Using the Brandon Crawford Extension w/ Didi Gregorius

Apparently winning a Gold Glove Award is a lot more lucrative then it used to be in Major League Baseball, just ask Brandon Crawford. Crawford won a Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the National League last week and was rewarded for it this week with a new six-year contract that will take him through the 2021 season and pay him $75 million.

Obviously there was a lot more to the extension for Crawford and the Giants then just the Gold Glove but there are at least some similarities that the New York Yankees can potentially use if they choose to extend their shortstop Didi Gregorius. This will be the ultimate test of who actually reads the article and who just see’s the title and runs with it because I’m not suggesting the Yankees extend him until after the 2016 or 2017 season, not today,  with some obvious stipulations included. Health is obviously one and the second, and largest, is that his production both at the plate and in the field look more like what they looked like in the final four months of the season and less like the first month-and-a-half to two months.

San Francisco essentially bought out the final two years of arbitration that Crawford was owed and four years of free agency. Crawford, now 28-years old, batted .256 with 21 home runs and 84 RBI for San Francisco this season including his first Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Award along with his first trip to the All-Star Game. Crawford now has four seasons under his belt, to Didi’s just one full season in 2015, and has played in at least 143 games in each of them after making his MLB debut in May of 2011. Crawford has already helped the Giants win the World Series in 2012 and 2014 so obviously Didi has some catching up to do but this sets the tone for future talks between Gregorius and the Yankees on an extension.

I’m not saying the Yankees should extend Didi today, they should absolutely wait another full season or two and truly see what they have in Gregorius, but I like the idea of paying him sooner rather than overpaying, or potentially losing him, later. I’m personally keeping my eyes on this situation and following it closely.