Charlie Blackmon Agrees To Six-Year, $108 Million Extension With The Colorado Rockies

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What a fucking steal for the Colorado Rockies. After making it back to the postseason last year, largely because of the contributions of Charlie Blackmon, the club announced today that they’ve reached an agreement on a six-year extension to keep Chuck Nasty in Colorado for the foreseeable future. Blackmon was set to join the monster free agent class highlighted by Bryce Harper and Manny Machado after this season, but instead has passed up that opportunity to stay put.

Perhaps this past offseason had him a little rattled in terms of whether or not teams would actually pay him what he’s worth. Perhaps he looked at his home/road splits and knew that the odds were not in his favor to duplicate the same offensive production if he wasn’t able to play half a season at Coors Field. Whatever the reason is, I think he made the right choice by staying in Colorado, and I think the Rockies made a great decision by doing what was necessary to keep him there. Now the building blocks are being put in place to possibly re-sign Nolan Arenado, who is a free agent after the 2019 season.

But that’s not something that’s going to come to a head any time soon, one way or the other. What’s important is that Blackmon is now under team control at least through the next four seasons after spending the last two seasons hitting .327 with a .968 OPS. Last season, Blackmon led the league in plate appearances (725), runs (137), hits (213), triples (14), batting average (.331), and total bases (387), earning a fifth place finish in the National League MVP voting.

For how great he was in 2017, the knock on him, as mentioned before, were the home/road splits. Blackmon hit a ridiculous .391 with a 1.239 OPS at Coors Field compared to a modest .276 with a .784 OPS on the road. That’s why he was wise to stay right where he is, because the Coors Field effect will for sure play to his advantage as his extension takes him into his mid-30’s.