On Friday, the Athletics of Sacramento and eventually Las Vegas, inked their young shortstop, Jacob Wilson, to a seven-year, $70 million deal that buys the club Wilson’s first two years of free agency and all of his 20’s.
The Detroit Tigers already did something like this with Colt Keith prior to promoting him to the major leagues before the 2024 season. There’s a fair chance that signing that deal was Keith’s ticket to an Opening Day major league debut rather than the Tigers potentially waiting until
sometime in May to save a year of service time and give Keith more Triple-A plate appearances to get ready.
Of course, Keith signed his deal through 2029 for a very reasonable price, with the Tigers getting club options from 2030-2032. This wasn’t Scott Boras making a deal. Keith’s mother acted as his respresentative, and he was willing to take more guaranteed money over his years of team control rather than expecting to make bank in his arbitration years and then in free agency. From his perspective perhaps, he already has all the money he’s ever going to need if managed well, and now he doesn’t have to deal with the business side at all for years, potentially not until he’s 31 years old.
That’s a decent deal for Keith, and hopefully a nice bargain for the Tigers over the long haul.
It also brings up the question of which Tigers player you’d currently like to see extended the most? Tarik Skubal ain’t happening so let’s not pain ourselves any longer on that front. Should the Tigers extend Riley Greene? Or would you prefer they try to work out a bigger, but similar deal to Colt Keith’s with Kevin McGonigle or Max Clark?
Or, perhaps you don’t think extensions for either prospective 2026 rookie are a good idea just yet. Obviously the price matters a lot.
It’s your call.
