All you need to know about Jose Alvarado and his big contract extension with the Philadelphia Phillies.
According to a statement made by the team, the Philadelphia Phillies have given a three-year deal to left-handed reliever Jose Alvarado. This agreement will keep Alvarado playing for the Philadelphia Phillies through at least the 2025 season, and it also includes a club option for the 2026 campaign. OL Baseball Group is the player’s representative organization.
Alvarado will receive a signing bonus of $50,000 in addition to his annual salary of $9,000,000 for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, as reported by Daniel Alvarez-Montes of El Extrabase. The club option for 2026 is for $9 Million, and there is a buyout of $500,000. Due to the fact that Alvarado and the club have previously settled on a salary of $3.45 million for 2023 in order to avoid arbitration, this three-year, $22 million contract is effectively a two-year, $18.55 million extension.
Still, it is a three-year contract, which means that for the purposes of the luxury tax, the Phillies will be taxed on a $7.33 million AVG for 2023, which is an increase from the previous amount of $3.45 million. On the other side, the tax amount for the 2024 and 2025 seasons is reduced as a result of this in comparison to the figure of $9.275 million that it would have been if the arrangement had been structured as a two-year deal.
Alvarado will turn 28 in May and is coming off of an outstanding 2022 campaign in which he pitched 51 innings and posted an earned run average of 3.18. While that number is excellent for a 129 ERA+, which is well above the league average, a little more digging reveals that Alvarado had a staggering 1.92 FIP during the 2017 season, which was the fourth-best in baseball among pitchers who threw at least 50 innings.
Alvarado’s success may be attributed in large part to his 37.9% strikeout rate, which placed him seventh in baseball among players with at least 50 innings pitched. He is a rare left-handed pitcher who can reach triple digits with his fastball.
Yet, Alvarado’s success can be attributed to more than just his high strikeout total. Sinkerballer Alvarado also had a remarkable 56.1% success rate of keeping the ball on the ground while he was at the plate.
Only Jhoan Duran of the Twins had a higher groundball rate while striking out at least 30% of batters faced, while no pitcher who struck out batters at a higher clip than Alvarado induced grounders at a rate of even 50%. Only Jhoan Duran of the Twins had a higher groundball rate while striking out at least 30% of batters faced. The combination of strikeouts and groundballs is a powerful formula for success, and by signing Alvarado to a long-term deal, the Phillies are showing their trust in his ability to continue his performance after the age of 30.
The top end of the free agent market exploded early on in the offseason, with Robert Suarez and Rafael Montero signing early for surprise guarantees in re-signing with their old teams. This caused the market for elite free agents to become extremely competitive. Suarez was able to negotiate a salary of $46.5 million with the Padres, while Montero settled for $34.5 million with the Astros.
Yesterday, the organization agreed to a deal with Seranthony Dominguez that may keep Dominguez in Philadelphia through the 2025 season. This is the second extension in the back of the bullpen for the Phillies in as many days, and it comes just one day after the first. As a result of these transactions, the Philadelphia Phillies have secured the services of two exciting and high-octane arms who are capable of filling in for Strahm and Gregory Soto in the late innings of games for the foreseeable future.
The Philadelphia Phillies appear to have turned a bullpen that has long been considered an area of weakness for the club into a strength as they attempt to return to the World Series after their surprising run in the postseason last year. They did this by adding Craig Kimbrel to their late-inning mix for the 2023 season last month.
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