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“When you start to add all of these things together, there really wasn’t a place I wanted to play that wasn’t Boston,” Barnes said. “I just wanted fair contact for what I was doing, and we were able to not only come and do it, but when you add everything else to the equation, it’s a place I wanted to stay. … That’s all I’ve ever known. The grass is not always greener elsewhere.
Barnes and the Red Sox have been working in recent days to reach a deal on a two-year, $ 18.75 million extension covering the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He will receive a $ 1.75 million signing bonus, a salary of $ 7.25 million in 2022 and $ 7.5 million in 2023. The deal includes an $ 8 million club option for 2024 (which could climb to $ 10 million depending on games completed in 2022-2023) and a buyback of $ 2.25 million.
The deal rewards Barnes for many years as a key late-inning contributor as well as a breakthrough performance in 2021. Of course, the decision to pursue overtime in the middle of his All-Star performance is very much in line with the Barnes decision made this spring to actively pursue the role closer.
In 2019, the Sox eschewed a traditional narrower role at the start of the year. Cora preferred to use Barnes in various late inning and high leverage situations. Barnes accepted his fluid responsibilities.
“He had the opportunity to walk into that office and say, ‘I want to be the closest,’” Cora recalls. “But he just said, ‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do.'”
This spring, however, after spending the final month of 2020 bringing the Red Sox together, Barnes approached Cora with a sense of mission.
“He walked into the office and said, ‘I want to be the closest,’” Cora said. “It’s very different from ’19.”
Cora – who realized in mid-2019 that she preferred structured enclosure roles over fluid roles – found the demand compelling. While he was willing to use Barnes or Adam Ottavino as his closest, Barnes’ clear preference – and Ottavino’s willingness to postpone the ninth – made it clear how the Red Sox would proceed.
Barnes rewarded Cora’s faith with a dominant start to the year. He made the conscious decision to attack the strike zone more aggressively, especially throwing strikes on the first pitch – to trigger a dominant first half.
Entering Sunday, Barnes had a 2.68 ERA with 19 saves (second in the American League) on 23 occasions. In three of the four games in which he missed save opportunities, Barnes recovered to stop the damage and claim the win. His 44.6 percent strikeout rate ranked third among big league relievers. According to Fangraphs, he ranks fourth in the majors for wins over a reliever replacement (1.7).
Both Barnes and the Red Sox have acknowledged that he could have gotten a bigger or longer guarantee if he had achieved free agency, particularly at the end of a year in which he played as the one of baseball’s elite relievers. Still, after years of conversations about potential long-term deals, the team and reliever wanted to return to the topic mid-season.
“It’s a big day for the Red Sox,” said baseball general manager Chaim Bloom. “Matt has established himself as one of the best relievers in baseball, and this year he’s taken his game to a whole new level in an even bigger role. Beyond that, he is exactly the type of person that you would like to represent the organization. It is to the credit of him and his family. These things are so important to the players you invest in.
“This place is not for everyone,” Bloom added. “But the people who enjoy being here, I think they recognize and see the Red Sox as more than just a place to play or a place to work.”
With the deal, Barnes has a chance to cement a prime place in the team’s history. Barnes entered Sunday with 362 career appearances – the eighth ever as a member of the Red Sox. This season, if he remains healthy, he will overtake Ellis Kinder (365 games), Roger Clemens (383 games) and Derek Lowe (384 games) to break the Red Sox top five.
Three healthier seasons with the Sox (the two-year extension and the option) could bring him close to Tim Wakefield (590 games) and less than a year from a run to Bob Stanley (637 games) for the highest number of appearances of a Red Sox thrower.
“You almost take it for granted,” said Ray Fagnant, the Northeast Red Sox scouting supervisor who signed Barnes in 2011, said earlier this season. “[But] he’s established himself as a lifetime Red Sox and a big part of that franchise.
Now the burning will continue.
“We have a lot of confidence in who he is,” Bloom said. “It gives you a lot of faith in the future that he’s going to be able to be the guy he was and that we want him to be.”
Alex Speier can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @alexspeier.
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