Sunday, April 10, 2016

Thoughts on Contract Extension for Brandon Belt

This will be a follow up to my post on March 12 on the same subject.  The brief summary of what I said then is the Giants should be eager to sign Belt to an extension at the same price as Brandon Crawford.  They ended up paying a total of $4 M more, which is nothing in today's market, so they essentially agree on a Crawford contract.  The details are $6.2 M for this year(already agreed to pre-arbitration hearing), $8.8 M in 2017($6 M of that paid out in a January bonus), then $16 M per season for the next 4 seasons through 2021.  There are no options or op-outs.  It does include a partial no-trade clause starting next year.

This seems like a win-win contract extension as Belt and his family should now be set up to be very comfortable financially for the rest of their lives.  The Giants will get surplus value from Belt if he continues his historical production and there is a good chance he will do even better than that.

The extension effectively blocks any future move of Buster Posey to 1B, but the Giants have always had a "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" philosophy.  It should not have a major impact on the farm system or draft plans as Chris Shaw is the only major 1B prospect in the system and he's still years away.  The Giants up-the-middle draft philosophy should not be affected.

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