J.P. Crawford and Seattle Mariners agree to 5-year extension

let’s ride babyHappy Opening Day, friends. While all of you were sleeping fitfully in anticipation, Jerry Dipoto was hard at work last night, inking J.P. Crawford to a major contract extension.

In the great Twitter breaking news wars, Jeff Passan won the first round, and Ken Rosenthal won the second:

First off, congrats to J.P.! You can read all about him in Isabelle’s excellent 40 in 25 piece from a few weeks ago, but we’re only a few years removed from Crawford being a post-hype prospect with significant questions about whether he could hit major league pitching. The 27 year old scuffled with the Phillies and even struggled with the bat during his first two seasons as a Mariner, posting…