Breakdown of Lawrence Butler's Extension with the Athletics

This is a nice increase in pay for Butler over the next two seasons, where he would have been making the league minimum as a pre-arbitration player. While Butler has superstar potential, that club option that could be worth as much as $26 million doesn't seem to have a good shot at getting picked up based on the team's track record of rarely even getting to $10 million on a player for decades.

That said, the landscape of the game could certainly change over the next seven years, and that yearly total could look like a steal by that point.

The one interesting part of this deal is the way that it's structured, which is similar to how the A's did Brent Rooker's extension in January. Yes, both players were not set to make huge sums of money in 2025, but when handing out an extension, one benefit for the team, aside from keeping the player around, is to spread out the money a little more.

The A's have chosen not to do this, instead having each of their salaries climb each year over the life of their deals. The reason this is interesting is because the A's also have a number of pre-arb guys on the roster currently that will be getting larger contracts of their own beginning next season. The team could have chosen to front-load these deals in order to help themselves out down the road.

The list of players that will enter their first year of arbitration eligibility in 2026 includes JP Sears, Shea Langeliers, JJ Bleday, and Mason Miller. Those are arguably the core pieces of this team, in addition to Butler and Rooker. Why not pay the extension guys a little more early on, so that there would be more money to maneuver the payroll in future seasons?

It certainly begs the question of whether some tough decisions will have to be made in coming seasons, because this roster has been inexpensive for a couple of years now, but their young core is about to start earning more than the league minimum in short order. Their contracts will go up in value as Butler and Rooker's contracts also start hitting higher dollar figures.

They'll save a little bit of money when the one-year veterans hit free agency next winter, but in terms of supplementing the roster with more talent to continue improving, that is going to have to take even more spending from A's ownership.

It's certainly an interesting choice for the club, and doesn't take the thought of trading their extended players off the table either, since they'll be two of the highest-paid players on the roster.

It's great that the A's are finally spending some money, but with the way that these deals are laid out, you have to wonder if things have really changed, or if they're chasing positive headlines to impress Las Vegas while they're in town.