The Rays and infielder Yandy Diaz are close to finalizing a contract extension, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports (Twitter link). The deal is a three-year, $24MM pact that contains a club option for the 2026, according to Feinsand and his MLB.com colleague Juan Toribio (via Twitter). Diaz is represented by the Octagon Agency.
The extension would cover Diaz’s final two years of arbitration control and at least one of his free agent-eligible seasons. Diaz and the Rays were slated for an arbitration hearing to determine his 2023 salary after not reaching an agreement by the filing deadline — Diaz was looking for $6.3MM and the club countered with $5.5MM.
Instead, it now looks like Diaz will be the third Tampa Bay player this week to sign an extension rather than head to a hearing. Jeffrey Springs signed a four-year, $31MM extension on Wednesday, meanwhile Pete Fairbanks agreed to a deal worth $12MM over three guaranteed years on Friday. An arb hearing is usually the result when the two sides don’t agree on a one-year salary prior to the figure-exchange deadline, yet clubs often try to pursue multi-year deals as something of a loophole around the self-imposed ” file and trial” strategy deployed by most of the league.
Diaz, Springs, and Fairbanks were three of seven Rays players that did not agree to terms by the deadline, and even the remaining group of four (Harold Ramirez, Colin Poche, Ryan Thompson, Jason Adam) still represents an unusually large number of players to be headed for hearings. It certainly wouldn’t be surprising to see the Rays work out at least one more extension before hearings start taking place in the coming weeks.
More to come…
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