31-years-old, if his bat does show up ala Dansby Swanson, he knows he’ll still get paid. Yes, he’ll leave money on the table if his bat breaks out at 26 or 27, but that might never happen and if you can sign a $100 million contract now, and your biggest risk is your bat improves and you might be looking at another $100 million contract at 31. Doesn’t feel like a big risk.
From the Cardinals side, you lock up elite up-the-middle defense for at least half a decade, something Cardinals fans would very much appreciate having. Your floor is more or less elite defense, and your upside is an MVP candidate. You might be thinking I have too much faith in his bat with that statement: he wouldn’t need to be Corey Seager with the bat to be an MVP candidate with his defense. That’s kind of my point.
Best comp I could find is Jeremy Pena, which is not a good comp right now, but when Pena first hit arbitration, he was a similar player to Winn. He had a 102 wRC+, 96 wRC+, and 99 wRC+ in his first three seasons with 3.3, 2.7, and 2.8 fWAR. Winn’s is still to be determined, but he’s on track to have similar production to Pena. Pena made $4.1 million in his first year of arbitration. His bat broke out and it rose to $9.48 million in his second season.
You wouldn’t assume the bat breaks out if you extend Winn, but the basic format for an extension for Winn would be $4 million, $7 million, and $11 million. And then you pick the amount of years you want, imagine what he’s worth in free agency at this point and actually I don’t think you do the discount here. You pay him for the player he is right now. That’s at least how I get Masyn Winn to sign an extension.
Ivan Herrera/Alec Burleson
These players tie for third for a very simple reason: there is only room for one of them. In my mind, extending Ivan Herrera means I have a plan to transition him to 1B, which means Burleson isn’t going to be a Cardinal past three years. You might even trade him in the near future so you can get value back. Both of them can be on the same team, I just would rather go year-to-year with one of them, because I don’t want both 1B and DH set in stone for five or more years.
Lars Nootbaar
An under the radar choice admittedly, since everyone expects him to be traded. Nootbaar would be by far the cheapest of this group. I don’t know what Nootbaar would be willing to sign for, but he’s only got more season until he’s a free agent. He’ll be entering free agency at age 30. How many years would $50 million get you? Like I said, longer shot, but there’s a price point where Nootbaar could make sense.
Joshua Baez
How much I do not expect Dewitt to approve a long-term contract extension to a player who has never played a single inning in the majors can be expressed best by Baez being below Lars Nootbaar. Nonetheless, this is a thing that happens now. Baez has huge star potential and a decently high bust potential. Which is why I really don’t think Dewitt is going to to approve this for the first time on a player like Baez. Wetherholt last year? If he would do it for any player, it’d be for a prospect like Wetherholt. Maybe if Baez’s strikeout issues didn’t re-emerge in Memphis, but yeah this one is harder to imagine. He’s also the only position player candidate, because if Dewitt would sign such a deal, it’d have to be an essentially MLB ready player.
Liam Doyle
I maybe should have Doyle higher than Baez, but ultimately Doyle being father away from his MLB debut puts him here instead. He’s the only pitching prospect candidate who could possibly see a pre-debut extension. Again, longest of long shot, but Dewitt was hoping for several extensions, which I have to imagine isn’t going to be confined to this season, because I don’t see how. He just hopes to sign several players currently in the organization to an extension at some point. At least I think.
