Backloading

This article brought to you by the Toronto Blue Jays and Vernon Wells.

The Jays wanted to lock up Wells long-term to keep him from walking in free agency after the coming season. They also knew it was going to cost a pretty penny after the 7 year, $136 million deal that was given to Alfonso Soriano. So they offered and then agreed upon an 8 year, $126 million extension for Wells.

You're saying "Holy Cow, Vernon Wells for $15.75 a year?! What a steal!" Not so fast, my friend. In reality, Wells is going to make $500,000 this coming season, then $1,900,000 in 2008. Then he'll average $20 million over six seasons after that. This is a severe case of mortgaging your future to pay for the present. It is certainly a steal to be getting Wells in his prime for an incredibly miniscule $1.2 million per year this year and next (plus incentives). Robbery even. However, in order to do that, they'll be paying him a king's ransom going beyond that point, which means odds are Wells will retire a Blue Jay. But the Jays are stuck with this contract now, and if they don't win big this year or next, they then have severely limited their ability to compete moving forward by having that massive contract on the books.

I never understood backloading anyways. Instead of giving a guy 8 million per for three years, then 15 per over three more years (based on the obvious assumption that he'll be traded by then) why not just offer him a three year, $24 million deal instead of a 6 year, 69 million deal?