Cano to ink 4-year deal?

The Yankees and Robinson Cano are closing in on a 4-year, $30M deal with two option years. This is a fairly significant departure from the Yankees standard operating procedure of going year-to-year with its arbitration eligible players. In 2008, Cano's will be 25 yrs old in terms of "seasonal age," meaning this deal will take him through age 30 if both options are exercised. The deal will buy out Cano's remaining four years of arbitration and two years of free agency. It will be interesting to see how the salaries escalate (Guess here is -- $4M, $6M, $8M, $12M with options at $14M ea.).

I'm happy for Cano. On the other hand, I don't see a huge financial benefit for the Yankees. Don't get me wrong. The Yankees will probably save a few bucks over the course of this deal. Historically, the Yankees have not been a team that operates on a tight budget or a team that looks to lock up talent for below market price, so cost certainty has been a non-issue. This may be the first sign of Hal Steinbrenner (a.k.a. the money brother) having an impact on the way the Yankees do business going forward. Wait, the second sign . . . there's the teams position on Santana.

The real payoff for the Yankees is that they get two free agent years if they want them. And they likely will exercise those option years for the same reason that makes this deal low risk. If you look at Cano's projections, he's going to be either a pretty good player or a ridiculously good player. There's not a lot of downward variation. By the time this deal is over, the Yankees will have enjoyed all of Cano's prime without giving him a $100M contract. That sounds funny, but in Yankeeland, its not a joke.

The guys over at Respect Jeter's Gangster take Cashman to task because Yankees submitted an arbitration offer of $3.2M while Cano was asking for $4.55M for 2008 and $7.5M/yr (the average annual value ("AAV:) of a 4 yr/$30M contract) is not the middle ground between those two figures. I don't agree with their take at all. As I said above, the salaries in this deal will escalate, so the Yankees won't be paying $7.5M this year. The escalation reflects the fact that, if the Yankees and Cano went year to year and Cano continued his current trend of play, he would likely see raises in each of his arbitration years.

For example, Derek Jeter was first eligible for arbitration in 1999, won his arbitration case and received a salary of $5M. In 2000, he avoided arbitration and received a salary of $10M. In 2001, he signed his current contract with an AAV of $18.9M. Alfonso Soriano is another example. In his first year of arbitration he signed for $5.4M. He followed that up with contracts for $7.5M and $10M (lost in arbitration - asked for $12M) before signing the whopper with the Cubs last winter. Some may take issue with these examples, but I'm fairly comfortable with them. Particularly because Neyer just declared Cano the second baseman of the next 5 years. I'd try to compare him to Utley, but Utley never saw the light of his arbitration years, signing a 7 yr./$85M deal.

In the end, I'll say this deal is good for all sides.