Friday, April 18, 2008
6 Games is Plenty
I just saw that Ken
Rosenthal is reporting that the Tampa Bay Rays and Evan Longoria have agreed to
a long term contract. The mega 3B prospect can not even become a free
agent until after the 2013 season. I am sure that the Rays were hoping to keep
him in AAA for another month or so to keep him under control for an extra year.
Now that he is up, he isn’t going down again. The Rays likely want to make sure
that he remains with them through at least the 2014 season. So, we are probably
talking about a deal of no fewer than six years and likely seven or even eight
years. No financial terms are known yet, but it would likely be no less than
$40-50 million. That is showing a lot of confidence in a player who has just
six big league games under his belt.
UPDATE – Rosenthal has now updated his article to say that
the deal is believed to be six year and $17 million with a couple of option
years for his first two free agent seasons (at big money, I’m sure), plus some
escalator clauses that can bring the guaranteed money up significantly. This is
actually now a very good deal in my mind.
I can’t help but wonder what the Twins executives think about this kind of thinking. I’m still thinking that they should be talking to Jason Kubel’s agent right now about a four year deal. I think now might be the best time to lock up Francisco Liriano for awhile. What the heck… based on this, maybe the Twins should lock up their 2006 first round pick Chris Parmelee for awhile!