Edwin Encarnacion‘s roller coaster of a career might be finding stability after all.
Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is reporting that the 29-year-old third baseman just signed a three-year, $29 million extension to remain with the Toronto Blue Jays.
This development came at a great time for Encarnacion who is in the middle of what should see him put up the best numbers of his career almost across the board.
Currently, through the 83 games he has played in, he is hitting .295 with 23 home runs, 58 RBI and nine stolen bases.
To put that in some perspective, he has never hit above .289 (in 2007), hit more than 26 home runs (in 2008), driven in more than 76 RBI (in 2007) and stolen more than eight bases (in 2007 and 2011).
He is definitely a position to break all of those career marks, and he was about to hit the free-agent market at the end of this season. Obviously, the Toronto Blue Jays wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.
You might be wondering why he has a relatively small contract in comparison to some other players with similar production such as David Ortiz and his roughly $14.5 million contract.
This probably refers back to the roller coaster I alluded to in the beginning of this article.
On the trade deadline in 2009, Edwin Encarnacion was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays as part of a package that brought Scott Rolen to Cincinnati.
Before this year, his best seasons had been with the Cincinnati Reds. However, he struggled out of the gate in 2009.
That trend continued during his first season in Toronto, and by the end of 2010, he ended up on waivers.
The Oakland Athletics selected him on waivers on November 12, 2010, but they ended up granting him free agency on December 2, 2010.
On December 16, 2010, he was back with the Toronto Blue Jays after signing the contract.
With the contractual roller coaster out of the way, his home run and RBI totals began to rebound. Nevertheless, he has always been plagued by low batting averages and high strikeout totals.
While this year has been entirely different, it seems as if his value is still somewhat affected by some of his past.
Regardless, a $29 million contract is certainly nothing to complain about, and hopefully Encarnacion will continue to perform like he has been. The Toronto Blue Jays would surely benefit from all the production he can provide.
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