Before looking into the individual case of the current Indians closer, Cody Allen, I have to say that my general rule with relief pitcher extensions is never. Relief pitchers have a unique tendency in baseball to come on quickly and disappear just as quickly. There are hundreds of examples of this and very limited examples of sustained success. In fact, Mariano Rivera is the go to example because he did something no one else could do, put together almost 20 years of utter domination. After ten years of nearly identical performances year after year, Rivera earned every extension he got, but pitchers worthy of comparison are literally non-existent.
That being said, Allen has been nothing but terrific for the Indians during his first four seasons. He pitched 99.1 innings over his first two seasons in a late inning relief role and was moved into the closers role mid-way through 2014, a role he has maintained through the present day. The Indians haven’t had many dominant closers in their history and Allen should already be considered one of the best.
Contractually, Allen will be heading into his first year of arbitration this off-season, so the Indians will have to at least make some decisions. Their options, as it would seem right now, are to sign Allen before arbitration, to wait until the hearing or to extend him for multiple seasons. Recent extensions for the Indians, such as those for Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco and Michael Brantley, have bought out the arbitration years as well as a year or two of free agency. If the Indians were to do this with Allen, it would mean an extension would likely last through 2018 with a team option for 2019.
There are a few different facets that should go into this discussion. First, there is the cost. The primary reason most of the Indians players have been extended is to make sure they can keep them around for cheap, at the expense of added risk in later seasons. The players can enjoy the assurances that they will be paid a guaranteed total for years irrelevant of injury or poor performance, but they may cost themselves a few dollars.
The second is that risk of injury or poor performance. This is the aspect that has kept the Indians from giving any of their great relievers in recent years an extension. At a point, Vinnie Pestano could have been considered the greatest right handed reliever in team history and shortly after, Joe Smith could have said the same. Both were allowed to leave and, while Smith had a great year in 2014 for the Angels, neither played up their previous level in this past season. More importantly, they were easily replaced by a younger version as Bryan Shaw is just 27 and outplayed both this year. The Indians were able to save a few million on Smith and turn Pestano into a top prospect in Mike Clevinger without losing anything in production.
The third and possibly most important factor in getting something done quickly is loyalty. This is often overlooked, but it is the reason Carrasco was willing to sign for so long and under market value and at the same time lack of loyalty possibly lead to some of Pestano’s issues before he was traded. The Indians managed to go more than 20 years without an arbitration hearing, but they took Pestano to arbitration and beat him. This isn’t a good look for either side, but particularly for the team, who could have ended everything with just a few $100K.
Allen is more important to the current bullpen than Pestano was and the Indians are unlikely to go all the way to an arbitration either way. For one thing, when Pestano was going through this process, he had Allen as an obvious heir apparent. Now, the Indians don’t have another pitcher who has shown they can pitch late in games. That was a major issue in fact, this season, as Shaw, Zach McAllister and Allen pitched 44% of the Indians relief innings this year. Without further options, keeping Allen around and happy at least through his arbitration years is more important than in the past.
Because of this, I expect Allen will sign to a deal prior to February, although what kind of deal it is could vary. It is hard to guess his value by comparing him to closers from recent years as his most similar contemporaries (A.J. Ramos, Hector Rondon and Trevor Rosenthal according to Baseball-Reference) are all reaching their first year of arbitration this year as well. It is possible that of these, whoever comes to a deal first could set the market for the rest.
The player who has been signed recently that is the closest comparison is Jordan Walden, but even that isn’t fair as Walden wasn’t as dominant or used as exclusively as a closer. Both of these things will likely raise the price for Allen, but for comparison, Walden was given a $1.49M deal to avoid his first year of arbitration then had up through his first year of free agency purchased by the Cardinals prior to 2015 at $6.6M for two years and a $5.25M option for 2017.
While I had said earlier that the Indians hadn’t extended any relievers recently, that wasn’t entirely true. Scott Atchison was so good in 2014 that the Indians didn’t even wait until the end of the year to secure his final season of arbitration as well as one option year. This was a very different situation because of Atchison’s age, but it does show the risk in retaining a reliever as the Indians had to pay Atchison $1M ($900K in salary and a $100K buyout of 2016) for his 19.2 innings this year.
A two year deal with an option would likely be the Indians preference as they wouldn’t be stuck with Allen if he can’t continue at his current pace, but it is unlikely the Indians closer would agree. Arbitration tends to pay closers well and he will likely make significantly more through the process than an extremely adept set-up man. For comparison, Shaw made $1.55M last year in his second arbitration eligible season while Tyler Clippard, Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen and Greg Holland each got deals near $5M. Some of these pitchers were older than Allen is now and some were more talented, but this should provide a reasonable expectation that Allen will make near $4M for the 2016 season. MLBTradeRumors, who are usually pretty accurate when predicting arbitration totals, have him at $3.5M for 2016, the highest of all Indians eligible players.
If the Indians could sign him for a deal like the one Walden signed, essentially $7M for two years with an option around $8M for 2018 it would probably be the fairest option for both sides. Allen deserves some stability, but an extension of more than two guaranteed years for a reliever is an unnecessary risk for any team. Even the Yankees with Rivera were never willing to sign him too long and he ended his career with a three year deal from 2008 through 2010, a two year deal through 2012 and a one year deal for 2013. While he made $15M each season, the Yankees weren’t willing to guarantee the greatest closer in Major League Baseball history more than three years.
It depends on the ultimate goals of each side, but they should try to at least settle the 2016 season before the end of the year. That would allow them time to negotiate any extensions into next Spring. In the end, though, any extension would only be about guaranteeing years for Allen and money for the Indians. Because of the arbitration system, he will be stuck in Cleveland through 2019 as long as they want him around.
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