Over Half the Money in New Deal Between Brandon Woodruff and Brewers Will Be Paid After It's Over

According to the AP, Brandon Woodruff will get at least $17.5 million on the two-year deal to which he and the Brewers agreed Monday, and which was finalized Wednesday. The contract is structured extremely creatively, though, with Woodruff getting just $2.5 million in 2024 and $5 million in a (presumably healthier) 2025, before a $10-million buyout on a $20-million mutual option for 2026 rounds out the deal and gives it most of its financial heft.

There are a couple of striking features here. Firstly, it doesn't represent much of an investment in Woodruff, in the short term. I would have expected him to get at least this much over the life of a two-year deal, even without pushing out the bulk of the payments to a third season that might not find him back with the Crew. Tyler Mahle, a lesser hurler coming off an admittedly less daunting injury (Tommy John surgery) that figures to sideline him for most or all of 2024, signed a two-year deal with the Rangers for $22 million earlier this offseason.

Woodruff told reporters he had multiple offers, and that his return to the Brewers represented something of a last-minute change of direction. It's not hard to imagine that he might have taken less money than he was offered elsewhere to return to Milwaukee, and it seems like kismet that player and team were able to finagle this reunion. Given that this deal came together almost perfectly simultaneously with the Brewers finalizing their deal with Gary Sánchez for $3 million (down from $7 million when the two sides first struck an agreement, albeit with incentives that could get him back to his original guaranteed salary), we have to wonder whether the team was only able to work things out with Woodruff because of that reduction.

Kudos to Matt Arnold, if that be the case, for nimbly making such a feel-good move under exigent circumstances. Sánchez is an excellent fit for the Brewers' roster, and Woodruff is an equally valuable one for their clubhouse. The $10 million feels like a big balloon payment after the low salaries for the two seasons actually covered by the deal, given that a mutual option is almost certain not to be picked up by both sides in a case like this, but it also gives both sides some motivation to find common ground on a new deal if and when Woodruff demonstrates an ability to come back from his career-threatening shoulder capsule surgery. 

If nothing else, this structure is almost tantamount to a deferral deal, akin to the ones that got so many fans up in arms on much richer contracts earlier this winter. The Brewers are operating on a tight budget this winter, but they've still found niches within which to make several intriguing moves, and filling whatever extra space opened up due to Sánchez's physical concerns with Woodruff is a wonderful way to make lemonade out of lemons.

We also can't ignore the upside this deal creates for 2025. If Woodruff bounces back from this injury to reestablish himself as anything close to his former self, his salary for that season is not just a bargain, but a steal. That, again, is what's shocking about the overall deal. He could easily earn more than its total value in the one guaranteed season the deal covers. In fact, he could easily earn 50 percent more than that, given the market for starting pitchers.

If the league had much hope that he would be in a position to do that, he'd obviously have gotten much more than this. The fact that he was close to taking a deal with a different team indicates that, even if he took less to stay with the Crew, it wasn't much less, so we have to assume that the medical reports on him aren't great. This contract is a very low-cost bet on a very big potential reward, though, and given Woodruff's value to the organization as a fan favorite and as a person, it's a no-brainer. While Jackson Chourio's contract remains the best move the team has made this winter, this deal nestles neatly in behind it in the rankings.