There are two reasons Matt Holliday will remain a St. Louis Cardinal for the better part of his career: term of contract and a complete no-trade clause.
Holliday confirmed he had agreed Tuesday to a seven-year, $120 million deal with the Cardinals. He will make about $17 million a season.
For those Rockies fans who turned on Holliday the day he switched to agent Scott Boras, this represents a moral victory. They will scream that Holliday could have made $20.5 million per year had he accepted the Rockies’ offer in March 2008.
It’s true. The Rockies offered Holliday a four-year, $82 million deal. As the market narrowed for the 29-year- old outfielder this winter, some fans and writers took pleasure in explaining how Boras and Holliday misjudged his value.
Oops. Better see if you can get a refund on those party balloons. Holliday received $38 million more in guaranteed money, and control of his future with a no-trade clause.
“St. Louis had everything I was looking for,” Holliday said Tuesday.
This is a good deal for Holliday — who wouldn’t want to hit behind future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols? — and a good deal for the Cardinals. Free agency is all about timing. Without the Yankees and Red Sox bidding, Holliday wasn’t going to get Mark Teixeira money.
If people could stop taking sides for a second, they would realize that both the Cardinals and Rockies won. The Cardinals got Holliday for a little less, though before slamming Boras, recognize that his guy netted nearly twice as much as comparable free agent Jason Bay.
Now the Cardinals face the challenge of extending Pujols, which means they could have two players making a combined $45 million per season. If their payroll doesn’t increase to $140 million, they will be fundamentally flawed.
Which brings us to the Rockies. They can’t have two or three players making 80 percent of the payroll. They have proved it doesn’t work with their business model. They wanted Holliday, but not for seven years. Four was all they could stomach and they needed the flexibility to be able to deal him after getting handcuffed by deals to Mike Hampton, Denny Neagle and Larry Walker.
They need good, reasonably priced labor. Waves of it.
That’s why they acquired Carlos Gonzalez — a Boras client they will have at least until he approaches free agency. It’s why they cast their net wide, signing many of their core players to multiyear deals to create cost certainty.
That’s who the Rockies are. It fits them just as the Cardinals fit Holliday.
