How Realistic Are Jazz Chisholm’s Contract Demands?

To see how realistic his request is, we have to look at a number of factors. Ideally, we’d like to look at players at a similar position who received their contracts at similar points of their career and who received close to what Chisholm is requesting.

That last part is particularly difficult seeing as no second baseman has gotten a deal with that high of an average value. So, we’ll have to get as close as we can.

The two highest deals given to current second baseman were to Marcus Semien in 2022 and Jose Altuve just last year, both at an average of $25 million per year. Seeing as Altuve’s was actually an extension and he was much more established in his career, we’re going to use Semien as our comparison.

It’s worth noting that the positions don’t perfectly match up here either. Semien started off as a primary shortstop before moving to second base right before earning his big contract. Chisholm, meanwhile, spent a chunk of time in center field but has played a majority of his career at second.

Besides that, by using Semien, age throws another wrench into things. The Rangers gave Semien his big deal as he was heading into his age-31 season, while Chisholm will be entering his age-29 season when he gets his contract. So, not exactly apples to apples.

Still, what we can do is look at the beginnings of their respective careers. Chisholm has played in parts of six MLB seasons. Seeing as they both debuted at age 22, we can compare to Semien’s first six years in the bigs and determine whether the former is at least on a similar trajectory.

Pretty much across the board, Chisholm is having a more productive start to his career. Despite having amassed almost 300 more plate appearances through his first six seasons, he trailed in all of the above cumulative stats except hits and all rate stats except batting average, and that was only by a single point.

Breaking things down by year, Chisholm has already crossed the 100-wRC+ mark in a season four times in the last six years. Semien didn’t do that for the first time until his seventh season. Chisholm also already has those two All-Star nods and one Silver Slugger, accolades Semien didn’t achieve until later on in his career.

Semien’s true breakout was in year seven. That year, he slashed .285/.369/.522 with 33 homers and 92 RBIs while finishing third in AL MVP voting. It wouldn’t be much longer before his big pay day.

But back to Chisholm. With another solid season, he has the chance to not only enter free agency with better numbers at this point of his career than Semien, ones that feature both power and speed, but he will also have more of his prime years remaining.

On top of all this, free-agent contracts get bigger and bigger every year. So, when comparing to a contract from what will have been five years prior, you have to account for contract inflation.

It’s understandable that some did a double take when hearing the number that Chisholm was targeting. When you look at the numbers, though, maybe it’s not so far-fetched after all.