White Sox rumored to be close to a major extension regarding Eloy Jimenez before he has taken a major league at-bat. The extension would be very high.
After optioning off Eloy Jimenez to Triple-A Charlotte, it has recently been reported by analyst Hector Gomez that the White Sox are in talks of extending their number one prospect to an eight-year, $100 million dollar contract that would retain team control through the year 2026.
It was made known by executive VP Kenny Williams during their free agent pursuit of Manny Machado that the failure to land the superstar free agent had a lot to do with looking forward to the possible contracts the White Sox young core would generate. It seems that particular thought has already come to fruition.
If this extension is agreed upon by both parties involved, it will be the biggest contract in franchise history, breaking the previous record of six years, $68 million by Jose Abreu, who was also in his rookie season at the time.
SOURCE: OF Eloy Jimenez would be close to reaching a $100 million, eight-year contract extension with the Chicago White Sox, keeping baseball's Top Prospect under club control through 2026.#ZDigital #ZDeportes @z101digital @ZDeportes
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) March 14, 2019
Of course, whenever extensions such as this one come into play, the question that follows will always be, “Is this worth it?” In this case scenario, it’s quite honestly a slam dunk. Jimenez is currently the third-ranked prospect in MLB pipelines top 100 prospects. Of those top 100, he is the highest ranked of any outfielder and has the highest power rating of any other position player.
In over 400 minor league at-bats last year, Eloy had a slash line of .337/.384/.577, with an OPS of .961. Although the Double-A and Triple-A pitching Eloy has faced doesn’t obviously compare to major league arms, it is worth noting that his OPS is over .200 points higher than the White Sox leader last year.
With all that being said, due to Jimenez’s ceiling increasingly getting higher, and the current lack of run producing power hitters on the roster, extending him for $100 million has a strong possibility of being an absolute steal once we see what he is capable of at the major league level.