{"id":139699,"date":"2026-07-18T14:48:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T20:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/reds-righty-chase-burns-spills-the-beans-on-new-contract-including-a-coffee-spill-on-the-paperwor\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T14:48:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T20:48:03","slug":"reds-righty-chase-burns-spills-the-beans-on-new-contract-including-a-coffee-spill-on-the-paperwor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/reds-righty-chase-burns-spills-the-beans-on-new-contract-including-a-coffee-spill-on-the-paperwor\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds righty Chase Burns spills the beans on new contract, including a coffee spill on the paperwork"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cincinnati
Cincinnati Reds pitcher Chase Burns throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

DENVER (AP) \u2014 Now this gives new meaning to a coffee break: Chase Burns signing his new $105 million, seven-year contract<\/a> was momentarily delayed when a cup of java was spilled on the paperwork.<\/p>\n

No matter. The Cincinnati Reds<\/a> simply presented a new one and got the deal done for the 23-year-old right-hander fresh off his first All-Star Game selection.<\/p>\n

Burns spilled the beans Saturday on what happened behind the scenes. It appears Reds general manager Brad Meador toppled over coffee as they were finishing up the final details.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat took some time to print a new one out,\u201d Burns recounted before the Reds played the Rockies. \u201cThat was easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burns\u2019 deal runs through the 2033 season.<\/p>\n

It’s the largest guaranteed contract in the majors given to a pitcher with less than four years of service time and exceeds the previous high by 40% for someone with one year or more.<\/p>\n

The move by Cincinnati also continues a pattern of teams locking up their young stars early. The NL Central rival St. Louis Cardinals recently signed rookie second baseman JJ Wetherholt<\/a> to a $112.5 million, eight-year contract.<\/p>\n

It also could be the start of a trend for his teammates, perhaps infielders Sal Stewart and Elly De La Cruz. The Reds agreed to a $53 million, six-year contract with right-hander Hunter Greene in 2023.<\/a><\/p>\n

Burns was the second overall pick of the 2024 amateur draft out of Wake Forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to build something great here. I think we have a great set of guys,” said Burns, who is 11-1 this season with a 2.54 ERA. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to keep getting better every year and that\u2019s the end goal, to win a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall said the timing was right to wrap up the new contract. Burns is the second Reds player to pick up an All-Star nod within two years of being drafted, joining Scott Williamson (drafted in 1997 and an All-Star in \u201999).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think the sky\u2019s the limit for him,\u201d Krall said of Burns. \u201cWe know he works his butt off. He’s trying to get better. He’s a young pitcher in the big leagues, so he’s still developing and he’s been pretty successful in developing at this level.<\/p>\n

“We love our core group, and we do think that they\u2019ve got a lot of talent. We\u2019ve tried to lock a few guys up over the years, and we\u2019re successful with Chase and Hunter. We think this is a really good building block to build on for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Cincinnati
Cincinnati Reds' Chase Burns walks on the red carpet for the MLB baseball All-Star game Tuesday, July 14, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo\/Chris Szagola)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Chris Szagola)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Reds pitcher Chase Burns throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)(AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster) DENVER (AP) \u2014 Now this gives new meaning to a coffee break: Chase Burns signing his new $105 million, seven-year contract was momentarily delayed when a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5734],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-139699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-associated-press"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139699"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=139699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}