It was an interesting poll this week, me asking you which player should get a contract extension first were the Phillies to offer someone one. Here are the results:
That’s about as close to a 50/50 split as you can get.
If we’re focusing in on Jhoan Duran, I see why the team would want to make sure he is locked up for the foreseeable future. His dominance on the mound means some team is going to eventually pay for his services, his age also a factor in discussion as he’s still relatively young enough
that good years are likely still ahead of him. At this point, a deal similar to the first one the Mets gave Edwin Diaz is probably the starting point for any kind of extension offer the Phillies would give to him in order to keep him off of the open market.
The looming issue in that is the CBA discussions happening right now. What if somehow there is a salary cap put into place? Would the Phillies even be able to extend Duran to a figure that would be commensurate with his ability and past comps to his profile? He still has another year of arbitration left, so nothing is particularly pressing, plus the team probably wants to see what the endgame of the negotiations looks like between the league and the player’s association before committing to anything substantial with Duran or Brandon Marsh for that matter. But if it were up to you, Duran would be the first choice to get a deal done.
