When the Cristopher Sanchez contract news arrived on Sunday morning, I had two distinct thoughts:

-Sanchez earned it. Rarely can a player outperform a contract by such a significant amount that keeping the deal exactly how it was would have felt like a gross underpayment. But that’s where Sanchez resided headed into 2026. We’re talking about one of the best pitchers in the sport. He’s the Opening Day starter for one of baseball’s best rotations. You can make a legitimate case he’s a top five pitcher in the sport, alongside Tarik Skubal, Paul Skenes, Garrett Crochet and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

-The Phillies may have just upset the rest of baseball, and changed the advantage of paying players early forever.

Allow me to explain the second.

Former MLB GM Jim Bowden had this take on the new deal.

Strong take? Sure. But before getting mad and taking it as a shot at Sanchez (which it really wasn’t), think about where Bowden’s mind comes from: That of a former executive.

His premise, in that context, isn’t wrong. The Phillies didn’t just pick up options. They added guaranteed money in the future. They took a risk by taking one of the best team-friendly contracts in the sport and altering it years before they had to. It was a sign of good faith. It may buy them goodwill with the player, agents, and other stars around the league.

But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if other general managers are looking sideways at Dave Dombrowski and the Phillies front office today. Small and mid-market teams often take risks by offering long-term deals to young, potential superstars. It’s a potential win-win—or lose-lose. If the player is great early, the team gets a discount in exchange for the player getting salary certainty. If the player struggles, he gets security without production. The Braves and Guardians have done this for years, enabling them to keep young players through their 20s.

Yet now there’s a new precedent: Sign a long-term deal at a young age, get certainty and then use Sanchez’s new pact as a reason to renegotiate the deal.

It’s going to be fun watching Sanchez in a Phillies uniform for years to come. What a story his career has been. We could be watching one of the best to ever do it in a Phillies uniform. Along the way, something tells me we’ll be reminded of his contract when other situations around the sport start to unfold.

We had Scott Franzke on to preview the Phillies season.

I went over five Phillies x-factor player for the 2026 season on WIP Daily.

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