Almost a year ago, the Red Sox traded their closer months before he could reach free agency.
On Sunday, faced with the same scenario, the Red Sox signed their current closer to a two-year contract extension with an option for a third year.
Matt Barnes, who's been part of the Red Sox organization for 10 years, agreed to a deal that will be worth a minimum of $18.75 million and could be worth as much as $26.5 million.
The deal calls for Barnes to be paid $7.25 million in 2022 and $7.5 million in 2023, with a signing bonus of $1.75 million. The deal has a $8 million club option for 2024 with a buyout of $2.25 million. There are escalators that could increase the value of the option year.
"Matt has established himself as one of the best relievers in baseball and this year, he's taken his game to a whole new level in an even bigger role,'' said Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom.
"I'm incredibly grateful and humbled to be able to continue my career in Boston,'' said Barnes, who last week was chosen to his first All-Star team. "I'm looking forward to many more winning seasons and World Series titles here. This is a dream come true for me. It's somewhere I've always loved playing and love to continue to play. I'm really excited that we were able to get something done here and looking forward to the next couple few seasons here in Boston.''
Barnes praised the organization for how it treats its players and their families and said that being with a team that is in contention most years was a big factor for him.
"The ability to go out and have a chance to win every single season, I think that's a really undervalued thing in this industry,'' he said. "I'm incredibly fortunate that not only have we won here, but we've been good for a long time.''
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The package is decidedly below market value for premium closers. This season, Kenley Jansen is making $20 million in the final season of his multi-year deal with the Dodgers while Aroldis Chapman is getting $16 million as part of a three-year extension he signed with the Yankees. Liam Hendriks, the top closer on last winter's free agent market, agreed to a three-year, $54 million deal with the White Sox.
"I made clear to Chaim and everybody - I just wanted a fair contract for what I was doing,'' Barnes said. "And when you add everything else into the equation, this is just a place where I wanted to stay.''
While some relievers have struck big deals, the free agent marketplace in recent years has been highly unpredictable, with established veterans finding themselves frozen out and having to accept heavily discounted deals.
Presented with an opportunity to stay with the only organization he's known, Barnes took the deal that he believed to be a fair one.
Viewed through that lens, the Sox got a bargain on the new deal with Barnes. The agreement comes 11 months after the Sox dealt away Brandon Workman, their closer at the time, as part of a trade deadline selloff in the middle of a nightmarish, last-place 2020 season.
But Barnes, who made his debut in 2014 and evolved into a late-inning, high-leverage option starting in 2017, is part of the team's long-term plans.
He was given the opportunity to serve as the team's bullpen rover -- pitching in whatever the highest-leverage spot was, regardless of inning -- in 2019, but the lack of structure made the plan unworkable in the team's eyes and he eventually ceded the more conventional closer's role to Workman.
In 2020, after the trade of Workman, Barnes emerged as the team's closer, posting nine saves. This spring, with the arrival of veteran reliever Adam Ottavino in a trade with the New York Yankees ostensibly created a competition. But Ottavino went to manager Alex Cora midway through spring training and recommended that the role go to Barnes. Further cementing the decision, Barnes, too, expressed his desire to do the job.
"This year, he worked into the office and said, 'I want to be the closer,' '' recounted Alex Cora. "That's a lot different than (the attitude he had) in '19. When he walked in this year, I was like, 'OK, cool. This is a lot different and this might be the route we go.' ''
Barnes has done nothing to make Cora regret his choice. He's converted 19-of-22 save opportunities with a 2.68 ERA and a WHIP of 0.865 -- the latter, easiest the best of his career.
Barnes made it a priority to be more aggressive within the strike zone this year, to work quicker and to focus on throwing first-pitch strikes -- all of which he's accomplished. His walk rate of 2.4 walks per nine innings is just over half of the career mark (4.2) he had coming into this season.
A native of Connecticut who still owns a home there, Barnes said it was important for him to remain somewhere where he could be close to family and friends, with the ability to drive home on off-days during the season.
Signing Barnes takes one significant item off Bloom's offseason to-do list.
Starter Eduardo Rodriguez is also eligible for free agency after the 2021 season and the team faces the challenge of extending franchise cornerstone Rafael Devers to big extension. Devers is eligible for free agency after 2023.