{"id":13613,"date":"2025-03-10T13:37:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T20:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/?p=13613"},"modified":"2025-03-10T13:37:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T20:37:12","slug":"athletics-extend-lawrence-butler-20250310","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/2025\/03\/10\/athletics-extend-lawrence-butler-20250310\/","title":{"rendered":"Athletics Extend Lawrence Butler; 7 Yrs, $65.5 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

Athletics Extend Lawrence Butler<\/h2>\n

MESA, Ariz. (Mar. 10) \u2014 The Athletics<\/a> cemented another pillar of their future, signing 24-year-old outfielder Lawrence Butler<\/strong><\/a> to a seven-year, $65.5 million contract extension. This locks Butler up through at least 2031, with a club option for 2032. The deal includes a $3 million signing bonus, according to Spotrac<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Journey of Lawrence Butler<\/h3>\n

The Athletics drafted Butler in the sixth round (173rd overall pick) of the 2018 Amateur Draft out of Westlake High School in Atlanta. Butler worked his way up through the entire Athletics farm system to his major league debut on August 11, 2023. \u201cHis A’s story represents the absolute best of this organization and the best of what we’re looking for in players,\u201d said Athletics general manager David Forst. Forst called Butler \u201ca scouting triumph by Jamelle Spearman, our area scout who has been here for 13 years.\u201d He went on to say Butler is \u201ca guy who touched every single level of our organization. It’s an absolute player development success story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butler was 36 days shy of his 18th birthday when the A\u2019s drafted him. He played rookie ball for the rest of 2018 and spent 2019 with the Low-A Vermont Lake Monsters. During the minor-league shutdown in 2020, he worked \u201con his own to get better,\u201d in the words of Forst. Butler ranged through High-A, Low-A, and Rookie ball in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, Butler played for the Double-A Midland Rockhounds and Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators before his August call-up.<\/p>\n

Butler played 125 games for the Athletics in 2024, mostly in right field. He slashed .262\/.317\/.490 (108-for-412) with 24 doubles, two triples, 22 homers, 57 RBI, 18 stolen bases in 18 attempts, 35 walks, and 63 runs scored. This gave him a 3.0 WAR.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Butler) powered himself through every level of our system,\u201d Forst said. \u201cHe is the success story here. (Lawrence) made himself into a great player, one of the best young players in the game. It made absolute sense for us to reward him with this contract and continue to build around him and the rest of the guys you see standing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFamily and Togetherness\u201d<\/h4>\n

Butler gave manager Mark Kotsay<\/a><\/strong> and his teammates, many of whom were in attendance at the press conference, a heartfelt message. \u201cKotsay, all the coaching staff that ever helped me coming up through rookie ball all the way to the major leagues. I appreciate all of y’all, all my teammates. Love y’all. Y’all the reason that I play hard for y’all every day. From the grounds crew to (equipment manager) Matt Weiss in the equipment room and everybody, I really appreciate all y’all for taking me in as one of your own since I’ve been here from day one. And I really want to thank all y’all. I\u2019m happy to continue my career here with the A\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to elaborate on some things the A\u2019s did to make him feel at home, Butler said, \u201cThe energy as soon as I walked into Fitch Park \u2014 from Day One, they were all welcoming. The club welcomed me with open arms. Anything I needed, they gave it to me. All the coaches were ready to help and looking to get me better. Any questions I had, they were always open to answer. It\u2019s how the A\u2019s organization works \u2014 family and togetherness.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Young Core for the Future<\/h3>\n

Butler is excited to be part of the young core the Athletics are building around for the future. \u201cFor a lot of us to come through the system together and make it to the big leagues and have success in the big leagues is huge,\u201d Butler said. \u201cIt\u2019s huge for us, it’s huge for the organization \u2014 it’s huge for everybody. This shows that the A’s don’t just draft players and put them on the shelf. We love to develop players, try to get everybody better every day, every year, no matter the round. Everybody has a helping hand in everybody’s career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forst feels the same way about having Butler long-term, especially with the move to Las Vegas coming closer to reality. \u201cWe couldn’t be more excited,\u201d Forst said, \u201cto have Lawrence locked up into our new home in Las Vegas in 2028 and well beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits:<\/h4>\n

MESA, Ariz. (Mar 10) \u2014 Athletics outfielder Lawrence Butler puts on a jersey at the press conference announcing his 7-year, $65.5 million contract extension at Hohokam Park. Also present are (left to right) manager Mark Kotsay and general manager David Forst. (Evan Thompson\/Sport Relay)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athletics Extend Lawrence Butler MESA, Ariz. (Mar. 10) \u2014 The Athletics cemented another pillar of their future, signing 24-year-old outfielder Lawrence Butler to a seven-year, $65.5 million contract extension. This locks Butler up through at least 2031, with a club option for 2032. The deal includes a $3 million signing bonus, according to Spotrac. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","pmpro-has-access","eq-blocks"],"yoast_head":"\nAthletics Extend Lawrence Butler - Sport Relay<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Athletics confirmed Monday that they have extended outfielder Lawrence Butler. 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Thompson, Editor-in-chief","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/cropped-Evan-on-field-120x120.jpg","url":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/cropped-Evan-on-field-120x120.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/cropped-Evan-on-field-120x120.jpg","caption":"Evan M. Thompson, Editor-in-chief"},"description":"Evan is the owner and sole contributor of Thompson Talks, a website discussing the Big Four North American Pro Sports as well as soccer. He covered the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2019 to 2023, the Colorado Rockies in 2024, and has covered the Athletics since Spring Training 2025. He also is our National Writer. His first and biggest love is baseball. Evan lives in Gilbert, Arizona and loves history, especially of sports. He is a member of the Hemond Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). He released his first book, Volume I of A Complete History of the Major League Baseball Playoffs, in October of 2021. His second book, Volume II of A Complete History of the Major League Baseball Playoffs (1977\u20131984) came out September 2024. Order Evan's books here. Follow Evan on Twitter: @evan_m_thompson Support Evan on Patreon: https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/user?u=81411994","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thompsontalks\/","https:\/\/x.com\/evan_m_thompson","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@evanthompson8435"],"url":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/author\/evan\/"}]}},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13613"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13617,"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13613\/revisions\/13617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}