BREAKING: Julio Rodríguez agrees to long-term contract extension, he’s ours and you can’t have him

We’ve been talking about it for months. But today, Jeff Passan made it official: Julio is ours and you can’t have him for at least a decade.

Details are scant at this point, but Jeff and Jesse Sanchez give some insight:

Julio wouldn’t have hit free agency until the 2028 season, so five of these years aren’t true “free market value”. My guess, as published on Twitter, is that those years are valued at something like $70m total, and free agency years are in the realm of $25-35m annually. It is possible that this deal stretches beyond 2036 and into the 20-year range, which would make Julio the longest-tenured member of the Seattle Mariners in the franchise’s history.

Once we have more details, we’ll publish an in-depth breakdown here. But for now, take solace in the fact that Julio Rodríguez, wünderkind superstar, is a Mariner for the rest of this decade. We are all so lucky.

UPDATE: Per Jeff Passan in a Twitter thread, some more clarifications, which we’re whipping up into a flow chart for you momentarily. The deal appears broken into team options that would allow for a minimum of eight years (albeit extremely unlikely) and a maximum of 18 years through a team option.