The Royals Should Extend Adalberto Mondesi
Now is the time to give Kansas City Royals shortstop Adalberto Mondesi an extension.
Seeing that sentence to kick off an article will likely trigger many people reading this and that’s OK. Mondesi was just reinstated from his second stint on the injured list in the 2021 season, and he looked like the Royals' best player in the short time he has been on the field.
There is a multitude of emotions that run their course when watching your favorite sports team. A few that come to mind when watching the Royals over the years include anger, sadness, joy, happiness, bitterness, excitement, anxiety, among others. It’s all a part of being a sports fan. Mondesi himself has probably given you a little bit of each of those emotions throughout his young career as well.
This past offseason there were rumors that the Royals and Mondesi’s camp could be working on an extension but the two sides never reached an agreement. Lately, the Royals have signed some of their arbitration-eligible players to extensions. Whit Merrifield and Hunter Dozier come to mind as a couple of examples. These guys received extensions that didn’t break the bank, but it gave those players long-term financial security.
The Royals also extended catcher Salvador Perez, who continues to get better as he gets older. It appears Royals general manager Dayton Moore loves seeing players that have grown up in the team's system succeed, and Mondesi is a player he'd love to see blossom in Kansas City.
Mondesi is in his first year of arbitration and won’t hit free agency until after the 2023 season. At this point, the Royals have almost all of the leverage. They could just let him play out his final two seasons at a cheap rate and then let him test the market and it wouldn’t affect their bottom line.
They could dangle him as trade bait, but that doesn’t really fit the way Moore likes to do business with young players that he believes in. By all accounts, Moore believes that Mondesi has the potential to be a superstar if he can stay healthy.
That brings us to the next point. Mondesi hasn’t been able to show he can stay healthy for a full season. Whether that is conditioning on his own or an athletic training issue, it’s hard to say for sure. However, the fact that he has been unable to show a full season of what he can do is both maddening and tantalizing.
“If healthy” seems to be the phrase that continues to surround Mondesi. If healthy, Mondesi would be the best player on this team. If healthy he could be an MVP candidate. If healthy, he could be one of the most sought-after free agents if he hits the market before the 2024 season. If healthy, he could get a large payday from the Royals.
At this point, the Royals could probably get an extension done at a discounted rate than what Mondesi could make if he hit free agency after his arbitration years are over and he becomes a free agent. Despite the injury history, there will still be that potential when he would be eligible to hit free agency and still be only 28 years old.
If the Royals decided to sign Mondesi to an extension before the All-Star break, what would that look like? Right now, the Royals would really have the advantage with Mondesi being out for most of the first half of the season. The team could offer a 6-year extension worth $80 million and that could be seen as overspending.
However, it would buy out the last two years of cheap arbitration and let the Royals have him through his age 32 season, giving him an average of a little over $13 million per season.
Mondesi’s camp will say he has the ability to perform at an MVP caliber level and that it would be a steal for the team, not giving Mondesi the money he’s worth. This is what makes contract negotiations such a difficult situation to navigate.
Mondesi’s camp is likely looking for over $100 million in an extension. If he comes out and stays healthy throughout the second half of the 2021 season and looks like the guy we’ve seen briefly this season and in flashes the last few seasons, the Royals could meet them closer to the number they want.
This is my pitch for extending him: Mondesi is a homegrown player who has the talent to be a top-10 player in the league. Why trade him away or let him walk via free agency just to see him be in the MVP race for another team when you could have that guy right here in Kansas City? He is a special player. Keep the kid who has that kind of talent and believe in him taking that next step, despite the injuries early in his career.
