The St. Louis Cardinals have agreed with Shortstop Paul DeJong on a record contract extension. The six-year contract brings the youngster guaranteed 26 million dollars. With the help of two options, however, the total could almost double.
After last year’s NL Rookie of the Year election only Cody Bellinger from the Dodgers had to give way to DeJong, the 24-year-old signed a record contract. The $26 million is the highest sum ever committed to a player with less than a year of service time (172 days in the 25-player MLB squad). It tops the 25 million over six years that Tim Anderson received last year from the White Sox.
With the help of two club options for 2024 and 2025, the total value of the contract could increase to $51.5 million. In concrete terms, however, these options also mean that cardinals have bought DeJong’s and, moreover, their first two free agent years. The franchise will thus have DeJong under team control for its first nine years in the league.
DeJong hit a homerun right in his first At-Bat at the MLB in May and finally got it to 25 homeruns – most of them ever beaten by a rookie shortstop for the cardinals. Apart from that, he beat 26 doubles, had 65 RBI and scored 55 runs on a. 532 Slugging Percentage.
“Looking at it from the organization’s point of view, we want to reward the players who have come up through our farm system and have shown the qualities we consider important and want to invest in,” said President of Baseball Operations, John Mozeliak:”He stands for all these things.
This article was published without prior view by the Major League Baseball.