At least six major-league clubs have opened extension conversations with position players and starting pitchers drafted between 2024 and 2025, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The discussions center on buying out arbitration years before players accrue three years of service time—the traditional window when leverage tilts toward the club.

The wave follows a two-year stretch in which front offices locked up Rafael Devers (11 years, $331 million), Julio Rodríguez (12 years, $210 million guaranteed), and Adley Rutschman (8 years, $194 million) before their first arbitration hearings. Those deals replaced the older playbook: wait until Super Two status crystallizes, then negotiate. Now clubs are bidding against their own future payrolls. The Athletic identified Chase DeLauter, Nick Kurtz, Drake Baldwin, Sal Stewart, JJ Wetherholt, and Junior Caminero as likely next candidates, though no term sheets have circulated.

The financial logic is straightforward. A middle infielder who projects to 3-4 WAR annually will command $18-22 million per season in arbitration by his second or third hearing. If a team extends him today at six years, $72 million—roughly $12 million AAV—it saves $30-40 million in total cash and defers the free-agent auction until the player is 28 or 29 instead of 26. The risk is injury, regression, or misjudging peak value. The Chicago White Sox extended Yoán Moncada to five years, $70 million in 2019; he has played fewer than 100 games in three of the past four seasons.

For agents, the calculus has shifted. Waiting for arbitration used to be the default—let the player prove it, then negotiate from strength. But watching Bobby Witt Jr. sign 11 years, $288 million before his age-24 season changed the temperature. Agencies now float eight-year frameworks during instructs or winter meetings, knowing that one torn UCL can erase $150 million in theoretical earnings. The extension market has become a hedge market.

Teams pursuing these deals share a pattern: analytically driven front offices with recent playoff revenue and aging cores elsewhere on the roster. They are buying cost certainty in the middle of their competitive window, not speculating on breakout seasons. The clubs are also bidding against each other indirectly—if Pittsburgh extends Termarr Johnson to seven years, $95 million, that becomes the comp for Cincinnati's discussions with Sal Stewart. The market sets itself.

Two complicating factors. First, the 2027 Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in two years, and both the Players Association and ownership are expected to revisit arbitration formulas and service-time accrual. Extensions signed now lock in the current system; extensions signed in 18 months may carry different economics. Second, deferred money is now standard. Shohei Ohtani's $700 million Dodgers deal deferred $680 million, and while no prospect commands that structure, clubs are floating 30-40% deferrals to manage luxury-tax hits. Agents are modeling present value and advising players to negotiate interest rates tied to Treasury yields.

The gossip layer: one AL general manager was seen at the Arizona Fall League last October sitting three rows behind the third-base dugout, taking notes on a catcher's receiving metrics. The catcher's agency had already requested a meeting. Another front office flew its analytics director to the Dominican Winter League in January to watch a shortstop who had yet to play above High-A. The term sheet arrived in March.

What happens next depends on who signs first. If a top-15 prospect agrees to eight years and $120 million with deferrals, that resets the floor for everyone behind him. If the first deal is five years and $60 million, agencies will grind for incremental dollars on every subsequent negotiation. The next 60 days are the window—teams want deals done before the amateur draft in July, when attention shifts and leverage fragments.

The market is not waiting for the season to validate talent. It is pricing risk, buying time, and front-running arbitration panels that do not convene for another 18-24 months. The question is no longer whether to extend young players early. It is how much earlier than the next club.