Contract Extensions The New Free Agency?

It must have been painful for some of these free agents going through contract negotiations the last couple of years. Led by AF, most teams are not all that keen on signing over age players/pitchers to long term $100MM + deals, and the players’ agents are having a rough time talking their clientele into accepting a deal much less than what they originally believed would be available, but probably closer to their fair value. Not wanting to experience what Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel are experiencing right now (and Moustakas the last two years), some of these players are re-evaluating their desire to enter free agency and looking into signing extensions before they get to that status. It sure seems like the extensions are coming hot and heavy this year. And this year they are not reserved strictly for youngsters with the club buying out arbitration and FA years.

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