Ouch. Dontrelle got what, $25M for his arbitration years?

First, yes, we really have had a glut of very talented, very young players over the past four years. Victor, Pronk, Grady, Jhonny and Fausto all put up star performances in their first full seasons. That kind of quick success makes it easier to commit to a player at a younger age, and earlier in his career, which means before and further from arbitration -- which all adds up to a contract for fewer dollars covering younger, more productive seasons.

If a player doesn't break out as quickly – like anyone ranging from Broussard and Garko – then it's harder to commit as early, so you end up paying more later if the player pans out. That is what happened with Rios -- he simply wasn't productive enough, and later not healthy enough, for the team to make a real commitment. I think they possibly could have gotten a steal of a deal out of him a year ago, and they chose not to, but you can't entirely blame the Jays for not wanting to risk it.

They then aggravated the situation by not cutting such a great deal for themselves, but that's a separate issue. Shapiro and Antonetti consistently cut better deals for the Indians than can be expected reasonably, in my view, and I can only guess that the reasons are (1) they're better and more disciplined negotiators, and (2) they effectively leverage the work the Indians do year-round to be a high-quality organization, one that consistently communicates well with players and treats them with respect, one that surrounds each player with a clubhouse full of high-quality people, in uniform and out, one that maintains an elite medical staff, etc. These things create intrinsic value for each player in committing long-term to the Indians, and that pays off at the negotiating table.

Look at Jhonny as a test case. He hasn't remained a total stud, but what we've gotten from him basically represented his downside espectation as of the end of 2005. So we do the deal with him, knowing that he's very unlikely to do worse than what (in retrospect) he has done. And what made him very unlikely to do worse than this? The simple fact that he put up star numbers at 23. He's basically been the worst performer of any of the Indians' lockup deals (since Jaret Wright), and if that's the worst, then you've signed a bunch of really good deals.

Wells is a whole different type of deal -- it's not like Hafner's April 2005 deal – 3 years/$7M (2005-07), plus $4.75M 2008 club option -- but rather like Hafner's July 2007 deal – 4 years/$57M (2009-12), plus 2013 club option. In other words, it was a deal that covered only years in which the player would be a free agent, not a lockup deal. It is similar to Rios situation, however, in that they waited a little too long to strike a deal, and then also didn't do a great job negotiating.

It is fair to say that the Jays have not (a) cultivated enough players who break out at a young age, making them worth committing to while a great deal still can be had, (b) committed early enough to locking up or extending certain players, (c) created an environment in which players place significant intrinsic value on being a part of the Blue Jays organization, and (d) negotiated particularly good terms for themselves. So you can tell your buddy, those are the differences.