Francisco Lindor could not have had a better beginning to his major league baseball career. There hasn’t been an Indians player with more hype surrounding him since the mid to late 90’s and Lindor did not disappoint. His tremendous performance through his first 99 big league games went far beyond what fans had expected at such an early point in his career. In just over a half a season of play, Francisco Lindor became nearly a 5 WAR player, a number that is reserved for perennial All-Stars and MVP contenders. This type of play begs the question of whether or not the Indians should sign Francisco Lindor to a contract extension. If so, what would that extension look like?
If the Indians were to sign their star-in-the-making short stop to a contract extension, it would be one of the earliest contract extensions in baseball history. Which is fitting coming from the team that pioneered to practicing of signing young core players to team-friendly contract extensions. The Indians are no stranger to signing pre-arbitration players to hefty contract extensions either. Before the start of the 2006 season, with fewer than two years of service time, the Tribe signed Grady Sizemore to a 6 year, $23 million contract extension. At the time this was the largest extension for a pre-arbitration player. In 2012, the Indians locked down Carlos Santana to a 5 year, $21 million deal after just 201 games to his name.
Outside of the Cleveland, pre-arbitration contract extensions are becoming more and more prevalent. Most notably, Evan Longoria signed a 6 year, $17.5 million deal just 6 games into his career. Troy Tulowitzki signed a 6 year, $31 million deal with the Rockies after just 180 games played. Ryan Braun signed a 8 year, $45 million deal after just 154 games played. An extension at this point in Lindor’s career would be the earliest extension of any Indians player in team history.
The obvious downside to making such an investment is the risk that Lindor could be a huge bust and the Indians could end up throwing away millions of dollars. Lindor is scheduled to earn the league minimum for the next three seasons, it isn’t until 2019 that he could become arbitration eligible. This is just another way of saying that Lindor is going to be extremely cheap for the next three seasons, making his dollar to production ratio extremely favorable for the Indians, even if he doesn’t match his 2015 production.
However, there are factors outside of the typical cost-benefit analysis that should be taken into account in this particular situation. The Indians are in a position to extend their window of contention beyond the next 2-3 years. As it stands, this current core group of Santana, Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley, Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco will be passing their prime years around 2017 or 2018. The positive contributions of Lindor and Danny Salazar, both very young, could help extend the Indians window of contention as they will be nearing their prime years around this time or shortly after.
While Lindor will be on the Indians’ roster at this time whether his contract is extended or not, the symbolic nature of an extension could send a strong message to the team, potential free agents, and the fans that the front office intends on competing for an extended period of time. A similar approach was taken with Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays, who have made the third baseman their cornerstone of their franchise.
One of the most underrated assets of the organization is an emerging farm system that is slowly developing into one of the deeper minor league crops in all of baseball. Players like Bradley Zimmer, Clint Frazier, Bobby Bradley, Justus Sheffield, and Rob Kaminsky will likely all be making their MLB debuts within the next 2-3 years. Putting the money into players like Lindor and Salazar, who will act as the bridge to a new core of players, shows the Indians don’t intend on blowing the entire team up and reloading as they have done in the early 2000’s and again around 2008-2009.
If the Indians do decide to extend him, which in all honesty isn’t a matter of if, so much as when, I think a deal similar to that of Santana’s and even Tulowitzki’s is comparable. I would expect the Indians to buy out every year he’d be under team control, so potentially 6 years. With this, their could also be option years involved as is the case with Santana. Or, the team could follow along the lines of the Rays and Rockies who signed Longoria and Tulowitzki to additional extensions on top of their initial signing. Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Indians tried to lock Lindor up for the next 6, 7 or potentially 8 years.
In terms of dollar amounts, something closer to Tulo’s $31 million could be more accurate that Santana’s $21 million. As the league as a whole begins to give more and more weight to the value of defensive metrics, players like Lindor, who are elite defenders may start to receive the benefit of that shift when it comes to contracts. On top of that, Lindor has shown that he’s capable of being far more than just a “serviceable” hitter as many scouts initially predicted. This combination of elite fielding and above average hitting would make this type of investment well worth it.
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