00:00And this one is in Seattle, in the Pacific Northwest, Colt Emerson and the Seattle Mariners,
00:05Robert Murray initially reported this, are in agreement on an eight-year, $95 million contract
00:11extension. It includes a ninth-year club option, and there is a no-trade clause involved in this
00:17deal. Eight years, $95 million for Just Baseball's number five prospect in the game. You love Colt
00:24Emerson. Do you $95 million love Colt Emerson? I think I do. Not my money, but I think I do
00:31in this situation here because I think Emerson's just going to play his way into being the type
00:37of player that you're not going to be able to lock up for that amount pretty soon here.
00:43And yes, it accelerates the timeline, but this is a guy that I think after the spring that he had
00:48had already accelerated his own timeline. And we talked about what are the situations here
00:54that could result in him getting up there. And it was really the outfielders maybe not hitting
00:58as well. They're hitting pretty well out of the gate, but I still think, especially now with JP
01:02Crawford banged up, you know, the Mariners are looking and saying, hey, maybe he could be our
01:07shortstop, you know, this year. And it depends on what the Crawford situation is. Always can still go
01:12to third base, then he can move Donovan around. A lot of different situations there. But talking to
01:16the Mariners during spring training, the part that they kept hammering with Emerson was how much the
01:22defense has improved. And all I've talked about is how much the offense has improved from the second
01:26half last year. So now with how much the defense has improved to where he looks like an everyday
01:31shortstop or a well above average third baseman on top of the fact that he started to tap into that
01:37above average power. We always knew that was in there. The bats a ball has always been well above
01:40average to plus the approach has always been really solid. Now you've got this, some of his parts that is
01:45just above average to potentially plus across the board. And if you have a player like that,
01:51those are the types of players you pre-arb extend. I know people will say, well, what about
01:54Christian Campbell or whatever? Christian Campbell is the exact, and not to pile on, but that's the
01:58exact type of player you don't pre-arb extend. No carrying tools. Yes, he hits the living crap out
02:02of the ball when he's writing in rhythm. These guys, we'll talk about the next deal as well.
02:07Even if they're not mashing, they have the defensive ability. They have the wheels to give you value
02:12with the glove. Campbell was kind of positionless. Emerson looks like an everyday shortstop now,
02:17and at worst, a really good, or at least above average third baseman. So he has the potential
02:23to be a superstar, but I think the floor is still a really solid big leaguer. And if at the
02:27worst case,
02:28you have an above average or average left side of the infielder that you're paying a little bit
02:33extra for, that's a good gamble to take given that the best case is you have a two to $300
02:37million
02:38player on a deal that's a fraction of that. So I'm trying to figure out what exactly it means for
02:44the prospect promotion incentive, the PPI implications on this signing. I think it wiped
02:51it out because he got the extension and Joe Doyle put it, I think, best on Twitter. He said,
02:56pretty big implications here. This deal would void Colt Emerson's eligibility to net the Seattle
03:00Mariners an additional first round pick if he won rookie of the year. Fascinating. So a guy that gets
03:05an extension, again, a pre-debut extension, zero service time, zero days in Major League Baseball
03:13for Colt Emerson, and he gets $95 million with escalators to reportedly take it up to $130
03:18million from Robert Murray. But this would wipe out the possibility of a PPI pick. And we keep
03:24talking about this wide open American League rookie of the year race. It quickly looks like a two horse
03:28race between McGonagall and Chase DeLaure, but holy smokes, man. There was a world that Colt Emerson
03:34entered his name into that rookie of the year race. If he got up and was productive right away,
03:39the question is, where can you get up and be productive in this lineup right now? Because
03:44Cole Young is swinging a pretty good bat over the weekend. And then you got Donovan who's swinging
03:48the best bat right now. We talked about it. Emerson would probably play third. Donovan would move to
03:52the outfield. But it's fascinating to see them kind of throw in the towel on the PPI opportunity this
03:58year and just say, you know what? You're one of our guys moving forward. Let's do this.
04:02Especially given the way that they draft. And we talk about that all the time, right? The Mariners are as
04:05good as anybody. I think that shows you how much they value that additional several years,
04:12those additional several years of Colt Emerson. The last thing I'll mention is we talked about
04:16the mechanical adjustment a lot on the call-up that he made, kind of switching from the leg
04:19kick to the toe tap. In his final 75 games, Emerson hit 315, 410, 521 and cut his ground ball
04:25rate by
04:2720%. So when you do that, you make that offensive adjustment. Again, continue to improve defensively.
04:32They love the makeup. A left-handed hitting shortstop. And there's still more in there.
04:36I think the Mariners know what they have here. And they're hanging on for dear life. And I really think
04:42that it's a smart play. We saw the way they went about it with Julio. I know it was a
04:46little bit
04:47after the debut. But I think this is going to maybe not work that well into their favor. But also
04:51Julio
04:52has a lot more escalators that make it really expensive. This could be a really team-friendly deal
04:56if Emerson even reaches, I think, 80% of his potential.
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