The A’s have reached settlement with designated hitter Brent Rooker on a five-year, $60MM extension, studies Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic. The deal features a vesting choice for a sixth season that would push the worth to $90MM, together with escalators. ESPN’s Jeff Passan studies that the choice’s base worth is $22MM and that Rooker will make $30MM over the deal’s first three seasons. That represents what would have been The Bledsoe Company consumer’s arbitration years. The deal covers his arb window and buys out a minimum of two free agent seasons.
It’s one other important funding in what has been an enormous offseason by A’s requirements. As proven on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, Rooker turns into the primary A’s participant to signal a five-year deal because the membership prolonged beginning pitcher Trevor Cahill for $30.5MM in 2011. It’s the group’s second funding for $60MM+ this winter. Final month, they added Luis Severino on a three-year, $67MM free agent deal that represented the most important contract in franchise historical past.
Rooker securing such a contract would have been unimaginable to examine two years in the past. He landed with the A’s on a waiver declare early within the 2022-23 offseason. Rooker was a 28-year-old DH/nook outfielder who had bounced between the Twins, Padres and Royals with out getting a lot of a have a look at any cease. As a former high 35 total draft choose who had hit effectively within the minors, he was a smart waiver goal. The A’s actually didn’t envision it figuring out this effectively, although.
The righty-swinging Rooker has grow to be not solely one of the profitable waiver claims in latest reminiscence however one in every of baseball’s finest hitters. He popped 30 dwelling runs in 526 plate appearances to earn an All-Star choice in 2023. Whereas he was snubbed from the Midsummer Traditional final season, Rooker took one other main step ahead. He related on 39 homers, 26 doubles and a pair of triples with an enormous .293/.365/.562 batting line throughout 614 plate appearances.
Rooker completed tied for fifth (alongside José Ramírez and Marcell Ozuna) in dwelling runs. Solely Aaron Decide, Shohei Ohtani, Anthony Santander and Juan Soto hit extra. Amongst hitters with a minimum of 500 PAs, Rooker ranked within the high 20 in all three slash stats. He completed sixth in slugging — trailing Decide, Ohtani, Bobby Witt Jr., Soto, and Yordan Alvarez.
It’s now two seasons of borderline elite offensive manufacturing. Rooker has a .272/.348/.528 slash by greater than 1100 plate appearances in an A’s uniform. He’s within the high 15 in slugging share and ranks ninth in homers because the begin of the ’23 marketing campaign. He’s a middle-of-the-order presence.
There’s a first rate quantity of swing-and-miss to his sport. Rooker has fanned in additional than 30% of his plate appearances with the A’s. Final 12 months’s manufacturing was pushed partially by a .362 common on balls in play that’ll be tough to take care of. Rooker makes a ton of onerous contact, although, so he’s in all probability in line for a modest BABIP regression moderately than an enormous drop-off.
The ball-in-play normalization occurred on the finish of final season. Rooker carried an unsustainable .390 BABIP into the All-Star Break. That dropped to .333 within the second half. To his credit score, Rooker compensated by chopping his strikeout price to a way more manageable 24.1% clip throughout that stretch. It stays to be seen whether or not he’ll preserve that degree of contact, but it surely’s an encouraging growth that presumably affirmed the entrance workplace’s confidence in his hitting acumen.
Even when he doesn’t hit .290 whereas pushing 40 dwelling runs on an annual foundation, Rooker ought to stay an influence bat. The A’s have made clear they envisioned him because the long-term anchor of their lineup. The group reportedly took him off the market upfront of final summer time’s commerce deadline. That they had no real interest in permitting commerce rumors to rekindle in the course of the offseason. GM David Forst declared inside per week of the offseason starting that the A’s weren’t dealing Rooker. They’re doubling down by committing to him by a minimum of the 2029 season.
Rooker surpassed three years of main league service final season. He was getting into his first of three arbitration seasons. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had projected a $5.1MM wage for subsequent 12 months. Whereas the precise breakdown is unknown, Rooker will reportedly obtain $30MM over what would have been his arbitration window. That leaves a median of $15MM yearly for the 2 free agent seasons. It’s not fairly a front-loaded contract, but it surely seems Rooker will make a bit of extra within the subsequent couple years than he would have had he gone by the arbitration course of.
The group makes that tradeoff for the prospect to maintain him at below-market charges in the course of the 2028-29 seasons — that are scheduled to be their first two years in Las Vegas. The A’s didn’t have any cash assured past 2027. Severino and up to date commerce pickup Jeffrey Springs had been their solely gamers signed previous subsequent season.
The A’s income sharing standing has been a major storyline this offseason. Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported final month that the group may must push its aggressive steadiness tax payroll to roughly $105MM to keep away from an MLBPA grievance. Groups are required to spend income sharing cash on the on-field product.
Extending Rooker will push their tax quantity up, although it’s not by an enormous quantity. The contract comes with a $12MM common annual worth. The AAV is the quantity used for tax functions, so it wouldn’t matter how the salaries are distributed. Rooker had already been anticipated to make round $5MM subsequent season. This provides roughly $7MM to the group’s tax quantity, which is able to examine in round $97MM (as calculated by RosterResource).
The tax quantity isn’t finalized till the tip of the 12 months, so the rest of the A’s offseason and in-season exercise can push that additional. Tax concerns are related however are removed from the one cause for the A’s to make this deal. In the event that they had been solely involved about pushing subsequent season’s CBT quantity, they might have signed a handful of mid-tier free brokers to one-year contracts.
Rooker turned 30 in November. A five-year dedication runs by his age-34 season. There’s some threat in a five-year deal for a participant in his 30s who doesn’t present a lot defensive worth. But if Rooker continues hitting at anyplace close to this degree, his arbitration price ticket would have climbed rapidly anyhow. He may have put himself in place for an AAV within the $20-25MM vary as soon as he hit free company, a quantity that the A’s could have been disinclined to match.
On the similar time, it’s straightforward to see the attraction for Rooker of locking within the safety. It wasn’t that way back that he appeared like a fringe roster participant. He wouldn’t have gotten to free company till his age-33 season, when a three- or four-year deal would possibly’ve been the ceiling. Sacrificing a bit of little bit of long-term incomes upside to keep away from harm threat over the following couple seasons is comprehensible.
This also needs to solidify Rooker’s spot in what appears to be like to be an up-and-coming A’s lineup. Lawrence Butler, Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom, Shea Langeliers, JJ Bleday and rebound candidate Zack Gelof have promise as an offensive core. Final summer time’s fourth total choose Nick Kurtz may transfer rapidly as a refined school hitter. The A’s nonetheless want so much to interrupt proper to contend in 2025, however issues are beginning to come into focus. Soderstrom and Kurtz match finest at first base, so maybe there’ll be a logjam down the road with Rooker locked in at designated hitter. That’d be an excellent drawback to have if each younger first basemen attain their offensive ceilings and Rooker continues to hit at an All-Star degree.
Picture courtesy of Imagn.
