The Athletics have agreed to terms with breakout star outfielder Lawrence Butler on a seven-year, $65.5 million contract extension with a club option, ESPN reports.
The 24-year-old Butler, a former sixth-round draft pick out of a Georgia high school, is coming off a breakout sophomore season in 2024. In 125 games last season, Butler slashed .262/.317/.490 (131 OPS+) with 22 home runs and 18 stolen bases in as many attempts. Butler endured a rough start to 2024 and was hit with a demotion to Triple-A. After his return in mid-June, however, he slashed .291/.330/.565 with 20 home runs the rest of the way. For his career in the bigs, Butler has an OPS+ of 115 across parts of two seasons.
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Butler will enter the 2025 season with a bit more than a full year of MLB service time. That put him on track for free agency after the 2029 season. Assuming the club option in this extension is exercised, however, Butler’s free agency will now be pushed back until the offseason of 2032-33.
The Butler extension caps what’s been an active winter for the Athletics, at least by their recent standards. In addition to signing Luis Severino and trading for Jeffrey Springs to stabilize the rotation, the A’s also signed slugger Brent Rooker to a three-year extension. The payroll increases were likely engineered to stave off a possible MLBPA grievance over the franchise’s use of revenue-sharing funds.
Butler achieves his future certainty as the A’s lose theirs. After abandoning the Oakland market, the A’s will play in Sacramento’s Triple-A ballpark until their proposed relocation to Las Vegas is finalized — assuming such a relocation ever comes to pass.