$175 million for 7 years.

Not bad, makes you wonder what will become of the Mets young pitchers.

There's a sense that you have to do things like this, but I'm glad it's not my money.

It's the cost of doing business. There would be a 25m/year deal waiting for him at the end of the rainbow from at least 15 teams.

There is a thought process about using up the arms during their arb years and 'rotating the crop' so to speak when they hit FA, but I think that's better left to speculation rather than real life.

The $25M is the price of doing business, and I'm fine with that.

But I don't believe in paying players a day longer than I have to, and I have no problem with keeping my players in a perpetual salary drive.

The worst thing you can do to a professional athlete is to make them comfortable.

I agree but there would be any number of teams willing to give Strasburg that security(along with any of the Met SP if they reach FA). What are you going to do? Let them all walk and start again from scratch with kids that you hope can be as good as the guys you cultivated?

Have to say I'm very surprised he went for this. He did get a "rolling opt-out" though so if he's still really good in a few years he'll probably jump then.

Why do baseball players seem to have so much more leverage than other sports? 7 years and an opt-out is pretty nice. If he starts to stink after 3 you are stuck with 4 years of a very expensive guy. Seems like all risk is on the teams and none on the players.

The other pro sports have weak unions

He was set to be a free agent next year though, so, if he stays healthy this year, good chance he gets over 200. I don't think they could have signed him for less.

I could see this being too much if he had a year remaining, but come November 2016 he's a full free agent and all they get is a compensation pick.

The bit of good news I see here, Boras was obviously willing to take a team deal vs the best deal he could find in six months. That's obviously Strasberg's call, but it's kind of cool to see that for a change with a Boras client.

The deal, obviously, could still backfire for the Expos, I mean, Nationals, but they're in "win now" mode. I can't fault them for this. It's risky, but, I can't really find fault with the move.

You could actually argue in favor of the opt out in the respect that while it's a risk, at least the guy stays motivated. See: Greinke, Zach.

This is true, but motivation doesn't necessarily keep elbows and shoulders from snapping.

Well that and the fact there's no real salary cap in baseball because of said unions. The NFL has non-guaranteed contracts and the other two leagues have hard salary caps and specific rules designed to entice FA's to resign with their teams (you can get one extra year on your deal in both sports).

The problem isn't salary.

Baseball is printing money, and the players deserve a huge chunk of it.

But you have to pay for production.

When you give someone a 7 year contract you cross your fingers and hope to get 4 productive years out of it, because you know the back end is just going to be merde.