So you’ve heard.
David Price is the newest member of the Boston Red Sox, signing the biggest contract in MLB history for a pitcher – 7 years, 217 million dollars. 2 million more than Clayton Kershaw (215M).
With funny money like that, it’s not like the Cardinals had a chance to snag the top-of-the-rotation talent of Price, right?
Not so fast…
The St. Louis Cardinals finished runner-up in the David Price sweepstakes. #STLCards
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 1, 2015
What does that mean? Second like Effinex?
USA Today baseball columnist Bob Nightengale clarified that Tweet earlier tonight with a column that featured some juicy details:
David Price teed off Tuesday morning at a Wally Joyner’s charity golf tournament in Las Vegas believing he would be spending the next seven years pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals.
…
The Cardinals were also in the hunt for Price, and offered him the richest contract in franchise history, a seven-year deal worth at least $30 million less than the Red Sox’s offer. And the Chicago Cubs met with Price but never made a formal offer, according to the person directly involved in the negotiations.
By my (very poor) back of the napkin math, that means the Cardinals came in with a 7 year offer worth somewhere between 150M and 187M.
Woah.
We knew that the Cardinals have coveted Price’s left arm for some time, even considering a trade for him when Tampa Bay needed to make a move a couple seasons back, before ultimately deciding (apparently) that they maybe could just land him in free agency this off-season.
The best laid plans and all that.
BTW, the richest contract in St. Louis Cardinals history was/is Matt Holliday’s 7/120M deal he’s currently entering the last year of (Cards have a club option for ’17). So it would have been a very, very big deal for the franchise to commit that much money for so many years.
If we can take any positives away from Price’s signing, it’s that the Cardinals are very serious players in the free agent market. With Jason Heyward, Chris Davis and other top talent still out there, this might just be a hot stove to remember.
+++++
Just for fun…
- SP1: Adam Wainwright
- SP2: David Price
- SP3: Carlos Martinez
- SP4: Mike Wacha
- SP5: Jaime Garcia
And we thought this was going to be the one night this week where we didn’t need a drink.
UPDATE [12/2/15]
More confirmation that Price really was into STL. Then again, this is exactly why players hire agents – to get them the most money by going back and forth between interested teams.
But still…
Everything I hear indicates #stlcards went all out for Price. Thought they had a deal done. then his rep came back & asked STL to match BOS
— Scott Wuerz (@ScottWuerz) December 2, 2015
Photo: The Star
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
