First baseman Brandon Belt and the San Francisco Giants have agreed on a new five-year contract extension that will keep the first baseman in the Bay Area until 2021.
Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area, notes that the deal is somewhere in the range of what the Giants gave shortstop, Brandon Carr, which was a six-year, $75 million deal that he signed back in November. Pavlovic was the first to report about the new contract between Belt and the Giants. Something Buster Olney of ESPN confirmed as well.
Belt, who’ll be 28 in April, has been the primary first baseman for the Giants during the last four seasons. Over that span, Belt has hit .277/.352/.461 – which is certainly well above the league average. If you take into account Belt’s solid defensive play at first base, as well as his ability to hit left-handed pitching, then there should be little doubt about Belt being an All-Star caliber player.
According to CSNBayArea.com, the Giants are expected to announce the extension on Saturday.
Back in February, just before the start of Belt’s salary arbitration hearing, the Giants and their first baseman agreed to a one-year, $6.2 million contract. During this time, the Giants general manager Bobby Evans, expressed his desire to sign Belt to a multiyear contract prior to the start of this season.
Belt, who was a fifth-round pick of the Giants, made $3.6 million last season, and during this past off-season, Belt was asking for $7.5 million for the upcoming 2016 season. Instead, Belt and the Giants came to an agreement just before the start of the arbitration hearing in February.
Through the first week of the new season, Belt is hitting .278 with only one RBI as the Giants have gone 4-1 through their first five games. Despite the Giants missing the playoffs last season, Belt batted .280 with 18 home runs and 68 RBI’s. In 2014 however, Belt helped lead San Francisco to their third World Series in five years.
Brandon Belt has a career batting average of .271 with 63 home runs and 236 RBI’s to go along with two Word Series titles since making the jump to the Major Leagues back in 2011.
Main Photo: KANSAS CITY, MO – OCTOBER 22: Brandon Belt #9 of the San Francisco Giants hits an RBI in the fourth inning against the Kansas City Royals during Game Two of the 2014 World Series at Kauffman Stadium on October 22, 2014 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)
