If there was any question about the Spuds’ direction as they plan for the coming season, they revealed their intentions by handing out extensions to almost all of their core players. Following the team’s first winning season in seven years, the message behind the extensions was simple, and along the lines of: “Let’s do that again.”The first, and biggest, extension was for captain and longtime Spud Pepe Madrid, who inked a lucrative three-year contract with a player option for the third year. Cashing in on his career season in which he led the league in batting average and OPS, Madrid will see his salary increase by 50% this year — and rightfully so, as he proved that he’s one of the marquee players in the game.
Madrid’s extension shores up first base for the Spuds for the foreseeable future, and the shorter-term nature of the contract allows the Spuds the flexibility to re-evaluate their needs in a few years. Although it’s hard to envision a scenario, now or in the future, where Madrid doesn’t play for Boise. He has already spent 16 years in the organization, all indications are that the club will do whatever is necessary to keep him in a Spuds jersey until he retires.
The rest of the extensions were for arbitration-eligible players, since it’s one of Boise’s policies to never take any players to arbitration hearings. For one, because most of their players don’t own suits (it’s just not a thing in Boise, they’re quite country out here), but also because there’s a potential for resentment if the arbiters side with the team. The Spuds don’t want any of that, so instead they offered fair one-year extensions to Cordell Vaughn, Qutuz Mahdi, Francisco Vega, Pete Davis, Luis Núñez and Josh Dougherty, ensuring all their young players stick around for at least another year.
Relievers Félix López and Johnny Lovell were not offered arbitration, and became free agents.
Boise still has some roster holes to fill, most notably in the starting rotation, but they can rest easier now, knowing most of the band is back together.