Players have a tendency to want to earn their pay and try very hard to prove it on a daily basis, but that is often counter-productive. But you need to give a young player three years to see if they can overcome sub-replacement production. Avi Garcia and Matt Davidson immediately spring to mind as players who seemed to figure something out after two consecutive awful seasons. Gordon Beckham never seemed to get over the hump, but he really seemed to falter right after he started getting paid bigger money. You see it with free agents, too.

So there is no reason to think Tim Anderson was going to be able to overcome an extended slump easily. He can fail in 2018 too and still keep his job. But if he’s not producing in 2019 his job will be in jeopardy right when his big paychecks kick in. Just remember that the same thing happened to Jedd Gyorko – he signed a big extension and immediately slumped for two years. San Diego panicked and traded him while eating some of the contract and he has been fine since.