What Does History Tell Us About Pre-Arbitration Extensions?

On April 8, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed top prospect Konnor Griffin to a nine-year contract extension.

Despite Griffin having just five games of MLB experience under his belt, the Pirates felt confident enough in his abilities to solidify his spot on their payroll for nearly a decade. The deal is reportedly worth upwards of $140 million, making it the largest contract in Pirates franchise history.

Griffin’s extension buys out three years of free agency, securing his services through 2034. Yet, prior to the extension, the Pirates already had six years of team control to work with.

Extensions of this nature have become far more common as of late. Griffin’s deal is yet another in a growing list of pre-arbitration extensions handed out in a player’s first year of service time – even earlier in some cases.

Over the past few weeks alone, Colt Emerson, Cooper Pratt, and Konnor Griffin all signed long-term extensions with either minimal or zero big league experience. The Athletics have given out three sizable pre-arbitration extensions themselves since 2025. So, what gives?

Perhaps the looming CBA negotiations have teams a bit on edge and wanting to secure top talent, knowing the financial structure of the league may be shifting. At the same time, analytics and projection tools have improved drastically over the years, giving front offices a better ability to forecast their prospects’ future performance.

Projection methods are far from foolproof. Plus, injuries and other health considerations are nearly impossible to predict with certainty. Many of these recent extensions have proved successful for teams thus far, but each is still a significant gamble.

Given the long-term risks involved and the readiness that teams seem to feel in taking them on as of late, the trend is worth a deeper dive.

Shifting Tides

Per MLB, Griffin is the ninth player since the start of 2023 to sign a long-term extension with less than a week of service time. This marks an unprecedented shift in how front offices are choosing to operate, as only five such players had ever done so prior to 2023.

These early extensions are part of a larger trend of MLB front offices beginning to offer pre-arbitration extensions more frequently. From 1998 through 2011, only 31 players signed pre-arbitration extensions. This figure grew to 45 between 2012 and 2019.

However, this year signalled the beginning of a new era. Since 2019, a whopping 59 players have signed pre-arbitration extensions, including 10 since the beginning of 2026 alone. 

This phenomenon is a massive shift over a relatively short window of MLB history. The first extension of this nature was not even signed until 1977, when George Brett was extended by the Kansas City Royals. 

This was because, prior to the 1976 CBA introducing free agency, the reserve clause made it so that front offices had no incentive to extend players. Player contracts could be renewed indefinitely at a team’s discretion, rendering extensions redundant.  

Free agency completely changed the landscape of MLB and its financial structure. Not only was player movement far more frequent, but competition in the free agency market began to drive up player salaries over time. 

Because of this, years of control became a governing factor for how front offices build their teams. MLB teams could no longer count on a player they developed sticking around forever. Some of the first extensions were motivated by the sense of urgency this established.

A Wide Spectrum

As time has gone on, extensions have become a versatile method of retaining talent. If a particular team believes their contention window can last a while longer, they may offer a shorter extension to a star player on an expiring contract.

On the other side of things, when a team is confident they can build around a particular player, they push their chips in and offer a long-term deal early on. These are the contracts that we have seen far more of in recent years.

A sizable portion of the league’s star players are currently signed to these extensions. From 2019 through 2024, we saw Ronald Acuña Jr., Fernando Tatis Jr., Julio Rodríguez, Corbin Carroll and Bobby Witt Jr. all join this list. 

To their teams’ credit, these players have put up a combined 98.6 fWAR since the year they each signed their contracts. At the same time, the combined expense of their contracts over that span is roughly around $335 million.

Now, this is an extreme example. If a front office could guarantee upwards of 100 fWAR over a $335 million contract investment, they would be crazy not to sign on. However, the math is far from simple when it comes to most contracts.

While cases like these are the ideal outcome, plenty more pre-arbitration deals have not fared so well. For example, Keibert Ruiz signed an eight-year, $50 million extension with the Nationals in 2023 and has produced -1.9 fWAR since. 

Similarly, Jon Singleton became the first player to sign an extension prior to his MLB debut in 2014. The deal was for five years and $10 million. While that was not a massive investment, Singleton appeared in just 114 games with the Astros over the years covered by his contract, producing a total of -0.9 fWAR. 

Reading the Tea Leaves

If the outcomes of these extensions have been so volatile, why have they become so popular?

It stands to reason that the risk is fairly significant for teams. This is especially true in the case of extensions for players yet to make their MLB debut. Despite this, something is incentivizing the adoption of long-term pre-arbitration agreements.

One explanation is that analytics have gotten better and better, and thereby, teams feel more confident in their ability to project talent.

Data and projection methods are not perfect and are not always predictive so much as they are adept at demonstrating long-term trends. By focusing on tools and specific, projectable data trends, teams have been able to better piece together the floor and ceiling of their players. From there, any investment is still a dice roll, but they can make the decision and set their asking price from a better-informed perspective.

Ultimately, teams sign players to pre-arbitration extensions when they believe that the player’s production value over the course of the contract will surpass the actual dollar value. They get cost security over the player, and in return, the player gets a guaranteed payout with contract security over a longer timeframe. 

With that in mind, any math that might be able to narrow the confidence interval of where a player’s production value will land is immensely valuable. As more teams build confidence in their projections, it is natural that extensions become more frequent.

Elephant in the Room

Another explanation for the recent uptick in pre-arbitration extensions is the looming CBA negotiations. 

The baseball world is well aware of the stakes of these upcoming negotiations. With the potential implementation of a salary cap being a focal point of these discussions, the financial landscape of MLB could change drastically. 

We could also see another lockout take shape. Both MLB and the MLBPA have held steadfast to their positions during early talks, and given the distance between the two sides, it is even possible that we could miss games in 2027.

Nobody knows whether things will change at that scale. Still, the uncertainty being created by the situation could be a motivator for teams to seek longer-term security over their core players.

In a hypothetical world where a hard salary cap is implemented, it is unlikely that this change could void or impact ongoing contracts. As such, it would be advantageous for teams to make these deals before they become more financially constrained. This way, teams would retain more cap space upon the inception of the new system.

Even if a cap were not implemented, signing players to longer-term extensions still provides cost certainty on a smaller scale. If teams feel they can confidently offer a high-value deal to a player early, it makes sense that they would want to remove the variable of their contract price in future years.

Return on Investment

Regardless of the underlying incentives, the increase in pre-arbitration extensions is notable for a number of reasons. It is likely to help keep star players with their debut franchises for longer. At the same time, it dramatically increases the risk of contract outlooks souring when an early gamble doesn’t quite pan out.

Certainly, teams have been able to generate a ton of surplus value from early extensions to star players like those mentioned above. At the same time, for each of those cases, there are a number of others that led to longer-term losses.

The contracts of Eloy Jiménez, Luis Robert Jr., Evan White, Wander Franco, Scott Kingery, and Spencer Strider have all been derailed due to underperformance, injury, or off-field incidents. Despite these cautionary tales, the possibility of striking gold on an early deal can still make them worth the risk.

In the case of Konnor Griffin, it’s easy to root for the extension to work out.

The previous two extensions the Pirates gave out have not panned out so well. They first signed Ke’Bryan Hayes to an eight-year, $70 million extension in 2022. In 2023, they signed Bryan Reynolds to an eight-year, $106.75 million contract. 

During their time with the Pirates since, those two have produced a combined 12.5 fWAR. Reynolds is still playing in Pittsburgh, but the Pirates traded Hayes to the Cincinnati Reds in 2025. 

Griffin’s deal surpasses the Pirates’ previous highest contract value by nearly $35 million, and fans are incredibly hopeful that he will break the trend of less-than-successful extensions in Pittsburgh. The 19-year old shortstop has elite potential, so he very well might.

If he does, he’ll join the growing list of stars who signed large extensions at the onset of their careers. Given how the past few weeks have gone, it seems he’ll be far from the last.

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