Details of Brent Rooker's Contract Extension with Athletics

The A's and Brent Rooker agreed to a 5-year contract extension just a few days ago. Let's break down the slugger's new contract with the Green and Gold.

Sep 2, 2024; Oakland, California, USA; Oakland Athletics outfielder Brent Rooker (25) stands in the dugout before their game against the Seattle Mariners at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Eakin Howard-Imagn Images / Eakin Howard-Imagn Images

While a few of the Athletics players were taking in a Sacramento Kings game in their new city, including Brent Rooker himself, news broke that Rooker had agreed to a 5-year extension worth $60 million with the A's.

However, it has been reported by MLB insider Jon Heyman that Rooker's contract will be back-loaded and will have some interesting incentives to help vest his contract for the 2030 season.

Starting with the basics of the contract, Rooker will receive a $10 million signing bonus, and for the 2025 season, Rooker will make $2 million. After two amazing seasons with the team, Brent Rooker was expected to make around $5 million this upcoming season because he was just entering his arbitration years.

The AAV of Rooker's contract is $12 million, and with year one only earning him $2 million, he'll see a big jump in his base salaries each year.

The decision to back-load Rooker's contract was certainly an interesting approach for the A's. To avoid the MLBPA grievance, the team was looking to add more salaries for the 2025 season. This played a role in the team bringing in Luis Severino and Gio Urshela, while also swinging a trade by adding Jeffrey Springs to the payroll.

Once the team announced Rooker's extension, the A's community believed that could be the last big addition to get them over the minimum payroll to avoid the grievance. However, with Rooker only contributing $2 million to the 2025 payroll, more moves could be on the horizon.

For the 2026 season, Rooker's salary will take a small jump up to $6 million, which probably isn't too far off what he'd make anyway because he'd still be in his arbitration years. Given the $5 million projection he had for this year, however, the $6 million figure also figures to be lower than he would have received if he keeps performing like he has in an A's uniform.

In 2027, Brent Rooker will double his 2026 salary and make a nice $12 million. Then in 2028, it'll only go up to $13 million. Finally, to round off the guaranteed part of his contract, he'll make $17 million in 2029.

2030 is the year where Brent Rooker's contract gets pretty interesting. There will be a club option for $22 million for the 2030 season, but, Rooker's performance can automatically earn him the extra year.

There are a few scenarios that can automatically earn him the $22 million contract for 2030. The first scenario is that if he gets over 900 plate appearances from 2028-2029, then he will earn the extra year. To put it into perspective, Rooker had over 1,100 plate appearances from 2023-2024.

The second scenario is that he could get 500 plate appearances in 2029. This allows Rooker to have a chance at earning the extra year even if for some reason he does not get a lot of at-bats in 2028 due to an injury.

The final scenario to automatically gain the extra year onto the extension is if Rooker finishes Top 10 in MVP voting twice from 2027-2029. To once again put it into perspective, Rooker finished 10th in MVP voting in 2024, so it shouldn't be impossible for him to do it twice in three years.

The $22 million contract for 2030 can also become larger based off incentives for Rooker. If Rooker can finish Top 5 in MVP voting in any year of this contract (2025-2029), $2 million will be added on top of the $22 million base salary. If he misses out on being Top 5 in MVP voting, but can manage to finish anywhere from 6-10 in voting, he will still add $1 million to the base salary in 2030.

The decision to back-load the contract was also interesting, but the most important thing is that the team locked up their slugger, which finally shuts down trade rumors.