He will probably earn $30 million AAV, i.e. an 8 year/$240 million deal.
The usual suspects for high profile free agents on the Price watch are the Cubs, Rangers, Red Sox and probably a mystery team like the Dodgers, Giants or Yankees.
The Red Sox needed an ace, the Boston Globe first reported that the team signed Price to a seven-year contract worth $217 million deal.
People had been pushing the Cubs as the favorite, but that does not make a lot of sense.
Baseball Reference's Cubs guaranteed contracts, 2016-2020:
2016: $81.7 million
2017: $61.5 million
2018: $50 million
2019: $55 million
2020: $27.7 million
2017: $61.5 million
2018: $50 million
2019: $55 million
2020: $27.7 million
And the fact that 2020 is the magic year where the Cubs could launch their own network, there is no guarantee that it will be the revenue producing juggernaut people think it could be given the current flux in the cable TV industry.
As previously mentioned, based on reports and educated guesses, the Cubs only have $20 million in new money to spend this off-season for 8 players. Price at $30 million per year will probably get ownership or business side veto under the guise that the Cubs won 97 games without Price. Now, some could argue that the Cubs ticket price increases could net $30 million if the team reaches 3 million attendees at Wrigley, but the ball park and plaza construction projects are in full build mode so any new money will probably be diverted to those priority projects.
It would have been a major surprise if the Cubs can sign Price, without trading away $15-20 million in current salary obligations. But at that point, is it team subtraction by addition of one great pitcher?
