Rockies Extend Charlie Blackmon

On Wednesday, the Colorado Rockies announced that they have extended one of their star players, center fielder Charlie Blackmon. This deal will assure Blackmon $108 million spanning the next 6 seasons. This includes their already agreed upon 1 year deal worth $14 million for the current 2018 season as that agreement has not been reneged.

Blackmon was scheduled to be a free agent after this year, a coming of age moment and time which most ball players look forward to. They get to see which teams are interested in them and how much they are worth to those teams. After Major League Baseball’s grueling contract process, free agency is supposed to be an exciting time for great players to score multi-million dollar contracts.

This grueling contract process starts with receiving the league minimum ($545,000) or close to it for at least two, in most cases, three seasons. Then, once players have the service time necessary, they enter a process called salary arbitration. The player and team have a large window of the off-season to negotiate their contracts. Players who are younger tend to sign one year at a time, so if they improve they will be able to use it as leverage for their next contract and it also simplifies the process because the longer the contract, the negotiation time increases. If the two sides cannot work out a deal, then the player inputs his target salary and the team inputs their target salary for the player to a third-party arbitrator to decide upon. After two/three years of going through that process, the player earns the right to become a free agent where they are more able to score a multi-year deal because they are open to sign with anyone.

It is surprising some people in the business that he took this extension because he may have been able to earn more money, but at the same time one has to take into consideration last off-season’s free agent freeze. Blackmon would be going into the off-season at 32 years old, which is the last of a player’s so called “prime” ages (starts at 28). I don’t doubt that Blackmon will still be a force at the plate, but his defense and running abilities could start to deteriorate like many others do near that age. He and his agent probably assessed last off-season’s market and how skeptical teams were about big contracts for older players and decided this extension would be the best route.

Over the past two seasons, Blackmon has accounted for 10.5 WAR (Wins Above Replacement), which indicates he is one of the best all-around players in the league. He also finished 5th place in the NL MVP voting last season. With all the spending the Rockies franchise has been doing lately, fans must be excited that the ownership is committed to winning now. They surprised many last year when they found themselves in the Wild Card game, but this year considering their pricey free agent acquisitions, that will not be enough to satiate them.

This extension does have another underlying subplot, however. It probably means that they will not attempt to re-sign star third baseman Nolan Arenado when he becomes available for free agency after the 2019 season. He will command a deal that could reach $200 million total and that is too rich for the Rockies spending capabilities, especially if they want to create a sustainable success model. They will need to save that money they would spend on to re-sign Arenado and allocate it to upgrade other positions on the team.

For the Rockies and Blackmon both, it was a great extension for both parties. For the Rockies, this assures that one of their two star offensive contributors will be around for the long-term, shows the fans that they will continue to attempt keeping their homegrown players, and also plan to keep competing in the next few years. For Blackmon, this assures his financial situation handsomely, calms anxiety about last off-season’s uncertainty, and keeps him with the only organization he’s ever known.