The A’s have reached settlement with designated hitter Brent Rooker on a five-year, $60MM contract extension, stories Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic. The deal features a vesting possibility for a sixth season that would push the worth to $90MM. ESPN’s Jeff Passan stories that the choice’s base worth is $22MM. Rooker is a consumer of The Bledsoe Company.
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 for the reason that membership prolonged beginning pitcher Trevor Cahill for $30.5MM in 2011. It’s the staff’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 inconceivable 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 take a look at any cease. As a former prime 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 understanding this effectively, although.
The righty-swinging Rooker has turn into not solely probably the most profitable waiver claims in current reminiscence however one in every of baseball’s greatest hitters. He popped 30 residence runs in 526 plate appearances to earn an All-Star choice in 2023. Whereas he was snubbed from the Midsummer Basic final season, Rooker took one other main step ahead. He linked on 39 homers, 26 doubles and a pair of triples with a large .293/.365/.562 batting line throughout 614 plate appearances.
Rooker completed tied for fifth (alongside José Ramírez and Marcell Ozuna) in residence runs. Solely Aaron Choose, Shohei Ohtani, Anthony Santander and Juan Soto hit extra. Amongst hitters with not less than 500 PAs, Rooker ranked within the prime 20 in all three slash stats. He completed sixth in slugging — trailing Choose, Ohtani, Bobby Witt Jr., Soto and Yordan Alvarez.
Extra to come back.
