Holy crap. Puig sounded interesting, but not that interesting.

Meh ... if there was no draft and all prospects were free agents the day they turned 18, the top ten each year would get contracts like this.  Or greater.  Could you imagine Strasburg or Harper on the open market?  A-Rod when he was a prospect? Baseball front offices spend money like drunken stevedores on payday.  They overpay for players on the wrong side of 30 who have already had their best seasons.  The only reason that they don’t overpay for prospects is the draft, slot restrictions, and spending caps.  All of those restrictions are in place because teams can’t help themselves.

Frankly, I think that all players should be free agents the day they turn 18, but that’ll never happen because the economics in baseball would spin out of control and crush half of the teams and kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

It seems like an overpay, sure, but it’s just indicative of how significant the “golden goose” is as ChrisS said. FOs and owners must think this kind of bet on a young player is worth it because of the potential value to be realized. Can you imagine how much the Dodgers would be worth on the open market if they were a perennial contender again?

I’m not saying every single overpay is justified, of course, but the recent increase in spending on unproven foreign talent and massive extensions handed out to franchise players must be pointing to something larger going on.

[3] And then again, money is like water - it’ll find the cracks in the system.  Mayebe because this is the only way to essentially get an extra draft pick teams fall over themselves to take advantage of it. 

Heyman tweets that this wasn’t the highest offer ...

Apparently the Dodgers never saw him in game-action. that’s a pretty crazy amount of money to spend on someone you’ve never seen play.