LA Angels give perfect extension to oft-injured but quality starting position player

The LA Angels extended starting catcher Max Stassi for three more years just shortly after avoiding arbitration with him and signing him to a $3 million deal. It's a $17.5 million contract extension that extends past this year where he'll still get the $3 million for this year. The next two seasons he'll make $7 million per year.

What Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register says in the last sentence of the above tweet is an explanation of how the deal totals to $17.5 million. After the extension is up, there is an option for that 2025 season. If it's picked up, the Angels pay him $7.5 million for '25. If not, they still have to pay him $0.5 million.

That's how the deal gets to $17.5 million regardless of whether they pick the option up or not. If they pick up the option, Stassi would then make $24.5 million in the next four years. Stassi has had lots of durability issues his entire career, but he still deserved this extension.

LA Angels' starting catcher Max Stassi has played just 301 games in his nine years of Big League baseball.

That being said, Max Stassi has also developed into a very good catcher in an LA Angels uniform. Since he's been an Angel, he's become a solid offensive catcher, sporting a 112 OPS+ in his first full two seasons here.

It's also important to take his defense into account, which is his No. 1 strength. In 2021, he was fifth in catcher framing runs among catchers who caught 2,000 pitches or more (sixth among all catchers) with six. He was also third in strike rate out of catchers who caught 2,000 pitches or more (eighth among all catchers) with a 49.9% strike rate.

He earned this money. Stassi is one of the better catchers in the sport when healthy. That's going to be the key: Staying healthy. If he can, he'll more than earn this contract. If not, it's not too expensive and not expensive enough to cause major problems for the Halos moving forward.