Brewers: 3 Players To Lock Up With An Extension Right Now

The Brewers have had an emphasis on adding young talent in recent years and some players are deserving of contract extensions.

“Acquire, develop, retain”. That was the philosophy David Stearns brought to the Brewers when he was hired as the GM in September 2015. He has acquired numerous impact big leaguers, he has developed prospects into capable players, and now the final step is retaining those players.

Stearns has done this a couple times already. Back in February, the Brewers signed Freddy Peralta to a team-friendly, five year contract extension. Then in March, Christian Yelich inked a nine-year extension to keep him with the Brewers long term.

The Brewers could look to complete a few more contract extensions before next season as well.

Although there is a complicating factor in this: a tightened budget. After a season with no fans, the Brewers lost a lot of money and the payroll is likely to go down from the $97MM total they were projected to have in a full 2020 season.

With very little payroll flexibility to begin with, giving out new money to players already on the roster may be tough to do. However, by signing some of these players to extensions now, the Brewers may end up saving themselves money in the long run.

1. Brandon Woodruff

Brandon Woodruff is about to become expensive for the Brewers, with or without an extension. Woodruff is entering his first year of arbitration this winter and that means his price is going to be jumping up for the next few years.

Arbitration projections have Woodruff pegged for anywhere between $2.3MM and $4.5MM for a 2021 salary. Should Woodruff continue to pitch the way he has for his first couple of seasons, that cost will continue to go up and the Brewers won’t have much control over that.

Instead, the Brewers could look to get some cost certainty over Woodruff’s salary for the next couple years with a contract extension.

Similar to Peralta’s deal, any extension with Woody would be backloaded, starting with smaller salaries, with something that might reflect what he would’ve earned this first year in arbitration and then gradually increasing as the deal goes on.

Woodruff is under team control for the next four seasons, through 2024. That means any extension with Woodruff would need to be at least five years guaranteed for it to be worth it for both sides and buy out at least one year of free agency.

One possible framework could be the extension of Blake Snell with the Rays in spring 2019. When Snell had four seasons of control left, Tampa Bay signed Snell to a five year, $50MM contract extension that bought out one year of free agency and avoided any arbitration cases. Snell was also coming off a Cy Young award that year as well.

That deal was back-loaded, starting with a $1MM salary in 2019 and ending with a $16MM salary in 2023.

3. Keston Hiura

After such a rough 2020 season, why would the Brewers want to sign Keston Hiura to an extension? After all, he did hit just .212 and led the league in strikeouts with 85.

However, Hiura is too good of a hitter for the kinds of struggles he faced in 2020 to be an indication of his long-term future. Hiura will right the ship and the oddities of the 2020 season had a negative impact on him just like many others.

The 2020 season highlighted his strikeout concerns but there are plenty of reasons to believe in a bounceback in 2021 and beyond.

The Brewers believe that Hiura is the future in the middle of the lineup and will be a .300 hitter for the next several years. When you can lock up a guy like that for several years, you have to take that opportunity.

Hiura is under team control for five more seasons and won’t reach arbitration until 2023. That makes a guaranteed six year deal the shortest possible extension the Brewers would consider. The Brewers still have two years at near-league minimum salary for Hiura and they wouldn’t give him a big pay increase over those years unless they’re getting some extended years of him in a Brewers uniform.

Coming off a down year, the price would likely be lower on a Hiura extension if it were to get done before next season than if they decide to wait.

Hiura has only played in a total of 143 games at the big league level, which is less than a full season. Despite that, the Brewers know that the man can hit. He didn’t hit that much in 2020, but the man can still hit and he will hit going forward.

Hiura and Yelich will be the 1-2 punch in the lineup over the next several years similar to the Ryan Braun–Prince Fielder 1-2 punch from 2007-2011. The Brewers  got the first punch locked up with Braun, but couldn’t lock up the second punch in 2011. This time, they have the first punch signed with Yelich’s deal, and they should look to lock up the second punch this time with Keston Hiura.

These three young players represent the future of the Brewers organization. Although each are under control for 4-5 more seasons, extensions now can provide the team with cost certainty and most likely discounts on the salary.