On his third try, former Royals star Mike Moustakas finally lands a multi-year deal
After striking out in his previous two years as a free agent, former Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas finally landed a big contract.
According to reports from multiple national baseball writers, Moustakas agreed Monday to a deal with the Cincinnati Reds. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported Moustakas will receive $64 million over four seasons.
After setting the Royals’ single-season home run record in 2017 (which Jorge Soler topped this year), Moustakas became a free agent for the first time. However, he couldn’t find a suitor willing to offer a guaranteed contract covering more than one season.
The Royals gave Moustakas a one-year deal (with a mutual option) worth a guaranteed $6.5 million. The sides struck the deal after spring training had started and eight weeks after Moustakas’ former teammate Eric Hosmer got an eight-year, $144 million contract with the Padres.
Moustakas, 31, was traded to the Brewers at midseason in 2018 and helped Milwaukee advance to the National League Championship Series. He declined the option at season’s end and again became a free agent.
Again, the market for his services was tepid, and Moustakas signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Brewers. After helping the Brewers make the playoffs, Moustakas declined his mutual option and tried the free-agent market for a third time.
Last month, Moustakas’ agent, Scott Boras, told reporters at the annual general managers’ meeting in Arizona that his client was the poster boy for Major League Baseball’s troubled free-agent market.
“We have got a system that is never evaluating the premium player in the game appropriately,” Boras told reporters. “Now that we’ve had the systems invoked over time, we can really see that we’ve invoked a criteria that is not objective but subjective towards a means to an end of under-evaluation of particularly premium players in the game.”
The Reds apparently liked what they saw in Moustakas, who was an All-Star for the third time after hitting 35 home runs and setting a career best in on-base-plus slugging percentage (.845) in 2019.
Moustakas showed versatility on defense, making 47 starts at second base for the Brewers and 105 at third base. According to Bobby Nightengale, who covers the Reds for the Cincinnati Enquirer, Moustakas likely will play second base for the Reds in 2020.
Nightengale also reported that Moustakas’ contract is the largest ever given by the team to a free agent.
So, Moose’s big payday finally arrived, about two years later than he expected.
