Los Angeles Angels sign Justin Upton to five year deal

The Los Angeles Angels have signed outfielder Justin Upton to a five year deal, per reports on Twitter. Upton, 30, was acquired by the Angels from the Detroit Tigers in August for Grayson Long and Elvin Rodriguez.

Upton had signed a 6 year, $132.75M deal with Detroit after the 2015 season, with the right to opt out of that deal after 2017. The Angels are apparently tacking a year on the back end of his deal to get Upton to forego the opt-out.

Upton was a disappointment his first year in Detroit, putting up a .246/.310/.465 slash line, but bounced back in 2017 with a .273/.361/.540 slash between Detroit and L.A.

The $22.125M annual figure on the contract had some folks questioning whether Upton would actually opt out of the deal, since there was some doubt over whether he’d get that large of an average annual value on a new deal that went beyond four years, but that’s moot now with the new contract. No word yet on the dollar figures on the new contract.

The best part of this from my perspective is that there will be no more “what if the Rangers sign Upton” discussions this offseason.

UPDATE -- Jerry Crasnick says it is a 5 year, $106M deal, which would mean Upton got a extra year at $17.5 million.