If Joe Mauers deal litterally scared the bejesus out of me, by demonstrating how difficult and expensive it might be for the small market teams of the future to hold onto their homegrown talent, then the just announced Adam Lind deal has litterally scared the bejesus back in to me.
At 4 years for 15.4 million and an additional 3 club option years at 7 -8 mil. per year, Toronto has locked up their best hitter for a substantial amount of time at an amazing value. When compared to Justin Uptons' rescent deal it looks like pure robbery.
Of course its all about projections with a player as unproven as Lind - will he continue to develop or fall of the face of the earth, but in order for Toronto, a small market team, to be able to compete, they have to project correctly and more importantly, spend accordingly - even if you're wrong you havn't wasted so much money that you handcuff yourself, and you can still move the player if the situation is right.
When you sign players to the Joe Mauer or Vernon Wells deals a wrong assesment can cripple your club and put such high expectations on a player that it is almost unrealistic to expect a correct return on the investment - the player has to be incredible and anything short of that makes them overpaid.
If Toronto can show the same sort of proactivity with other up and coming stars, and the young players continue to show a desire to play there, despite a rescent lack of playoff appearences and, more importantly, fans, then the model of how a small market team can survive, and save baseball will truley be on display.
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