Rockies extend Senzatela on five-year, $50 million deal; Cron returns for two-years, $14.5

On Saturday, the Colorado Rockies squared aware a deal for a their permanent general manager and now they’ve locked up two more players all before the offseason has truly begun. 

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, RHP Antonio Senzatela and the Rockies have agreed to a five-year deal worth $50.5 million that includes a sixth-year club option at $14 million to put the potential total at $64 million.

In addition, Colorado announced the signing of free agent 1B C.J. Cron on Tuesday to a two-year pact worth a reported $14.5 million. 

Senzatela earned just $3 million through his first year of arbitration in this past season and was expected to make in the neighborhood of $5 million in 2022. Following his third and final year of arbitration in 2023, he would have become a free agent.

However, Senzatela will head up Colorado’s rotation until at least 2026 along with three other successful starting pitchers: Germán Márquez, signed through 2024 should the organization pick up his $16 million club option for his age-29 season; Austin Gomber, under team control through 2025; and Kyle Freeland, under team control through 2023.

Missing from that list is rotation stalwart Jon Gray who will become a free agent following the final out of the World Series. Both Gray and the Rockies have made overtures to reunite this offseason.

Senzatela’s deal comes at a higher cost than the one given to friend and teammate Márquez, who received a deal worth upwards of $43 million for five years at the start of the 2019 season. Márquez was four years away from free agency at the time; for Senza, it was only two.

The 26-year-old righty picked up where he left off during a successful 2020 season. While his ERA rose from 3.44 to 4.42, peripheral statistics like FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching which focuses on the only three outcomes a pitcher can control: walks, strikeouts and home runs) and xFIP (Expected Field Independent Pitching which calculates if a pitcher should have surrendered more home runs based on homer-to-fly ball rate) suggest Senzatela was actually better in 2021 than last season.

Cron, 31, was given an invitation to Spring Training and won the starting job at first base. He stayed healthy and had his most productive season at the plate, winning the National League Player of the Month Award in August and driving in a career-high 92 RBI.

Entering 2022, the Rockies had only $46.9 million in guaranteed deals to players like Charlie Blackmon, Scott Oberg and Márquez, not to mention a $2 million buyout of Ian Desmond’s contract and a $5.571 million payment to the St. Louis Cardinals from the Nolan Arenado deal.

Now, that figure looks to approach over $60 million with deals to Cron and Senzatela, who will make $7.25 million the next two seasons and $12 million each from 2024-26 seasons.

With suggestions that the spending could continue this offseason, it appears the era of Bill Schmidt is off to a fast start.