Good Friday For Verlander and Posey

It was announced today that  franchise players Justin Verlander of the American League Champion Detroit Tigers and Buster Posey of the World Champion San Francisco Giants agreed to multi-year extensions.

Justin Verlander was signed to a 5-year $140-million dollar extension which starts during the 2015 season. He was already signed for 2013 and 2014 at $20-million per year from the five-year, $79.5 million contract he signed after the 2009 season.  According to the article Verlander agrees to record five-year extension by Jason Beck of MLB.com:

Verlander will make $28 million each season from 2015-2019, the years of the extension, and could vest a $22 million option for 2020 if he finishes in the top five in Cy Young voting in 2019. option for 2020 is $22-million.

In total, his contract calls for a total of 7-years $180-million which breaks down to an average of $25.7 million per year.

Buster Posey signed a 9-year $167-million contract extension. According to the article Buster Posey gets $167M, 9-year deal from Giants by Janie McCauley of the Associated Press:

Posey had been due to make $8 million this year. He instead gets a $7 million signing bonus, with $5 million payable Oct. 15 and the remainder Jan. 15, and his 2013 salary is reduced to $3 million.

He will make $10.5 million in 2014, $16.5 million in 2015, $20 million in 2016 and $21.4 million in each of the following five seasons. The Giants' option is for $22 million with a $3 million buyout

I'm not sure if the Verlander deal with payoff in the long haul but it is good to see both them and the Giants spending money to keep their own players that they develop. I've always said that doing that is the way to go.

So with the amount of money signed by both the Tigers and the Giants, the Los Angeles Dodgers, The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the St. Louis Cardinals with the Wainright extension, I don't want to hear complaints from Baseball fans that the New York Yankees keep overpaying players and signing them to long contracts. It seems that the rest of the league is starting to open those cash caches that Forbes recently reported that teams seem to have.

Sisco Kid

For Further Reading
- Click Here to access the career statistics for Justin Verlander from Baseball Reference.com
- Click Here to access the career statistics for Buster Posey from Baseball Reference.com