When MLB teams "ostensibly bleeding money find themselves empowered to throw around tens of millions like it’s no big deal, it is the greatest proof yet that the market has changed and a new reality is upon baseball," according to Jeff Passan of YAHOO SPORTS. When the Tigers on Sunday reportedly handed free agent P Jordan Zimmermann a five-year, $110M deal, it served as a reminder that neither $20M-plus annual salaries nor nine-figure contracts "mean quite what they used to." So long as the agreed-upon system "is backward enough that more money funnels into past-their-prime free agents and the best young talents are underpaid relative to their performance, this is how the system stays equitable and how labor wars are avoided" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 11/29). In N.Y., Tyler Kepner writes nine-figure contracts "are relatively common now." There have been "almost 60," the latest going to Zimmermann (N.Y. TIMES, 12/1). In Cleveland, Zack Meisel notes Zimmermann's contract "will pay him the 13th-highest average annual salary among starting pitchers in baseball history." Awarding $22M per year to a "No. 2 starter is a reality of today's game" (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 12/1).
