I think Russell signs one some time soon. Presumably his wife divorces him and takes half after his personal issues earlier in the year. Would seem likely he may be looking to get some new cash. Hendricks also might sign an extension. He wasn't a high round draft pick(think 8th rounder and got $125k signing bonus) and he hasn't made big money(league min of ~500k the last 3 years). He's set up to make around $5 mil if the arb. estimates I've seen are correct. So, those two inking long term deals wouldn't shock me. I doubt Baez/Schwarber/Contreras/Happ/Almora sign long term deals just yet. There's really no incentive from a teams perspective for people pre-arbitration unless they get a sweetheart deal to do so. Plus there's some question on all of those except Contreras and their long term place in the cubs.
What will be interesting is how Bryant's arbitration case pays out. Estimates I've seen have put him in the $10 mil range. I'm certain the cubs would like to lock him up long term but supposedly they floated the idea of extensions to some guys last year and nothing really happened. And unlike Russell/Hendricks Bryant probably doesn't need the money. Being the #2 pick gave him a hefty signing bonus not to mention he made $1 mil last year. I think eventually something gets done between the cubs and Bryant but I'm not entirely sure it happens this offseason. If he wins another MVP this year or the following his extension probably gets quite a bit bigger and he's likely in a good place to do that.
Anyways that's how I see things playing out. I'm guessing something like 5 years $75 mil for Hendricks makes sense buying out 3 years of arbitration plus 2 years on the end. That would put him at 32. Russell being 24 you could probably look at something like 6 or 7 years. That would give him another nice bite at the apple. Not entirely sure on a dollar figure. maybe 6 years $60 mil or 7 years $75? On Bryant I don't even want to speculate. He could easily approach $300-350 mil over say 10 years and that might be low.
I think the "long term, option year" deals are dying a quick death for two reasons
1. The deals that were signed 5-8 years ago were done by shrewd GMs who knew that the money in the sport would keep rising so even giving a guy "a lot" of money in option years looks hysterically low when those years come up. Along the same lines, agents are a lot smarter now at pricing FA years to the point teams don't feel that they're getting a good enough deal
2. The Andrew McCutchen case
McCutchen was a former top pick (11) who had a fairly large jump in his development after he signed his deal but his deal took him out of FA when he would have potentially commanded 250M+ for 10 years but instead was on the Pirates for 3/42. Considering his likely raises in arbitration that would follow winning a MVP, the McCutchen contract might be the worst contract signed by any player in the modern history of the sport. That type of "lost" money scares players more so than a Jose Fernandez type incident does.
Hell, Rizzo also signed one of those deals and it looks like it could end up costing him a ton of money as well. There just wasn't a ton of position players who "won" those types of deals because of how easy it is to grow as a hitter and price yourself out of the contract after one year.
Even if I thought Russell could take one because he's younger and he's had some injury history, Scott Boras as your agent shuts the door on any of that being a potential discussion. Russell will be a rare 28 year old FA that plays a premium position so it would take a ton of money to get him to buy out a FA year or two and convince Boras to give that up.
