Long term deals - MLB - good idea?

[swampdragon]

Right now Pujols, Fielder and Reyes (and others) are out there looking for long term deals - 5 years or more.

Historically has the 5 year and longer deal been a good financial investment or has the player been overpaid for the last year or two?

I am curious to see how it has worked out with this signing of older players.
Longoria, Tulowitski are not older players but more like players 29/30 or older

Crawford - age 29 - 7 years - not sure how that is going to work out
Beltran - 7 years at age 27 - didnt work out too well

[Moonlight J]

I think it has to go on a sliding scale by age

28 yrs old - I go 7 years
29 yrs old - I go 6 years
30 yrs old - I go 5 years

and so on

Free agency is always about being paid for what you have done and not what you do. Anything over 5 years is asking for it if you are signing 30+ year olds and that's the group that makes up a large percentage of your free agent types.

[revo]

is signing a 33-year old to a 10-year deal a good idea?

[joncarlos]

Very few players are going to earn their salary in their last year. So there are 2 things that you need to focus on:

1. Getting more than you pay them in their early years. If a player puts up a $35mil season and you pay him $20 in year 1, then remember that that excess is applied to their 8th season when they put up $5mil in value and get paid $20mil.

2. Matching their peak years to the peak years of their team. A team signing Pujols really needs to win right now. Prince is only 27 and so theoretically a team that's 2-3 years away would still get something close to peak production before he completely collapses.

[schlesinj]

is signing a 33-year old to a 10-year deal a good idea?

Who might you be talking about?