A trend of extending promising young players early has established itself around MLB. The Atlanta Braves popularized it with their now-incomprehensible eight-year, $100 million extension for Ronald Acuña Jr, and the Boston Red Sox have followed in their footsteps.
The Red Sox extended Brayan Bello, Ceddanne Rafeala, Kristian Campbell and Roman Anthony all before their age-25 seasons — Anthony was just 21 when he signed his eight-year, $130 million deal with Boston, which contains escalators that could reach up to $230 million. Other teams have joined in on the early extension game, like the Milwaukee Brewers, who signed prospect Cooper Pratt to an eight-year, $50.75 million deal before he even played a game above Double-A
MLB insider Ken Rosenthal, before Boston's April 11 game against the St. Louis Cardinals, spoke to Red Sox manager Alex Cora about the team's aggressive extension strategy. Rosenthal mentioned Cora's comments on the broadcast, saying: "The dynamic changes though, it changes when you have a number of players under those kinds of deals."
Rosenthal also mentioned that too many of said early, aggresive extensions can cause "concern" for some teams, making it seem like that was Cora's point. Boston's skipper objected to that part of the statement, saying to Red Sox reporters that it's "f---ing bull---t" that his comment was interpreted negatively (via Ian Browne of MLB.com).
Red Sox's Alex Cora issued stern response to Ken Rosenthal segment on early contract extensions that was taken out of context
Cora said there's no bad blood between himself and Rosenthal after the incident, as TV presenters are under time constraints for their segments and he may not have had time to elaborate further. Cora said his statement was more a commentary on how baseball has changed as a business — there were no prospects signing long-term extensions when he was a player in the early 2000s.
Early extensions for young players pay off, more often than not, according to Rosenthal. The Red Sox have largely been successful with their early deals — Bello has made at least 29 starts in each of his two full seasons since he signed his extension, Rafaela has already won a Gold Glove and Anthony is an emerging superstar. Campbell is still a wild card, but at $7.5 million AAV, he'll be insanely cheap if he ever breaks out like the Red Sox hope he will.
After Boston allowed two fan favorite players to escape its grasp unsigned — Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts — most Red Sox fans would probably argue that it's a good thing the team is signing potential stars early and for cheap. But the biggest lesson we learned from Rosenthal's segment is not to take Cora out of context.
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