The Rays Are Stuck With Evan Longoria

The Tampa Bay Rays just signed a player to a $100 million contract.

At one time--maybe even last week--this would've been unthinkable. The Rays had the lowest attendance in baseball this year despite being in playoff contention until the final week of the season. The franchise hasn't agreed to a financial commitment this huge in fifteen years, since it gave somebody named Wilson Alvarez $35 million in 1997. Heck, even some large-market teams have never given out a $100 million contract, like the Chicago White Sox, the Atlanta Braves, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Seattle Mariners. Seeing Tampa Bay do so first is a bit surreal.

Of course, the Rays aren't signing a Wilson Alvarez type for $100 million. Quite the opposite. They locked up third baseman Evan Longoria, the face of the franchise and best player in team history, for the next decade. He was already under contract through 2016; this new extension pays him exactly $100 million over the six seasons between 2017 and 2022, plus a team option for 2023.

The Rays are obviously taking on a huge amount of risk by committing themselves to a nine-figure contract that won't even kick in for another four years. But this is an extremely fair deal. Assuming that their 2023 option is exercised, the Rays just signed their star third baseman for an average of about $15.5 million per year between the ages of 31 and 37. By comparison, the Los Angeles Dodgers will pay Adrian Gonzalez over $21 million per year between the ages of 31 and 36. With contracts like that existing as benchmarks, Longoria undoubtedly would have received much more than $100 million had he hit the free agent market after 2016, and the Rays could never have afforded him. Instead, he gave his hometown team a major discount. Considering how quickly baseball salaries are inflating, $100 million will probably look like even more of a steal in a few years.

And here's the real coup: Longoria didn't make the Rays renegotiate his already-existing contract that runs through 2016, which is an insanely team-friendly deal. Even with the extension, Longoria is still being paid at the impossibly-low rate of $6 million in 2013, $7.5 million in 2014, $11 million in 2015, and $11.5 million in 2016. So over the next four years, the prime of Longoria's career, the Rays will pay him a grand total of $36 million. That's a tremendous bargain. Tack that measly figure onto the rest of the extension, including the 2023 option, and you'll find that the Rays' ultimate commitment to Longoria looks like this: $144 million over the eleven seasons between 2013 and 2023. An average of $13 million per season to one of the best players in baseball, in a universe where Michael Young is pulling in $16 million. Either Longoria is a really nice guy, or a Rays executive has some incriminating photos of him hidden away somewhere. Regardless of the motivation, it's great news for the long-term competitiveness of Tampa Bay baseball.

But on a larger scale, here's the best news about the financially-challenged Rays keeping their star at a bargain price: they aren't the only ones doing it. Teams without top-five payrolls have been extending their stars at an encouraging rate recently. The Reds have Joey Votto. The Twins have Joe Mauer. The Brewers have Ryan Braun. The Orioles have Adam Jones. The Nationals have Ryan Zimmerman. The Giants have Matt Cain. The Pirates have Andrew McCutchen. The Blue Jays have Jose Bautista. The Rockies have Troy Tulowitzki. And now the Rays are wedded to Evan Longoria. The baseball equivalents of LeBron James leaving Cleveland and Dwight Howard forcing his way out of Orlando just aren't happening. The Marlins shipping out their entire roster was the exception, not the norm. Small-market baseball teams are finally able to afford their own homegrown stars, and that can't possibly be a bad thing for the sport.