Triston Casas, considered as a future cornerstone at first base in Boston, spoke to WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford this weekend and expressed an openness to discussing a long-term contract extension with the Purple Sox. Alas, these talks haven’t really gotten underway in any type …
“No. None in any way,” Casas instructed Bradford. “I haven’t considered it. No person has approached me about it. And my representatives have by no means even talked about it to [Red Sox GM Chaim Bloom] or anybody within the entrance workplace. I’m simply centered on enjoying this yr and we’ll see the place it goes. It it occurs, it occurs. I might love to remain in Boston the remainder of my life. I like the town within the little style I’ve bought of it. I don’t know anyplace else and I don’t need to. We’ll see what occurs in a few years. Hopefully we get one thing carried out, but when we don’t we’ll go from there.”
The thought right here can be to safe Casas via all of his pre-arbitration and arbitration-eligible years and to seemingly additionally purchase out a minimum of a pair seasons of free company. Bradford makes word of the “flurry of offers of seven-or-more years” that the Braves have pulled off with the likes of Spencer Strider, Michael Harris, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, and Ronald Acuna Jr.
Lots of these extensions had been — and are — considered as extraordinarily team-friendly across the business. And there’s not a pure comparability between any of them and what the Purple Sox is likely to be seeking to do with Casas. He has appeared in solely 27 main league video games up up to now and can nonetheless carry rookie standing into the 2023 marketing campaign. Albies, for instance, signed his cut price seven-year, $35MM pact with Atlanta in April 2019, having already logged greater than 215 video games at baseball’s highest stage. Ke’Bryan Hayes, the Pirates’ long-term hope at third base, inked an eight-year, $70MM pact with Pittsburgh final April, precisely 120 video games into his MLB profession.
Casas flashed good energy in his preliminary style of massive league motion down the stretch in 2022, clubbing 5 dwelling runs with a .766 OPS over 95 plate appearances. Granted, his batting common got here in at simply .197. Earlier than his promotion on September 4, the 23-year-old consensus top-35 prospect registered a .273/.382/.481 batting line in 317 plate appearances at Triple-A Worcester.
Perhaps one thing can get occurring the extension entrance when Casas arrives at Purple Sox camp within the spring. Or the wait could possibly be fairly a bit longer than that. However the aim is to make sure that he doesn’t slip away from the group like Xander Bogaerts did or construct up the type of negotiating energy of a Rafael Devers, who commanded ten years, $313.5MM in new money from the Sox earlier this month.
