OT: AL MVP Pedroia gets $40.5M, 6-year deal

[Luv 4 da game]

BOSTON (AP)—AL Most Valuable Player Dustin Pedroia and the Boston Red Sox agreed Wednesday to a $40.5 million, six-year contract.

The deal includes a club option for 2015. He would not have been eligible for free agency until after the 2012 season.

Pedroia led the AL with 213 hits, 118 runs and 54 doubles in helping the Red Sox win a wild-card berth. He batted .326 with 17 home runs and 83 RBIs and also stole 20 bases to become the first AL second baseman to win the MVP award since Nellie Fox in 1959 with the Chicago White Sox.

Link

I wanted to post this because i feel like this is a complete steal for the Redsox, do others agree as well ?

[Raptorian]

Yep, sounds like a great deal. Renteria got $18.5 mil over 2 years.

[Relentless88]

Yep, sounds like a great deal. Renteria got $18.5 mil over 2 years.

Frank Thomas deal lol.
And that's the max salary Pedroia could have gotten isn't it? Exactly what happened with Aaron Hill last off season.

[evilRyu]

that's a very good deal ...

[Schad]

Yep, sounds like a great deal. Renteria got $18.5 mil over 2 years.

Frank Thomas deal lol.
And that's the max salary Pedroia could have gotten isn't it? Exactly what happened with Aaron Hill last off season.

There's no cap on deals. Rather, Boston took advantage of the fact that Pedroia might not wish to go through the arbitration wringer for each of the next three years...arbitration tends to favour the team when you're talking about high-end players, and the prospect of three consecutive deals with no incentives (after two years of getting screwed by a ML contract that included neither ROY or MVP bonuses, from what I've heard) probably wasn't that tempting. This way he gets paid and paid handsomely up to age 30, which leaves the door open for a second, even larger 5-7 year deal on the back end. No need to worry about injuries or Knoblauching his way out of the league.

[msharpie32]

Phenonmenal deal the the Sox. Whenever you can sign a young MVP going into his 3rd full season to a long-term deal for less than 7 million...Your doing just fine.

[2009NBAChamps]

Why didn't Pedroia push for more? He could easily get $10 mill per.

Really good value for the Sox, just makes it tougher on teams like the Jays to compete with players taking a discount now to play for them...