On Friday afternoon, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweeted that the San Diego Padres and 26-year-old first baseman Wil Myers were close to agreement on a contract extension worth roughly $80 million over the next six seasons.
As stated by Rosenthal, the deal will cover Myers’ last three arbitration-eligible years — his age-26 through 28 seasons — as well as the first three years of Myers’ free agency, making Myers a free agent prior to the 2023 season, his age-32 campaign.
Myers’ career path has been far from typical. After being drafted by the Royals in 2009 and playing four seasons with the system, he was dealt to Tampa Bay prior to the 2013 season as part of the James Shields/Wade Davis trade. After winning the American League Rookie of the Year award that year, Myers struggled in 2014 and was subsequently shipped to San Diego as part of the three-team swap that sent Trea Turner from San Diego to Washington (among a number of other players who were shuffled as part of said deal).
Myers performed reasonably well in 2015 despite limited playing time, but took over as the Padres’ everyday first baseman in 2016 and flourished, earning his first All-Star Game appearance and finishing with a .259/.336/.461 batting line to go along with 28 home runs, 29 doubles, 28 stolen bases and a 115 wRC+. According to Baseball Essential’s Position Power Rankings, Myers ranks as MLB’s tenth-best first baseman heading into the 2017 season.
For Myers, this deal could not be more favorable, as it will exponentiate his career earnings in 2017 alone, as he’s earned just less than $1.6 million in his career thus far. Additionally, he should still have plenty of production left in order to secure himself another handsome payout after 2022 should he continue to perform at a high level for San Diego in the coming years.
On the Padres’ side, the deal is somewhat risky, as Myers has yet to string together consecutive full seasons of production in his career thus far. However, if he can build on his 2016 success moving forward, the team will have a solid top-of-the-order hitter under contract on a relatively inexpensive deal for the next six years.
Leave a Reply