The Boston Globe is reporting that Price has agreed to a seven-year deal with the Red Sox worth a whopping $217 United States million. The person spoke on condition of anonymity since the deal won’t become official until Price passes a physical Thursday evening. Nightengale also added that the St. Louis Cardinals were the runner-up in the Price sweepstakes, but Boston outbid the Cardinals by “at least” $30 million.
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Armed with owner John Henry’s deep pockets and permission to spend, team president Dave Dombrowski alerted the Yankees and the AL East that, after two straight last-place finishes, the Red Sox are hell-bent on rising to the top of the division David Price helped the Blue Jays win last season. He’s finished in the top two for that award three different times, winning it in 2012 with the Tampa Bay Rays. Earlier today, they got him: David Price agreed to a seven-year, $217 million deal. He went 18-5 over the course of a season split between the Detroit Tigers and Toronto Blue Jays. The presence of Price on the market, alongside others such as Zack Greinke and Johnny Cueto, made a long-term deal for a starter likely. Yes, it could work out nice for the first few seasons, but as Price gets older and begins to digress it’s going to go down as a historically bad contract.
Next in line are Wade Miley and Rick Porcello (with Joe Kelly in consideration), so shifting all these pitchers down a spot increases their efficiency and gives them a rotation that can compete for the playoffs immediately. That would be ludicrous, meaning the Red Sox will be stuck paying Price through age 38, which might turn into a eerily similar situation to the Yankees and CC Sabathia. And the Chicago Cubs met with Price but never made a formal offer, according to the person directly involved in the negotiations.
The Cardinals are shopping for a starting pitcher this winter because Lance Lynn will miss the entire 2016 season recovering from elbow surgery.
The deal in itself seems exorbitant but the three-year opt-out is key.
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Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Eduardo Rodriguez, Blake Swihart – along with talent in the lower minors like Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, Anderson Espinoza – put the Red Sox in good shape with their core from a contractual standpoint. 262 for Seattle and Arizona previous year. Sox fans will cry (and rightly so) that they should have signed Jon Lester for half that money when they had the chance and Lester had just pitched the Sox to a World Series title at that point. By the end of the 2013 season, around the time of Kershaw’s deal, that number had more than tripled, with baseball making $9 billion.
