The Tribune reports the Sox have signed 23-year-old shortstop Tim Anderson to a six-year contract extension.
The contract includes two club options that would give the Sox control of the 23-year-old through 2024 and would bring the value of the deal to $50.5 million if both are exercised. Anderson likely would have been arbitration-eligible for the 2020 season and a free agent after the 2022 season.It is being reported that no player with less than a year of major-league service time has ever signed such a lucrative deal. Anderson, who hit .283/.306/.432 last year and struck out nine times as often as he walked in 410 at-bats while playing solid defense, will attempt to become the first homegrown White Sox position player to amass 10 WAR with the team since Joe Crede, who last played with the team in 2008. The story notes that Fangraphs only projects Anderson for a .260/.284/.381 batting line.
The White Sox have done well in drafting and developing pitching prospects. But the organization fell into a deep, dark hole when it came to developing position players and hitters. Anderson is really the first farm system position player that fans saw real potential.
But to knock out an extension THREE years before any normal club would even think about one is strange. Rookies often show promise in their first call up, but there is never a guarantee that they will put together a long term career. There is an air of desperation to calm the nerves of fans who don't like the concept of a "total rebuild." But this marks Anderson as one of the White Sox's new "core" players that the team will be built around. It seems like a risk that did not have to be taken so soon.
