DENVER (AP) \u2014 Now this gives new meaning to a coffee break: Chase Burns signing his new $105 million, seven-year contract was momentarily delayed when a cup of java was spilled on the paperwork.<\/p>\n
No matter. The Cincinnati Reds simply presented a new one and got the deal done for the 23-year-old right-hander fresh off his first All-Star Game selection.<\/p>\n
Burns spilled the beans Saturday on what happened behind the scenes. It appears Reds general manager Brad Meador toppled over coffee as they were finishing up the final details.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat took some time to print a new one out,\u201d Burns recounted before the Reds played the Rockies. \u201cThat was easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burns\u2019 deal runs through the 2033 season.<\/p>\n
It’s the largest guaranteed contract in the majors given to a pitcher with less than four years of service time and exceeds the previous high by 40% for someone with one year or more.<\/p>\n
The move by Cincinnati also continues a pattern of teams locking up their young stars early. The NL Central rival St. Louis Cardinals recently signed rookie second baseman JJ Wetherholt to a $112.5 million, eight-year contract.<\/p>\n
It also could be the start of a trend for his teammates, perhaps infielders Sal Stewart and Elly De La Cruz. The Reds agreed to a $53 million, six-year contract with right-hander Hunter Greene in 2023.<\/p>\n
Burns was the second overall pick of the 2024 amateur draft out of Wake Forest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to build something great here. I think we have a great set of guys,” said Burns, who is 11-1 this season with a 2.54 ERA. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to keep getting better every year and that\u2019s the end goal, to win a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall said the timing was right to wrap up the new contract. Burns is the second Reds player to pick up an All-Star nod within two years of being drafted, joining Scott Williamson (drafted in 1997 and an All-Star in \u201999).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think the sky\u2019s the limit for him,\u201d Krall said of Burns. \u201cWe know he works his butt off. He’s trying to get better. He’s a young pitcher in the big leagues, so he’s still developing and he’s been pretty successful in developing at this level.<\/p>\n
“We love our core group, and we do think that they\u2019ve got a lot of talent. We\u2019ve tried to lock a few guys up over the years, and we\u2019re successful with Chase and Hunter. We think this is a really good building block to build on for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Now this gives new meaning to a coffee break: Chase Burns signing his new $105…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,25927,93726,535,50,4259,1177,2102,4,26860,9501,9496,83038,83365,536,6513,93727],"class_list":["post-755363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-reds","tag-baseball","tag-brad-meador","tag-chase-burns-reds-contract-extension","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cincinnatireds","tag-elly-de-la-cruz","tag-hunter-greene","tag-mlb","tag-nick-krall","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40777-ap-colorado-sports-only","tag-product-40806-ap-ohio-sports-only","tag-reds","tag-sal-stewart","tag-scott-williamson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116943150342958664","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}