Barring a megadeal or megatrade -- and Seattle trading Jarred Kelenic to the Braves doesn't count -- the biggest news to open the winter meetings comes from Milwaukee, as the Brewers are signing Jackson Chourio to a record-setting extension.
Chourio, a 19-year-old who made his Triple-A debut at the end of the 2023 season, has agreed to a deal guaranteeing him $82 million over eight years, breaking Luis Robert Jr.'s record for the largest contract awarded to player with zero MLB service time. Throw in a couple of club options for $25 million, and Chourio's deal could be worth $142.5 million over 10 years if everything goes well and all incentives are met.
I've been waiting for this kind of signing, because while it wasn't weird that a team like the White Sox owned the record, it was weird that they held the record for as long as they did.
The White Sox broke this new ground by guaranteeing Eloy Jiménez $43 million over six years before he'd played his first MLB game, followed by $50 million over six years to Luis Robert Jr. the following winter. Those deals occurred in March 2019 and January 2020, respectively, and for nearly five years, nobody followed their lead. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the inverse means the league insulted the White Sox winter after winter by ignoring that path.
Based on the way the careers of Jiménez and Robert unfolded, teams weren't exactly missing out. The Jiménez club options aren't a great bet to be exercised by the White Sox, and while Robert stayed healthy enough to put his entire game together, it took him until his fourth full season. His club options remain valuable, but the Sox ended up overestimating his salary trajectory in the interim.
That said, Robert's extension shows there's some room for error, because if the Sox hadn't committed to him, he'd be just as likely to be traded as Dylan Cease right now. Instead, he's under team control for four more seasons. That's long enough to be part of the next good White Sox team, assuming the White Sox are competently run between now and then.
This brand of extension incurred far more risk than the no-brainers earlier in the decade, but the current state of Robert's value shows the logic. It just had to be a player at the right age, the right kind of skills and the right kind of mindset, all of which contribute to increasing the margin for error.
Chourio, the consensus No. 2 prospect behind Jackson Holiday, would seem to be that player. He's a five-tool player who plays a good center field, and he doesn't turn 20 until March. The only thing that makes him mortal is ordinary plate discipline, but he's in a pretty good spot for a teenager who succeeded in Double-A, so he has the longest possible runway for launching an MLB career.
As Robert shows, Chourio doesn't have to hit the ground running in order to make the risk pay off. As long as he reaches solid ground by the second half of that eight-year window, it'll eventually pay for itself, especially since the Brewers were able to get him before his first game. League context suggests Chourio would've been far more expensive if he'd held firm for even a year, which is why Ken Rosenthal is calling it a qualified coup for the Brewers:
Even without knowing his family circumstances, it’s easy to understand why Chourio, a native of Maracaibo, Venezuela, agreed to his new deal. Few among us would turn down lifetime security at such a young age, particularly when a second, much larger contract will be within reach if Chourio fulfills expectations. But here’s the thing: Chourio likely would have struck it rich regardless, and perhaps even richer by waiting nine months, a year, two years.
The Mariners’ Julio Rodríguez signed a 12-year, $210 million contract in August of his rookie season, the largest for a player with less than a year of service. Corbin Carroll, after what was essentially a successful September callup, agreed to an eight-year, $111 million deal, the largest for a player with less than 100 days service.
That's all true, but this contract does require Chourio to live up to the hype at some point to make it worthwhile. The White Sox are something of a cautionary tale in this regard after making nothing of their batch of second-wave extensions. They again, they're a cautionary tale for a lot of things.
Going back to the Kelenic swap Sunday night, while it's an Extremely Jerry Dipoto Trade for the Mariners, it's worth keeping an eye on the Braves' half as well.
The Braves have been linked to Dylan Cease, but among all the potential suitors, they're the most difficult for me to get excited about. Part of that's due to the White Sox already getting five players from the Braves for Aaron Bummer, but it's also because their bottom-10 farm system is entirely defined by right-handed pitchers. They just sent two of them -- Cole Phillips and Jackson Kowar -- for Kelenic, absorbing the inefficient contracts of Evan White and Marco Gonzales along the way.
Kelenic theoretically gives the Braves an outfielder to include in a trade package now, and while Alex Anthopoulos says they plan to use Kelenic in a left-field platoon with Vaughn Grissom, and their work for that position is over ...
... Kelenic makes enough sense for the White Sox to imagine a sort-of time-release three-team deal taking place. Kelenic might not be from Chicagoland, but he does hail from the Milwaukee area, and that has to sell a couple hundred extra tickets.
