Will Detroit Tigers' Colt Keith stress-free spring training help him live up to big deal?

LAKELAND, Fla. — Imagine if Detroit Tigers second baseman Colt Keith, one of the top prospects in baseball on the verge of his MLB debut, hadn't signed the long-term contract. He would've felt stressed in spring training — and he wouldn't have a new truck.

"There's the whole thing about worrying about making the team," Keith said. "You try not to worry about those things, but it's always in the back of your head."

But Keith signed the contract in late January.

Keith agreed to a six-year contract extension with the Tigers through the 2029 season, including club options for the 2030, 2031 and 2032 seasons. The contract guarantees $28.6425 million over the next six years, but it can max out at $82 million over nine years if the three options are exercised by the Tigers and escalated by Keith's performance.

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Keith, who received a $2 million signing bonus, is guaranteed to earn $2.5 million in 2024, $3.5 million in 2025, $4 million in 2026, $4 million in 2027, $5 million in 2028 and $5 million in 2029.

The three club options are worth $10 million in 2030 (with a $2,642,500 buyout), $13 million in 2031 (with a $1 million buyout) and $15 million in 2032 (with a $2 million buyout), plus an additional $18 million in escalators on the club options that can be unlocked by non-statistical accolades.

Keith is under team control for nine seasons.

Manager A.J. Hinch told Keith during Thursday's game that he made the 2024 Opening Day roster, which wasn't a surprise to anyone, but the new kid on the team feels at ease about his roster status — both now and in the future — because he put pen to paper nearly two months ago.

"The contract helps with my mentals because whether I make the team or not, I'm still going to get paid whatever I'm going to get paid, and I can just stick to my process," Keith said last week, two days before finding out he made the Opening Day roster. "Whatever happens, I know I'm not getting released. I'm still financially secure, and I'm able to go out there and try to be the best player I can be. There's no panic about needing to fix something as fast as possible or doing something better now. I'm able to go out there every day and get better every day without worrying about the playing time factor, getting sent up or sent down, the politics and all of that stuff. I can just focus on myself."

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The primary downside of the contract is that Keith could be leaving tens of millions of dollars — or hundreds of millions — on the table by delaying free agency from age 28, after the 2029 season, until age 31, after the 2032 season.

Without the contract, though, the Tigers could have been more inclined to demote Keith to Triple-A Toledo if he slumped at some point in his first few seasons, and spending more than two weeks in the minors — even just to refine his swing or his approach — would have delayed his free agency by one year, from age 28 to age 29, for service time reasons.

"The contract is the business relationship between him and the club," Hinch said. "I haven't seen a significant change in anything. ... He is playing with a little more freedom because he doesn't have the pressure of the business side, but that's about the extent of it."

The contract influenced the way Keith handled his business on the field in spring training because he never felt like he had to hit his way onto the Opening Day roster.

He focused on his process.

"I'm able to do whatever I need to do to get to where I need to be," Keith said. "I don't need to impress people. I've already signed my name on that paper. I'm here for the long haul. I just need to focus on getting better, whatever that looks like, and I don't think it looks like me going out there and trying to do too much."

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Keith, a left-handed hitter, played 126 games for Double-A Erie (59 games) and Triple-A Toledo (67 games) last season, hitting .306 with 27 home runs, 60 walks (10.4% walk rate) and 121 strikeouts (21% strikeout rate).

His swing was late at the beginning of spring training.

"I was on my front foot a lot," Keith said, "but as spring has been going, I've been really working on staying back. ... Every time I go up a level, I always end up on my front foot, trying to go get the ball, and it always works back to seeing it deeper and hitting balls off my back leg, which leads to more launch angle and more home runs."

On defense, Keith has been instructed by infield coach Joey Cora (also the third-base coach) to prioritize the routine plays and his double-play footwork before trying to expand his range.

Keith is solid at second base.

"We talked about working on the routine double play, where I step back and throw to first," Keith said, "and that's what I've been working on the most, and also the flips to second on the double plays, and being able to just make that play to first. Once we master that, we can move into the more complicated things, like coming across the bag, making those backhanded plays on the run, stuff like that."

On offense, Keith hunts fastballs and adjusts to secondary pitches. He hasn't hit for pull-side power in spring training, at least not against high-velocity fastballs, but as a product of his advanced approach, he has adjusted to the late timing of his swing by working deep into counts and hitting singles.

He explained how the timing of his swing impacts what happens at the plate.

"I think I'm in a better spot this spring than I was last year, just because I'm in such a good approach right now where I'm able to see every pitch deep," Keith said. "Last year, I started the year on my front foot, and I was hitting occasional homers, but strikeouts were way up and average was way down. Right now, if I started the season going off the past few weeks, my average would be up and my homers would be down, which is where you want to be. You want to hit first and then slowly open it up and start catching balls out front. I think I'm in a perfect spot."

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Keith feels like he's in a perfect spot off the field, as well.

Nothing about his life away from baseball, from his personality to his relationships, has changed since he signed the long-term contract, except for a few purchases.

He bought golf clubs and a new truck.

His golf game remains a work in progress, but his new truck is a beautiful machine with a supercharged engine. He picked out a RAM 1500 TRX from the car dealership in Lakeland at the beginning of March during spring training, less than a month before his MLB debut.

"I've never really had a dream car," Keith said. "I wanted something big and safe that's also fast, so I just got the best combination of those two things."

Keith upgraded from his old Nissan Maxima.

He had been driving that car since high school.

"Other than that, I'm still doing the same thing," said Keith, who already has a place in metro Detroit, in Birmingham. "I'm just using that money to make sure I'm eating right and to make sure I'm sleeping right, having all the best things I can have. I don't think it really changed anything, besides the fact that I'm going to be on the 40-man roster regardless of what happens."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers' Colt Keith contract allowed rookie to focus on debut