The Chicago Cubs have locked up their 1st baseman of the future in Anthony Rizzo. Fox’s Ken Rosenthal is reporting that Rizzo and the Cubs have agreed on a 7-year, $41 million contract extension that would wipe out his arbitration years with the club and keep him in Chicago through the 2019 season.
In addition to the $41 million guaranteed salary, there are reportedly salary escalators that could raise the value of the deal to $73 million through 2021. At first glance, this is a slight overpayment for Rizzo, but in the mold of Tampa Bay’s contract with Evan Longoria, Theo Esptein and Jed Hoyer have elected to lock up the second-half (along with Starlin Castro) of their young core.
Rizzo is a .255/.333/.437 hitter with 25 home runs in his first 172 major-league games, but so far during 2013, he’s experienced a mini-breakout with a .890 OPS and 9 home runs in just 159 plate appearances. Most believe that Rizzo will be a 30-35 home run per year power hitter, and his minor-league track record indicates that he could be a high-OBP guy as well with a walk-rate of 10% or more.
Immediate comparisons will be made to Paul Goldschmidt (who the Diamondbacks just locked up to a similar deal), but if Rizzo continues to hit at the pace that he’s established (in a small sample size) in 2013, this will work out to be a steal for the new Cubs regime. 23-year-old power hitters certainly don’t grow on trees in today’s MLB, and the Cubs seem to have found a good one in Rizzo that will pay dividends for years to come.