{"id":133928,"date":"2026-03-09T23:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/133928\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T23:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:26:09","slug":"sources-phillies-luzardo-agree-to-5-year-135m-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/133928\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Phillies, Luzardo agree to 5-year, $135M extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> locked in Jesus Luzardo<\/a> a year before he was due to reach free agency by agreeing with the left-hander on a five-year contract extension worth $135 million, sources told ESPN on Monday.<\/p>\n

Luzardo, 28, joined Philadelphia in a trade before the 2025 season and went 15-7 with a 3.92 ERA while striking out 216 in 183 innings. Fearful of losing him after the 2026 season, the Phillies made Luzardo one of the highest-paid left-handers in baseball, sources said, behind only aces Framber Valdez<\/a>, Blake Snell<\/a>, Garrett Crochet<\/a> and Max Fried<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Featuring a 97 mph fastball and one of the game’s best sliders, Luzardo is a premier strikeout artist. He will remain in a rotation that already includes Cristopher Sanchez<\/a> and Zack Wheeler<\/a>, who each finished runner-up for the National League Cy Young during the past two seasons.<\/p>\n

The deal, negotiated by Roger Tomas and Brodie Van Wagenen of Roc Nation, came together in recent weeks as Luzardo showed a desire to remain in Philadelphia. He joined the Phillies after being traded from the Miami Marlins<\/a> for shortstop prospect Starlyn Caba and outfield prospect Emaarion Boyd in December 2024. The well-traveled Luzardo, who was drafted by Washington, traded to Oakland and dealt again to Miami, found stability in Philadelphia, which won the NL East last year and is aiming for a third consecutive division title this season.<\/p>\n

Though elbow and back injuries limited Luzardo’s availability earlier in his career, his talent was never in doubt. A third-round pick in 2016 out of Stoneman Douglas High in South Florida, the 6-foot, 220-pound Luzardo has long been well-regarded for his electric left arm.<\/p>\n

His 216 strikeouts last season ranked second in the NL behind San Francisco ace Logan Webb<\/a>, and Luzardo’s strikeout rate of 10.58 per nine innings trailed only Dylan Cease<\/a>, whose $210 million free agent contract over the winter, when deferred money is accounted for, is slightly less per year than Luzardo’s deal.<\/p>\n

Because of Luzardo’s low walk rate (2.79 per nine last year) and ability to limit home runs (0.78 per nine), the Phillies were comfortable tacking on five years to his $6.625 million salary this season. Only Cy Young winners Paul Skenes<\/a> and Tarik Skubal<\/a>, S\u00e1nchez, Webb and Boston ace Garrett Crochet<\/a> posted better Fielding Independent Pitching numbers — which tend to be a strong predictor of future performance — than Luzardo in 2025.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Phillies locked in Jesus Luzardo a year before he was due to reach free agency by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[61918,1421,61917,1423,139,69,71,70,1425],"class_list":["post-133928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-61918","tag-espn","tag-luzardo-jesus","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-phillies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}