The rebuilding Braves have been working to assemble a new core of players for the past two years, and on Friday they locked up the first member of that group for the long haul when they announced a five-year contract extension for center fielder Ender Inciarte.
The contract, which contains a club option for a sixth season, will reportedly guarantee Inciarte $30.525MM. The Octagon client will receive a $3.5MM signing bonus before earning $2MM in 2017, $4MM in 2018, $5MM in 2019, $7MM in 2020 and $8MM in 2021. The option is reported to be valued at $9MM and comes with a $1.025MM buyout. All told, this new contract will give Atlanta control over two of Inciarte’s would-be free-agent years.
“We are thrilled to announce an extension for Ender,” GM John Coppolella said in a press release announcing the move. “We feel that he’s the best defensive center fielder in baseball and one of the best leadoff hitters in the game. Ender brings so much to our club, on and off the field, and we are happy to have him under club control for at least the next six years.”
Originally acquired in last winter’s Shelby Miller heist, Inciarte cemented himself as a Major League asset in 2016 by largely recreating a 2015 breakout. Over the past two seasons, he’s been roughly league-average overall at the plate — .297/.345/.395, nine homers in 1139 plate appearances — with excellent contributions on the basepaths and especially in the outfield. Inciarte has swiped 37 bases in 263 games dating back to 2015, and Fangraphs rates him as one of the game’s 15 best baserunners.
Meanwhile, he’s been 17 runs above average in the outfield despite missing some time due to injury, per Defensive Runs Saved, while Ultimate Zone Rating has him at about +13 runs in that same time frame. Among players with at least 1000 defensive innings since 2015, UZR/150 has Inciarte tied for 14th (with Anthony Rendon) among players of all positions, at +14.1, placing him a shade behind the likes of Lorenzo Cain and Mookie Betts in the outfield.
[Related: Updated Atlanta Braves Payroll Projections]
Inciarte, who just turned 26 after the season ended, was eligible for arbitration for the first time this winter as a Super Two player and was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $2.8MM in his first trip through that process. He’ll instead avoid arbitration for the entirety of his career thanks to this deal, which will keep him under team control through his age-31 campaign. The contract is nearly identical, in terms of its guarantee, to the one inked by division-rival center fielder Odubel Herrera in Philadelphia last week (though Herrera did not qualify as a Super Two player and, as such, conceded to two club options instead of one). It also represents a step forward from the five-year, $23.5MM deal that Adam Eaton signed with the White Sox prior to the 2015 campaign when he, too, was between two and three years of big league service time (though also shy of Super Two status).
While Inciarte has been frequently mentioned as a speculative trade candidate as Coppolella and president of baseball operations John Hart have overseen an aggressive rebuild, the emergence of a new five-year deal seems to firmly indicate that Atlanta sees the standout center fielder as a long-term building block. Inciarte is likely to be flanked by Matt Kemp and Nick Markakis in 2017, though there’s a definite possibility that fellow speedster Mallex Smith (who made his Major League debut this past year) eventually gets a chance at a larger role in the Atlanta outfield, either later in the 2017 season or in 2018.
Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports first reported the agreement and the guarantee (Twitter links). FOX’s Ken Rosenthal reported the year-to-year breakdown of the deal (also via Twitter).
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Not bad
Glad to hear that. Indicate is a good start for Hart’s MO of locking up young players.
YESSS
What a steal of a deal! Good job Braves!!
Good contract for the Braves, reminds me of the deal Eaton signed with the White Sox which gave them good leverage and ultimately brought back multiple high end prospects.
I am down
It will be interesting to see if he continues to improve. There are a lot of nice peripherals, but not a standout offensive stat such as a gaudy batting average or 30+ steals.
a 297/345/395 slash isn’t necessarily gaudy, but it is highly effective. He gets on base at a solid clip. He steals bases at a solid clip. His defence absolutely stands out. His skill set is more or less the sabermetric ideal for a leadoff guy. Seems like a great deal for Atlanta.
I don’t disagree whatsoever. Those were all my thoughts, as well. I just think his peripherals point to a little more growth. I could see him developing into either a premier base stealer or a high OBP guy, maybe both.
Or neither, who knows.
very good deal, I believe he’s more of what we saw in the second half of the season then what we saw in the first half.
He got injured right out of the chute basically in 2016. Id write that off.
it was three games in and then when he came back he had to have time to get back up to speed and by that time it was the all star break
I Approve
Always love deals like this. Even at 31 or 32 he should be valuable on a deal like this
Team friendly deal for a guy with a lot of upside.
Excellent deal for sure for both sides.
Might as well. Gets the team cost certainty moving forward, the potential for a few FA years if he’s still worth it by then, and guaranteed money for Inciarte. Win-win
Good deal for both. They got two years of free agency by guaranteeing him some cash.
It’ll be cool over the years go see who’s contract ends up being better between Oduble and Ender
Game Ender! That trade keeps looking better and better.
The thing that scares me is that this may be a precursor to a move maybe a year or so down the road. Remember a few years ago when they locked up their core of future stars only later to trade some namely Craig Kimbrel and Andrelton Simmons ?
And? Look what each of those brought back in prospects.. it’s a business and they’re commodities. It’s about what’s best for the team. If he can bring back a haul even half of Eaton it’s a win for the team.
Also, if Mallex can man a starting role with numbers comparable to Ender I don’t mind either being shopped.
The alternative is letting their play determine their price in arbitration (risky for both team and player), not give the player or team any financial security and wait until free agency before the player will ultimately want to maximize his profits and most likely end up somewhere else. That’s not a good M.O. for any low to mid-market team.
Also, Kimbrel had to be packaged with the worst contract in MLB at the time (BJ Upton). No 65-win team needs a $10 million/year closer, and they had to trade off any parts they didn’t see being a part of the team 4 years down the road to restock the farm.
Any precursor would look like Coppy trading prospects for stars for a team with limited financial latitude. By getting high-end prospects at all stages of development (from Rookie ball/High-A to AA/AAA) they’re padding the future with talent – something former GM Frank Wren was never concerned with, which is why he did so poorly in drafts/development.
Huge Mets fan here. Great deal for the Braves. This contract will most likely end up as a steal for the team. Truly a good move.
Random though: Politics aside, many people are taking for granted that stats are enough to get Curt Schilling into HOF. My rebuttal: Of the 10 comparable pitchers to Schilling on bbfeference, only 1 of them, John Smoltz, is a HOFer. Players that compare stat wise like Kevin Brown, CC Sabathia and Bartolo Colon are not or will never be HOFers, by any voters standards. So why should Schilling? Mid 3’s ERA in sterioids ERA is good, but not steller. 216 wins, bad stat, but voters do look at wins, is well below the 300 or even 250 baseline for HOFERS. Are my points good? I believe so.
Random indeed
What his post season stats. I’m not a fan of Schilling by any means, but stats in a vacuum are meaningless; like wins.
While you were on Baseball Reference you seem to have missed this:
Hall Of Fame StatisticsPlayer rank in (·)
Black Ink Pitching – 42 (37), Average HOFer ≈ 40
Gray Ink Pitching – 205 (36), Average HOFer ≈ 185
Hall of Fame Monitor Pitching – 171 (32), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame Standards Pitching – 46 (48), Average HOFer ≈ 50
JAWS Starting Pitcher (27th), 79.9 career WAR/49.0 7yr-peak WAR/64.5 JAWS
Average HOF P (out of 62) = 73.9 career WAR/50.3 7yr-peak WAR/62.1 JAWS
His postseason stats put him over the top he played in World Series on 3 different teams in 3 decades stuff like that the numbers don’t explain.
I agree somewhat. I actually made a similar post to this the other day. I think he’s right on the fence there. One thing about his career is that he had a handful of injury plagued seasons and really wasn’t a full time starter until 5 years into the league, which both depress and affect his stats. I think the time period he pitched in hurts him the most. He has better numbers than some guys already in the HOF, but the skill sets have continually evolved over time in the game as well. I will say in his favor he has three 300 strikeout seasons. Not counting 1800s pitchers, that’s only been done 30 times or so and it certainly hasn’t been done lately aside from Kershaw’s 2015. His control was also phenomenal. When Curt was good, he was really really good. He also was a bit unlucky in the wins department. I do think that three world series titles and his playoff performance helps. On raw ability, he deserves to be in the HOF, but then you have guys like Mussina who were consistently good, but never touched Schilling’s best- yet because of the teams he was on, Mussina still walked away with 60 more wins. I would still say there is a fine line between Curt and the likes of CC and Bartolo and had his ERA been, say, .20 lower that would be all the difference needed.
Colon lost five straight seasons to injury. Still has more wins than schilling. Voters like wins more than anything; Mussina was light years ahead of both. Only Moose should be a no-brained, Schilling should probably be close but when he advocated for the death of journalists that probably ended his chances at the Hall, as it should have.
Braves are building the right way. 2/3 years and this team will be a contender
Uh, .297/.345 is not a league average. That’s above average depending on the number of ABs.
That’s why there are 3 sets of numbers, not two.
OPS+ – 98
wRC+ – 97
That’s about as close to league average as you can get.
You left out the slugging which brings those numbers down
Absolutely true. .295 has never been the league average and never will be. Also, nowhere in this article is it mentioned that he won the gold glove last year. I have to think that’s just lazy reporting.
Reminds me of Brett Gardner. Obviously better in the field
ATL on the farm that could play CF – so this extension (which I love) is interesting. Mallex Smith is the closest, but 19-year old Ronald Acuna will soon be one of the highest-rated prospects in ATL’s touted farm system, flanked by Christian Pache and Ray Patrick-Didder. Obviously, they can easily transition to corner OF positions, but they’re most valuable up the middle, which many teams will pay dearly for, if they continue to develop.
Patrick-Didder continues to impress, while Acuna is starting to attract a lot of attention, most recently with being an All-Star in Australia while getting comps to Starling Marte.
Inciarte is league avg compared to what ????? The comparison is Brett Gardner are you serious a LF ???
Inciarte is a Top 10 CF with his defense figuring in. Now if he had to move to RF where his power wouldn’t play than you can talk about league avg.
I don’t understand how where a guy bats in a lineup or the position he plays does not equate into these flawed stats. Great move by my Braves now I could see Mallex being moved as part of a package for a SP.
He has a league average bat, he’s not league average
Well I’m not comparing Gardner to Inciarte but it’s one of the many reasons why WAR exists
The sample size is obviously smaller for Inciarte but per 650 PA, he has a 5.7 WAR whereas Gardner has a 5.2 (this is career obviously, not in recent years). Inciarte’s dWAR however is higher than his oWAR so his value heavily comes from defense.
Going forward, it’s obviously a no brainer Inciarte will be better and have a higher WAR, though it’s hard to project how his bat will be.
Kemp and markakis aren’t gonna be here but maybe 2 years
Terrific signing by Braves and Ender… smart on both sides.
Nice deal. Wish Nationals would do these kind of deals more often.
They trade for these kinds of deals (i.e. Eaton), they let others make em.
LOL but that cost them prospects, don’t it? Why couldn’t they extend Rendon to a team friendly deal like this one?
It takes two to tango. A player has to give up arbitration and potentially FA years. Not every player wants to do that.
You’re right, it does. However, the amount of massive deals WSH gives out in relation to presumed deals is incomparable. You’d think that unless they have unlimited funds they would need to have a couple of extensions under their belts to be able to have some financial flexibility, but deals like Scherzer’s make them more dependent on insane production from Trea Turner and Anthony Rendon and others that are making little to nothing.
That’s why they don’t. The Gnats always seem to have a team full of cocky full of themselves boras guys that are “too good” for these type of deals.
The future of the braves looks very promising. John Hart and all those guys in the front office have to be some of the best in baseball. The dbacks have to be the dumbest team right now. That trade is one of the worst ever. This extension couldn’t be any better for the Braves. 5 years 30 mil plus a club option for a guy hitting almost 300, plays excellent defense, and is an excellent baserunner is a steal. It is his arbitration years but still. It’s starting to look like a dynasty over in Atlanta.
1 guy is extended coming off a 90-loss season and we have the word “dynasty” mentioned. Unbelievable. I am big on our prospects, but many of them need to mature quite a bit more. Yes, the future looks bright, but dynasty???
Yeah maybe I went a little too far with “dynasty” but the future looks really bright.
Great deal for the Braves. As a Mets fan I give Atlanta a lot of credit on what their game plan is going forward. Loved the Big Sexy signing from them as well you braves fans are in for a big treat from Big Bart this year!!
Well said.
Nice way to kick off Christmas man this is a great deal.
Trade with Indians ////////////////M.Smith and R.Sanchez for F.Mejia and M.Clevenger.
Are you a Braves fan? Meija looks like a standout with the bat and an incredible arm – definitely a great building block. Though I wouldn’t want to trade Mallex Smith when his stock is low, Meija would be the best C in the system, easily.
You have imagined a fair deal on both value and the respective needs of both teams. I would like to see it happen.
As someone without a horse in this race, the Indians wouldn’t make this trade if you took Clevenger out. A top 50 prospect is much more valuable than Smith, no matter how much Braves fans like him.
Would love to see the Tigers trade for Mallex and Mauricio Cabrera. Smith can play all 3 outfield spots and gives them a left-handed bat at the top of the order with speed. If Smith hadn’t been hurt in June, he would be untouchable. I believe he is not a 4th outfielder but will become a 280-300 hitter with 40 plus steals a season.
I don’t see Cabrera going anywhere. ATL has been really patient with him after seeing him light up the radar but not touch the plate for years. He’s now becoming a pitcher and I think we see Vizcaino moved sooner than Cabrera, especially considering the amount of high-upside flamethrowers at the upper levels.
Good extension. Obviously any 6-year contract poses risks, but this looks like a pretty smart calculated decision by the front office.
Part of the reason they did the deal is that his trade value goes through the roof with that many years of control. It’s a business.
From what I’ve seen of Inciarte he has a great eye for picking out balls he can accurately hit. If he expands this eye to picking put balls a hit more he might put up .300/0.370/0.400 lines with that amazing baserunning and defense at a premium position. Great deal for both sides.
Jon Hart just loves to waste money. He’s like an older version of jim Hendry. Gives out extensions to players that had one good year. This is a waste of money. He’ll be traded within 2 years. That’s what Jon Hart does. I’m shocked he hasn’t traded Freddy Freeman yet.
If Inciarte is a waste of money, your post was a waste of time. That’s a joke.