The San Diego Padres agreed to a fourteen-year, $340 million deal with Fernando Tatis, Jr.

Fernando Tatis Jr., the emerging face of baseball, agreed to a 14-year, $340 million contract extension with the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, securing one of the largest guarantees in American sports history and wedding himself to the team with which he quickly established himself as a star, sources familiar with the deal told ESPN.

Tatis, 22, will receive the third-biggest deal in baseball history — and do so at a far younger age than Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, both of whom signed their megadeals at 27.

ESPN.com

That works out to and average of about $24 million a year. It’s been tough to pin down the value of a free-agent WAR this winter, but $8 million per WAR is a good guess. If Padres get 42.5 WAR in the fourteen years, they break even.

Is it a good bet? Due to injury and a pandemic shortened season, Tatis produced 6.5 fWAR in 143 games, as he goes into his age 22 season. Baseball Reference calculates his rWAR at 7.0. Call him a 6.75 WAR player. If he doesn’t get any better or any worse, the Padres break even in a little over six seasons. The Padres are paying for his prime years, and then reaping the benefits of having a superstar player in the fold as the face of the franchise.

The downside is that his career ends early due to unforseen circumstances. I wonder what the insurance is like on this deal.

I like this contract for many reasons:

• Tatis gets paid for what he is doing now, not what he did in the past.
• The Padres keep financial flexibility, and as the price of a free agent WAR gets pushed back up in the future, this contract will look better and better.
• If the Padres decide in the future they need to rebuild, this contract will be easily tradable. (The deal does include a no-trade clause.) This is how the Indians operated in the 1990s. They signed their stars young, and were able to get good value for them when they needed a trade.
• For MLB as a whole, it keeps another superstar off the free agent market, which helps reduce free agent WAR inflation. It’s tough to ask for more money than Trout or Tatis when most players can’t live up to their production.

It’s a great day to be a Padres fan.