Mar 20, 2022; Mesa, Arizona, USA; Cleveland Guardians infielder Jose Ramirez (11) prepares for his at bat against the Oakland Athletics during spring training at Hohokam Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports

After an offseason of uncertainty and trade rumors, José Ramírez is staying put for the foreseeable future.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported on Wednesday that Ramirez and the Cleveland Guardians have agreed to a five-year contract extension.

Ramirez is a three-time All-Star, a three-time Silver Slugger Award winner, finished second in American League MVP voting in 2020, third in both 2017 and 2018 and sixth in 2021.

Beyond Ramirez’s talents, this deal is notable for two reasons.

One, as new San Francisco Giants outfielder Joc Pederson noted on Twitter, the Guardians have one of the lowest payrolls in the majors. To that end, Passan reported that, until this extension, Cleveland “had $0 committed to players beyond the 2022 season.” This is a fairly sizeable deviation from that — something MLB fans reacted strongly to.

The second reason is that while other players are in contract extension talks with their teams, Ramirez’s talks had a different kind of pressure. As Passan also said, the expectation was that if the Guardians and Ramirez didn’t reach an extension, a trade was likely.

That is obviously now not going to happen. MLB fans reacted in a big way to that, as well, though exactly how they reacted depended a lot on which team they cheered for.

For Cleveland fans, the news was great. For fans of the San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays — who were both rumored destinations for Ramirez — not so much.

From 2016-2020, the Guardians were one of the best teams in baseball. They averaged 95 wins a season from 2016-2019 and had a .583 winning percentage during the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season, which translates to 94 wins over 162 games. But in 2021, Cleveland was nowhere near as good, going 80-82.

The next goal for the Guardians will be to restock the rest of the team to give Ramirez a championship-worthy supporting cast.

[Jeff Passan]

About Michael Dixon

About Michael:
-- Writer/editor for thecomeback.com and awfulannouncing.com.
-- Bay Area born and raised, currently living in the Indianapolis area.
-- Twitter:
@mfdixon1985 (personal).
@michaeldixonsports (work).
-- Email: mdixon@thecomeback.com
Send tips, corrections, comments and (respectful) disagreements to that email. Do the same with pizza recommendations, taco recommendations and Seinfeld quotes.