Extensions Afoot?
The Red Sox have not yet approached Triston Casas about an extension. Could they?
Mookie Betts is a Los Angeles Dodger. Xander Bogaerts is a San Diego Padre. Chaim Bloom is the Chief Baseball Officer of the Boston Red Sox, and despite the fact that he was not yet a part of the organization before Betts and Bogaerts reached arbitration, he is left to answer questions about why they are no longer on the team, and give fans hope that their current and future favorite players will not follow similar paths.
While Bloom cannot change the past, he has repeatedly opined that the solution is to extend players to pre-arbitration deals early in their careers. While acknowledging that not every young player wants an extension and some players want to give themselves the opportunity to maximize their earning potential in free agency, it can be assumed that the Red Sox will be approaching their young productive players to aggressively pursue extensions from this point forward.
One young player the Red Sox could look to extend is Triston Casas. However, when WEEI’s Rob Bradford asked Casas at Winter Weekend if he has had any discussions with the Red Sox about a contract extension, here is what he had to say:
“No. None whatsoever,” Casas told Bradford. “I haven’t thought about it. Nobody has approached me about it. And my representatives have never even mentioned it to Chaim or anyone in the front office. I’m just focused on playing this year and we’ll see where it goes. If it happens, it happens. I would love to stay in Boston the rest of my life. I love the city in the little taste I’ve got of it. I don’t know anywhere else and I don’t want to. We’ll see what happens in a couple of years. Hopefully we get something done, but if we don’t we’ll go from there.”
While Casas has not yet been approached about an extension, it’s encouraging for Red Sox fans to hear that he is open to the idea of it. The Red Sox have had one of their busiest off-seasons in recent memory, and it’s entirely possible that the front office could approach Casas about an extension in Spring Training, as they did with Garrett Whitlock last year.
Whitlock was officially extended just days after Opening Day in 2022, in a deal that locked him in through all of his arbitration years, and gave the Red Sox an additional two years of team options on the back end. The deal was seen across baseball as very team-friendly, particularly if Whitlock successfully makes the transition to the starting rotation.
Even with his limited big league experience, it may not be realistic to expect Triston Casas to take a similar deal. While Casas was a first-round pick in 2018 who experienced a steady ascend to the majors that included several appearances on Top Prospect lists, Garrett Whitlock could not say the same. Whitlock had a spectacular rookie season under his belt when he signed, but was an 18th-round pick, never appeared on top prospect lists, and was just one year removed from Tommy John surgery. As someone who had experienced plenty of career uncertainty over the years, it wasn’t surprising to see Garrett Whitlock lock in $18.5 million guaranteed (with the opportunity to earn up to $44.5 million). Triston Casas is a confident player, and it’s entirely possible that he won’t be interested in signing a similarly structured deal.
Whether or not Casas puts pen to paper this offseason, it will be very interesting to see how aggressive the Red Sox are in pursuing an extension with him over the course of the season. Other players who could be approached about pre-arbitration extensions this spring include Brayan Bello and Tanner Houck.
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