Bradford: For Dustin Pedroia and Red Sox, They Were Unique Negotiations For a Unique Player

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From the player’s side of the negotiating table, the name that kept coming up was Derek Jeter of the Yankees. It was pointed out that, like Pedroia, Jeter had established himself while playing on those late 1990s New York teams without the benefit of the kind of stats being thrown up by the star shortstops of the time, Nomar Garciaparra, Miguel Tejada and Alex Rodriguez.

Jeter had the intangibles that Pedroia was starting to ooze. It was no accident that the Sox second baseman made it a point to spend as much time with the Yankees’ captain during the 2008 All-Star Game, wanting to see how that pinstriped machine was made.

It was with this in mind that one of the first portions of the Pedroia contract to be broached and settled on was the escalator if he won another MVP. While his previous contract offered no pay-off for winning the award, if he does claim it again there will be a $2 million payday. And if he does it in 2014 or ’15, his option year also jumps up to $13 million with a $100,000 bonus to boot.

Pedroia understood making up as much money as he would have liked in exchange for the security most likely wasn’t going to be an option. But this allowed for an opportunity to define his worth to a certain degree.