The Phillies have announced a contract extension for left-hander Cristopher Sanchez, as first reported by Robert Murray of FanSided. It’s a six-year deal that runs from 2027 through 2032 and includes a club option for the 2033 season. The Athletic’s Matt Gelb reports that the deal guarantees Sanchez $107MM, including the $3.5MM salary the southpaw is set to make in 2026. Sanchez is represented by Mato Sports Management.
The news is a shocking development given that Sanchez is entering just the second season of his four-year, $23.5MM extension with the Phillies. That deal had two affordable club options attached to the end of it, so the lefty was set to make just $47MM over the next five seasons. That makes this contract effectively $60MM in new money for the lefty’s age-34 and -35 seasons, with a club option for his age-36 campaign at a value that has not yet been reported.
It’s a nearly unprecedented move by the Phillies, whose initial extension with Sanchez had made him one of the most valuable assets in the entire sport. They’ve now traded the most, if not all of that surplus value to lock up the left-hander into his mid-thirties. Other teams have given established, franchise players extensions that take them well past their primes after already having those prime years locked up in the past, including the Guardians with Jose Ramirez back in January and the Diamondbacks with Ketel Marte last year. Those deals weren’t quite the same as this one, however. Both Ramirez and Marte had more than a decade of MLB experience under their belt and had already played out significant portions of their initial team-friendly extensions, even signing with the club multiple times. In addition, those teams had the motive of restructuring their star’s previous deal to include deferred money.
That’s not to say Sanchez is undeserving of his new payday, of course. After breaking out in 2024 and earning a trip to the All-Star game, Sanchez enjoyed one of the most impressive pitching seasons in recent memory this past season. The lefty spun a 2.50 ERA with a 2.55 FIP in 202 innings of work, striking out 212 batters across 32 starts. He paired his 26.3% strikeout rate with a 5.5% walk rate and a 58.3% ground ball rate, giving him a lower SIERA than every qualified starter in the NL and the third-lowest in baseball behind Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet. By measure of fWAR, Sanchez’s 2025 season was a top-20 campaign by a qualified starter since 2015, tied with Cy Young-winning campaigns by future Hall of Famers like Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander. Sanchez ultimately finished second behind Paul Skenes in Cy Young voting last year, but nonetheless established himself as among the upper-echelon of starters in today’s game with that performance.
More to come.
