CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Guardians’ biggest signing of the offseason could be a player they already have under contract — and the most deserving one on the roster.
The club is working on signing superstar third baseman José Ramírez to a contract extension that would add four years and about $107 million to his existing deal that was signed before the 2022 campaign.
A source close to the negotiations confirmed to cleveland.com early Saturday that nothing is finalized yet, but the re-worked deal includes the last three years of the previous contract, bringing the total value to $175 million over the next seven years with $70 million of that deferred.
Ramírez is a 10-year veteran who has played his entire career with Cleveland, a tenure that supersedes the need for a no-trade clause.
The extension would keep Ramírez in a Cleveland uniform through 2032 and raise the average annual value of his contract to about $25 million. That’s still well below what a player of his caliber could fetch on the open market, but at the same time it compensates him in a manner more reflective of the seven-time All-Star’s performance over the last five seasons.
Ramírez had three years and about $70 million remaining on the contract he signed in April of 2022. At that time, Ramírez said he wanted to finish his career with Cleveland, win a World Series here and reach baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
The Dominican native, who turned 33 in September, has certainly held up his end of the bargain, batting .281 with a .859 OPS, 122 home runs and 409 RBI in 629 games since signing that seven-year contract. During that stretch he has won three Silver Slugger Awards, been named to the American League All-Star squad four times and finished in the top five in AL Most Valuable Player voting three times.
Under the terms of the previous deal, the Guardians owed Ramírez $21 million in 2026, $23 million in 2027 and $25 million in 2028. The newly-restructured contract includes some deferred payments, and boosts Ramírez’s AAV significantly. The Guardians have included deferred payments as part of contracts in the past “but none to this extent” a source told cleveland.com.