Ranking MLB's Super Early Contract Extensions in Recent History
This past Wednesday, Pittsburgh's Konnor Griffin became the latest in a growing line of top prospects to sign a big contract extension either before or shortly after making his Major League Baseball debut.
Griffin got a nine-year, $140M contract less than one week after his arrival.
That came a little more than a week after Milwaukee's Cooper Pratt inked an eight-year, $50.75M contract and Seattle Colt's Emerson signed an eight-year, $95M deal, both before playing a single game.
They became the ninth, 10th and 11th players in the past four calendar years to sign at least an eight-year, $50M deal with less than one year of MLB service time.
The big question every time one of these risk/reward situations arises is: Will it pay off?
History tells us: Maybe?
Prior to 2021, there had been 13 instances of players signing an extension of at least five seasons less than one year into their careers.
Some of those like Ronald Acuña Jr. and Salvador Perez turned into ridiculously team-friendly contracts.
Others...not so much. And the risk is much greater now that the average extension has ballooned from 5.9 years, $30M in the 2008-20 timeframe to 8.5 years, $98M on more recent deals.
We've ranked the 13 finished (or mostly finished) deals from worst ROI to best ROI.
Early Returns on Deals in the Past Four Years
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Before we rank the 13 extensions signed at least five years ago, let's check in on how the more recent contracts have panned out thus far. Most (but certainly not all) of them are looking like bargains.
Michael Harris II, Atlanta Braves (8 years, $72M, signed Aug. 17, 2022)—Harris won NL Rookie of the Year in 2022, but has steadily gone downhill since. He's still providing positive value and had a 20/20 campaign in 2025. However, he did so with a .678 OPS and hasn't been named an All-Star yet. Still, at an average of $9M per season, hard to argue with what he has accomplished roughly halfway through this deal.
Julio Rodríguez, Seattle Mariners (12 years, $209.3M, signed Aug. 26, 2022)—Like Harris, Rodríguez was most of the way through a Rookie of the Year run when he signed his extension. Unlike Harris, he has continued to produce at a super high level, worth 16.5 bWAR over the past three seasons, including joining the 30/30 club in both 2023 and 2025. There is a massive, eight-year option decision looming after the 2028 campaign, but Seattle is certainly enjoying the ride so far.
Corbin Carroll, Arizona Diamondbacks (8 years, $111M, signed March 11, 2023)—Yet another Rookie of the Year, Carroll winning his in 2023 after a 32-game cup of coffee in the big leagues late in the 2022 campaign. Carroll has been worth every penny and then some on this extension, racking up 78 home runs, 41 triples and 121 stolen bases over the past three seasons and out to a fantastic start to 2026.
Jackson Chourio, Milwaukee Brewers (8 years, $82M, signed Dec. 1, 2023)—Chourio signed a few months before making his MLB debut, and promptly gave the Brewers back-to-back seasons with at least 21 home runs and 21 stolen bases. He also has a 1.044 OPS in 12 career postseason games. And he just turned 22 about a month ago.
Ceddanne Rafaela, Boston Red Sox (8 years, $50M, signed April 8, 2024)—After slugging .530 in the minors between 2022 and 2023, Rafaela merely slugged .402 between 2024 and 2025. But he did accumulate 31 home runs and 39 stolen bases and won a Gold Glove last season. Solid investment so far.
Kristian Campbell, Boston Red Sox (8 years, $60M, signed April 2, 2025)—It's way too early to declare Campbell a bust, but he did have quite the disappointing first foray into the majors last season, posting a negative-1.0 bWAR with a .664 OPS and dreadful defense. Boston sent him back to Triple-A in mid-June, and he's still trying to work his way back.
Roman Anthony, Boston Red Sox (8 years, $130M, signed Aug. 6, 2025)—Anthony has struggled a bit in these first two-plus weeks of the 2026 season, but he had an .859 OPS in 71 games played last year and had a good run through the World Baseball Classic with a pair of home runs. It has barely been 10 months since his MLB debut, but this contract already looks like a team-friendly steal.
Samuel Basallo, Baltimore Orioles (8 years, $67M, signed Aug. 22, 2025)—Like Campbell, Basallo has struggled out of the gates, entering play on Saturday with a .547 OPS in 40 career MLB games. When the O's announced this extension for the catcher, many initially thought it meant Adley Rutschman was destined for the trade block. But it's a good thing that wasn't the case, as this 21-year-old is still figuring things out.
Nos. 13-11: The Trio of Cautionary Tales
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13. Evan White, Seattle Mariners
Contract: 6 years, $24M, signed Nov. 22, 2019
Production: 84 G, .165/.235/.308, 10 HR, 35 RBI, -0.7 bWAR
12. Scott Kingery, Philadelphia Phillies
Contract: 6 years, $24M, signed March 25, 2018
Production: 325 G, .229/.280/.387, 30 HR, 96 RBI, 25 SB, 0.6 bWAR
11. Jon Singleton, Houston Astros
Contract: 5 years, $10M, signed June 2, 2014
Production: 114 G, .171/.290/.331, 14 HR, 50 RBI, -0.8 bWAR
None of these three was ever as highly touted as a Konnor Griffin or a Colt Emerson, but expectations were certainly high.
White was a first-round pick in 2017 and a darn good hitter in the minors in both 2018 and 2019. Though he did win a Gold Glove at first base in 2020, that hitting never made its way to the majors, playing the final game of his MLB career less than a calendar year after making his debut.
Kingery was a second-round pick in 2015 and a consensus top 35 prospect heading into the 2018 campaign. He struggled mightily in 147 games played as a utilityman in that first season, but did show some real potential in 2019. Unfortunately, COVID derailed his career in 2020 and the latter seasons of this six-year deal were a sunk cost.
Singleton was a consensus top 100 prospect at the start of each season from 2011-14, finally getting his chance with the still-rebuilding Astros in mid-2014. In 95 games played, though, he posted a .620 OPS and wasn't any better during the cup of coffee that he had in 2015. He did make it back to the big leagues in 2023 for a bit of a redemption story after three failed drug tests, but he never lived up to the hype.
The good news on all of these is that the investment was relatively minimal. However, they are the collective warning sign for any team thinking about locking in a prospect for a decade on a nine-figure deal.
10. Eloy Jiménez, Chicago White Sox
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Contract: 6 years, $43M with club options for two additional seasons, signed March 20, 2019
Production: 534 G, .269/.318/.462, 95 HR, 298 RBI, 5.3 bWAR
From 2016-18, Eloy Jiménez batted .327 in the minors, entering both 2018 and 2019 as a consensus top five prospect in all of baseball.
The White Sox were so confident he was going to be the next big thing that they gave him what was at the time easily the biggest contract ever awarded to someone with no MLB experience, about a week before he made his MLB debut.
Initially, he looked the part—at least at the plate. Between 2019 and 2020, Jiménez posted an .848 OPS in 177 games played, operating at a 162-game pace of 41.2 home runs and 109.8 RBI. He won a Silver Slugger in 2020, this after finishing fourth in the AL ROY vote in 2019.
However, his defense in left field was a Nick Castellanos-like liability, even before all of the injuries that rather short-circuited his career. He missed a combined total of 227 games from 2021-23. And though he did hit .274 with a .785 OPS during that three-year stretch, he was never quite potent enough to be a full-time DH, even if he had been healthy enough to be available on a full-time basis.
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9. Matt Moore, Tampa Bay Rays
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Contract: 5 years, $14M with club options for three additional seasons, signed Dec. 9, 2011
Production: 105 G, 599.0 IP, 3.92 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 8.2 K/9, 5.7 bWAR
Matt Moore is one of four players in our top nine who signed his super early extension with the Tampa Bay Rays, doing so after logging just 9.1 innings pitched as a September call-up in 2011.
In the last of those three appearances, he went five scoreless innings with 11 strikeouts at Yankee Stadium, making it easy to see why this low-budget franchise leapt at the opportunity to lock him in at a team-friendly price for the next half-decade.
He made 58 starts with a 3.57 ERA over the next two seasons, named an All-Star in 2013 en route to winning 17 games.
Unfortunately, he suffered a torn UCL two games into the 2014 campaign, missing the rest of that season and most of 2015 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. However, he came back well in 2016, logging a career-best 198.1 innings pitched, traded to San Francisco over the summer and having his club options for both 2017 and 2018 exercised.
All in all, respectable ROI from a southpaw who missed about 1.5 of those initial five seasons.
8. Paul DeJong, St. Louis Cardinals
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Contract: 6 years, $26M with club options for two additional seasons, signed March 5, 2018
Production: 621 G, .218/.294/.394, 91 RBI, 279 RBI, 9.7 bWAR
Had it not been for Cody Bellinger, Paul DeJong would've won NL Rookie of the Year in 2017. In 108 games played, he hit 25 home runs and posted what proved to be a career-best .857 OPS.
Thus, the Cardinals locked him in at a reasonable price the following spring, initially reaping some sweet benefits.
Between 2018 and 2019, he cost them just $3.5M, providing excellent defense at shortstop as well as a combined total of 49 home runs. He was an All-Star in 2019, almost winning a Gold Glove that year, too.
Starting with the 2019 postseason, though, things went downhill in a hurry from there.
DeJong posted a sub-.675 OPS in each season from 2020-23, particularly bottoming out in 2022 with a .157/.245/.286 triple-slash in 77 games played. And in 14 career postseason games, he went 9-for-42 with 17 strikeouts and no home runs.
Still, the first two seasons of this six-year deal were impressive enough for DeJong to nearly land in the top half of the list. And at least by signing him when they did, he only cost the Cardinals an average of $4.3M per season. Had they waited until after 2019 to ink an extension, this could have been an all-timer of a disastrous contract, as he would've been able to command way more money at that point.
7. Luis Robert Jr., Chicago White Sox
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Contract: 6 years, $50M with club options for two additional seasons, signed Jan. 2, 2020
Production: 577 G, .259/.313/.455, 102 HR, 298 RBI, 102 SB, 15.8 bWAR
Less than a year after giving Eloy Jiménez $43M prior to his MLB debut, the White Sox went right back to that well with this $50M investment in top prospect Luis Robert Jr., who racked up 32 home runs, 36 stolen bases and an OPS just north of 1.000 in the minors in 2019.
And as was the case with Jiménez, the move looked brilliant at first, with Robert winning a Gold Glove and finishing second in the AL Rookie of the Year vote in 2020.
Across his first four seasons in the big leagues, Robert batted .279 with 162-game paces of 33 home runs, 93 RBI and 20 stolen bases, peaking in 2023 with 38 dingers in an All-Star and Silver Slugger campaign.
Unfortunately, that was one of the only years he managed to stay reasonably healthy, which kept this contract from really paying off.
Robert missed at least 52 games in each of 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025. In fact, 2023 was the only season thus far in which he even reached 15 home runs, his former slugging prowess nowhere to be found in 2024 or 2025.
After exercising his $20M club option, the rebuilding White Sox finally traded Robert away this past offseason. It may have been exactly the jolt he needed, out to a mighty impressive start as the Mets' primary center fielder. Perhaps he'll even stay healthy-ish for a change.
6. Chris Archer, Tampa Bay Rays
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Contract: 6 years, $25.5M with club options for two additional seasons, signed April 2, 2014
Production: 183 G, 1,077.0 IP, 3.92 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 10.1 K/9, 11.7 bWAR
Chris Archer pops up every now and then as a cautionary tale against trading away too much for a single pitcher, as Pittsburgh perhaps to this day regrets giving up all of Tyler Glasnow, Shane Baz and Austin Meadows to acquire Archer at the 2018 deadline.
However, Archer was one of just two pitchers (Matt Moore the other) to have received an extension of at least five seasons after less than one year of service time, and it worked out pretty well.
Archer was an All-Star in both 2015 and 2017, striking out a combined total of 501 batters in those seasons. All told, he had a 3.66 ERA across the first four years of the deal and was a top 15 pitcher in baseball from 2014-17, per FanGraphs.
The only shame of the matter is that they locked in Archer during what was otherwise a disappointing stretch for the franchise. Tampa Bay posted a winning record in each year from 2008-13, as well as from 2018-23, but had a losing record each year in between.
Just so we're clear, though, it wasn't Archer's fault. Even in 2016 when he "led" the majors with 19 losses, he also had 19 quality starts and a decent 4.02 ERA to go along with dreadful run support.
5. Brandon Lowe, Tampa Bay Rays
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Contract: 6 years, $24M with club options for two additional seasons, signed March 20, 2019
Production: 568 G, .246/.330/.484, 120 HR, 338 RBI, 28 SB, 15.2 bWAR
It's a shame Brandon Lowe couldn't stay healthier, but he was quite the offensive asset at second base for the Rays when he wasn't banged up.
As a rookie in 2019, he was named an All-Star and might have edged out Yordan Alvarez for AL ROY if he hadn't missed nearly three months of action.
He missed a combined total of just 17 games in 2020 and 2021, resulting in top 10 finishes for the AL MVP vote in each season. Overall, he had an .869 OPS across his first three full seasons in the majors, operating at a 162-game pace of 39.5 home runs and 106 RBI.
Over the course of the next three seasons, though, he missed more than 200 games due to various ailments, and his production took a bit of a hit, even when he was healthy.
Still, 2022 was the only season of this six-year deal in which Lowe wasn't worth at least 2.0 bWAR, and both of his club option years were exercised. In other words, we are well into the "great investment" portion of the program at this point.
4. Tim Anderson, Chicago White Sox
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Contract: 6 years, $25M with club options for two additional seasons, signed March 21, 2017
Production: 673 G, .288/.318/.444, 88 HR, 283 RBI, 94 SB, 16.2 bWAR
If finding Tim Anderson this high on the list caused you to do a double take, it's only because there was nothing graceful about his fall from grace.
From the beginning of 2019 through the end of May 2022, Anderson was a .326 hitter (best in the majors) with an .850 OPS, operating at 162-game paces of roughly 25 home runs and 22 stolen bases. He won a batting title in 2019, a Silver Slugger in 2020 and was an All-Star in both 2021 and 2022.
Per FanGraphs WAR, he and Aaron Judge were virtually identical in total value added, both ranking just outside the top 10 in fWAR among all hitters during that stretch of about 3.3 seasons.
Anderson also went 16-for-33 (.485) in his seven games played in the 2020 and 2021 postseasons.
But after suffering a groin strain during Memorial Day weekend of his age-29 campaign, Anderson was simply never the same again. He had a .576 OPS in 39 games played over the latter four months of that season, and he proceeded to post a .540 OPS over the next three years.
Exercising the $12.5M club option to bring Anderson back in 2023 was regrettable, but the initial six years of this deal panned out nicely for the White Sox.
3. Ronald Acuña Jr., Atlanta Braves
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Contract: 8 years, $100M with club options for two additional seasons, signed April 2, 2019
Production (through 2025): 706 G, .289/.386/.520, 160 HR, 395 RBI, 189 SB, 24.7 bWAR
Ronald Acuña Jr. was the No. 1 overall prospect heading into 2018 and won NL Rookie of the Year that season before signing his long-term extension the following spring. That's why his contract was so much more lucrative than any other player on this list.
Nevertheless, what an absolute bargain it has been for Atlanta, even with the two torn ACLs and various other injuries that caused Acuña to miss more than 300 games over the past five seasons.
He was an All-Star in five of the past seven seasons—and surely would've been an All-Star in 2020 had there been a game that year. He was also a Silver Slugger in each of 2019, 2020 and 2023, winning NL MVP unanimously in the latter of those campaigns with MLB-best marks in hits (217), runs (149), stolen bases (73) and on-base percentage (.416).
2026 is still part of this initial contract, and barring a major turn of events, it's a foregone conclusion that Atlanta will be exercising its $17M club options for 2027 and 2028 to turn this into a 10-year, $134M deal.
Through the first seven years of it, he operated at a 162-game pace of 36.7 home runs, 43.4 stolen bases, 90.6 RBI and 132.4 runs, posting a .906 OPS that ranked eighth-best in the majors.
2. Salvador Perez, Kansas City Royals
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Contract: 5 years, $7M, signed Feb. 27, 2012
Production: 645 G, .269/.299/.430, 84 HR, 322 RBI, 15.9 bWAR
That is not a typo.
After hitting .331 in 39 games played in 2011, Salvador Perez signed over the next half-decade of his playing career for just seven million bucks.
Of all the factors that led to the Royals making it to the 2014 World Series before winning it all in 2015, this laughably underpaid golden goose behind the plate was probably the most important.
After amassing 3.0 bWAR in just 76 games played in the first year of this deal, Perez was both an All-Star and a Gold Glove recipient in each of 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, averaging 140 hits, 18 home runs and 71 RBI during that four-year stretch.
Between the two Fall Classics, he hit .348 and was named the World Series MVP in 2015.
Needless to say, his next extension was a little more financially substantial, signing a six-year, $52.5M deal in March 2016. He later inked a four-year, $82.5M contract in March 2021 as he works his way up to cementing his legacy as "Greatest Kansas City Royal Not Named George Brett."
1. Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays
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Contract: 6 years, $17.5M with club options for three additional seasons, signed April 18, 2008
Production: 797 G, .275/.357/.512, 162 HR, 544 RBI, 35.5 bWAR
Evan Longoria was Patient Zero of this "We better lock this guy in at an affordable rate while we still can" doctrine that so many teams abide by today.
And based on how well this one panned out, it's hard to believe it took so long for this to become a common practice.
Longoria was the No. 3 overall pick in 2006 and a consensus top-three prospect in all of baseball heading into 2008. And just like Konnor Griffin, Longo signed a nice big extension less than one week into his MLB career.
$2.9M per year for six seasons is a joke by today's payroll standards, but it wasn't exactly a small chunk of change for this franchise two decades ago, considering Tampa Bay's entire Opening Day payroll in 2007 wasn't even $25M.
But goodness gracious was he ever worth it.
Longoria won AL Rookie of the Year in 2008, was an All-Star in each of his first three seasons, received AL MVP votes in five of his first six years and was the second-most valuable position player in all of baseball from 2008-13, per FanGraphs WAR.
Not only that, but his six-year contract essentially turned around this entire franchise. From 1998-2007, the Rays averaged 64.5 wins per season, finishing dead last in the AL East in all but one of their first 10 years of existence. But from 2008-13, they averaged 91.7 wins per year, won the division twice, made the playoffs four times and even made the World Series in Longo's rookie season.
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