I'm pretty sure you aren't going to want your favorite team paying Tatis 36 million a year.

That’s not the deal. The average annual value of the Tatis contract is $24.285M. Getting all of Tatis’ prime at that price isn’t a bad deal for the Padres. Whether they can trade the back end of the deal is a different question, which will be dependent on performance & the financial climate 4 or 5 years down the road.

Again, I'm pretty sure nobody is going to want their team to pay him that much when the time comes.

Nobody is going to care that you paid him 1 million in 2021. You don't win ballgames by having a lower AAV than what you are currently paying a player.

Don’t think you’re being consistent here, McCoy. First you say the backloading definitely means Tatis won’t be a Padre at the end of his contract (#97), and now insist no one will pay to acquire the back end of that contract. I don’t think either statement is necessarily true. If Tatis is what many think, paying the full contract isn’t a bad deal for the Padres. If the Padres want to trade Tatis before paying out all the high-priced years, they should be able to do so. Giancarlo Stanton was traded under somewhat similar circumstances not that long ago, and Tatis will be younger when he starts to be expensive. Sure, it’s likely the Padres would have to contribute some money in such a deal, but that doesn’t make the overall contract a bad deal. You win games by having elite players like Tatis.

Re 90. And I'm not sure how many times I have to tell you that the contract gets more expensive because you are no longer paying a player for his cheap years.

You'll notice that Dave and I were discussing a 12 year deal starting in two years that might cost more than the 14 year deal starting today. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this isn't all that difficult, and yet you feel the need to argue that I'm not the one understanding the example I put forward. You don't even know what you're arguing against at this point, so sit this round out champ.

You don't win ballgames by having a lower AAV than what you are currently paying a player.

Luxury tax is based on AAV. And that actually makes this contract make more sense for the Padres- They know they aren't going to reach the luxury tax right now, so upfronting the cap hit doesn't hurt and this lowers the cap hit that they'll have once he reaches what would have been his free agent years. They probably won't be close to the thresh hold then either, but you never know what finances will look like in five years, so why not lock in the lower AAV?

If Tatis is worth the back end of the contract, I suspect he'll want out of San Diego more than the reverse if they're not near the tax threshold.

Then again, San Diego is awfully nice.

The Padres will be paying someone else to play him.

The Padres will be paying someone else to play him.

yes, we understand. You may have mentioned this a few times already.

The issue is that in 7 or so years, how many of us will actually be here to tell you that you might be wrong!

I can’t believe this 1998-lookin site is still here right now.

The Padres will be paying someone else to play him.

If so, then this contract means that when they trade it, the receiving team will have a lower cap hit on the deal than if they waited and didn't have the pre-arb and arb years averaged into the contract. That makes the contract more tradeable to teams that may be concerned about the cap. Remember when the Yankees got a negative cap hit from Vernon Wells because the Angels covered most of his salary that year and covered more than the average of the contract. Another example was with the Dodgers and Homer Bailey (whom they immediately released, but still wanted in the deal because the Reds sending Bailey plus most of his salary both saved the Reds money and saved the Dodgers cap space).

Hooray for Padres fans?