BREAKING: Kristian Campbell signs 8-year, $60 million extension with Red Sox

Now let’s hope he makes that deal look foolish.

They’re working overtime in the Red Sox Office of Extensions and Joy over on Jersey Street this week. On the other hand, it’s a bad day at the MLBPA’s Office of Bet On Yourself And Make A Ton of Cash.

This afternoon, word broke that the Red Sox signed Kristian Campbell to an eight-year deal with club options that could take the term up to 10 years. Here’s Chris Cotillo with the financial breakdown:

So Kristian Campbell is guaranteed $60 million over the eight years of the original deal, with the potential to increase his total earnings by 75% over the final two years of the deal.

$60 million is a lot of money, and $100 million is even more. We always have to start there. Campbell obviously values financial security and I can’t blame him. He is now rich enough to become a member of the White Lotus rewards program and what more could one ask of this life than that?

But $60 million is only $10 million more than Ceddanne Rafaela received last year when he signed an eight-year extension. Rafaela and Campbell are both young, dynamic Red Sox players with loads of potential. But let’s be clear: Kristian Campbell is not Ceddanne Rafaela. Rafaela will probably always have a place on a big league roster because his glove is that good, and he can even become an all-star if he can improve his approach at the plate. But he is also potentially the worst hitter in all of Major League Baseball. That’s not an exaggeration: by wRC+ he was the fourth-worst offensive player in all of baseball last year.

Campbell, on the other hand, just put together one of the greatest minor league seasons in recent memory, being named Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year. Here are the ten dudes who won that award before him:

There’s a lot of talent on that list and lot of money earned. That’s true both of those players who have already signed extensions — as is the case with Bobby Witt, Jr., who signed an 11-year deal worth over $288 after his first two years in the bigs — and of those players who have instead elected to stick with arbitration — as is the case with Vlad Guerrero, who has already made over $70 million over the course of his career and is poised to enjoy a massive pay day as a free agent this offseason.

So, in other words, Campbell is potentially leaving a lot of money on the table. Like so much money that you wouldn’t even be able to see the table. You’d walk into the room, see a floating pile of money with no table beneath it, and freak out because piles of money aren’t supposed to float like that. And you’d worry that you were hallucinating. And you’d run back to Chop’t and demand to speak to the manager because you’re sure the guy who made your lunch salad slipped some shrooms in there without telling you. And it would become a whole thing. And no one wants to deal with that, even if it does earn you a free large fountain drink with your next purchase, which, if you’re being fair, you’d have to at least offer to split 50-50 with Kristian Campbell, since it was his eye-popping decision to sign this deal that got you the free Diet Coke in the first place.

But, as is obvious if you’ve ever read anything I’ve ever written about contracts before, I hate evaluating ballplayers by whether they represent “good or bad value” to the team. So instead of spending the rest of the day crowing about what a steal the Red Sox just got, let’s instead celebrate how great it is that such a young and exciting player could be a part of our lives for the next decade.

And then let’s hope he becomes so popular throughout New England that Dunkin’ Donuts makes him their highest-paid commercial spokesman in history, because if he reaches his potential and brings us joy, then he’ll deserve to not only be a member of the White Lotus rewards program, but to own a White Lotus franchise or two.