The deal Felix Hernandez will soon finalize with the Mariners is a lot like the contracts agreed to by Troy Tulowitzki and Ryan Howard. It amounts to lots of money tacked on to the back end of another deal. There will be a lot of ways that accountants, agents and teams will tabulate the numbers, but ultimately Hernandez is getting an additional $135.5 million in new money, with five more years on the deal.
The annual average value of the new portion is $27.1 million, the highest average ever for a pitcher. In fact, no pitcher has been guaranteed $26 million a year. As USA Today first reported, he'll get a total of $175 million over the next seven seasons.
As with every deal, there are winners and losers: