Blue Jays, Randal Grichuk agree to five-year extension

on today’s episode of “Insane Extensions Of The Baseball Kind,” Randal Grichuk and the Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to a new five-year, $52M contract that runs through the 2023 season, as Shi Davidi of Sportsnet first reported and the team quickly confirmed:

The 27-year old will no longer have to suffer through the three free-agent seasons that the extension will now cover. Talk about getting comfortable in your new digs.

Grichuk, a .247/.297/.490 career hitter who spent his first four big-league seasons in St. Louis before joining the Blue Jays last year, is expected to settle in as Toronto’s primary center fielder following the trade of Kevin Pillar to the Giants on Tuesday morning. The Blue Jays wasted no time locking up Pillar’s replacement, rewarding a guy who tied for the team lead in home runs with 25 last season and has hit at least 20 homers in each of his past three seasons, despite 2018 being only his second season spent fully in the majors.

Grichuk was the third young player to agree to an extension on Tuesday, following Ronald Acuna Jr. and German Marquez, and he’s merely one in a line of dozens who have secured long-term deals since late January, joining Whit Merrifield, Aaron Nola, Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, Luis Severino, Aaron Hicks, Miles Mikolas, Nolan Arenado, Mike Trout, Blake Snell, Brandon Lowe, Ryan Pressly, Alex Bregman, Eloy Jimenez, Paul Goldschmidt, Chris Sale, Justin Verlander, Jacob deGrom, Kyle Hendricks, and Xander Bogaerts, as well as the two guys who signed earlier Tuesday.