Mathematically speaking, there’s a fairly simple way to come up with a list of the team-friendliest contracts. Essentially, we’re merely looking for the highest ratios of dollars to wins. Our dollars are represented by player contracts, and for wins we use Wins Above Replacement as our proxy, with a win being worth around $8 million last year. Sure, there’s room for judgment. Dollars mean different things to different organizations, and Wins Above Replacement and standard methods for projecting performance over some years are imprecise tools.

But usually the numbers are the best place to start. What follows is a list of the 10 team-friendliest contracts in the major leagues. That is, long-term contracts. The friendliest contracts are probably those of players like Francisco Lindor, a superstar talent still earning the major-league minimum salary, which this year is slightly south of $600,000. Basically the Indians are getting a superstar for roughly nothing, with zero long-term risk.

Of course, if the Indians don’t somehow get Lindor signed to a multiyear contract, he’s highly likely to garner some massive raises when he’s first arbitration-eligible in 2019, and then especially in 2022 when he’s eligible for free agency. Most of the contracts below achieve two important team goals: provide financial certainty, and forestall free agency for a relatively low cost.

Anthony Rizzo: There’s no shortage of candidates, but acquiring Rizzo might be the best move Cubs president Theo Epstein has ever made. Initially drafted by the Red Sox when Epstein was still in Boston, Rizzo was a big part of the 2010 trade that brought Adrian Gonzalez to Boston from San Diego. But just two years later, Rizzo seemed to have been considered expendable by the Padres. Perhaps because he’d batted just .141 in his first major-league season. Whatever the reason, Epstein pounced, essentially trading pitcher Andrew Cashner for Rizzo.

Since then, Rizzo’s been a three-time All-Star and twice finished fourth in MVP balloting. Cashner has not.

Shortly into Rizzo’s second season with the Cubs — and it wouldn’t wind up being a great season — he signed a seven-year, $41 million contract guaranteed through 2019, with the Cubs holding options for 2020 and ’21 at $14.5 million apiece. If the Cubs exercise those options — and there’s no reason to believe they won’t, absent catastrophic injury — they’ll wind up buying out three seasons of Rizzo’s potential free agency for $40 million, or something like $35 million less than they would have to spend on a similarly tremendous hitter on the open market.

Christian Yelich: Yelich is a younger, slightly better-paid Rizzo who plays outfield. Both are working on guaranteed seven-year deals, with Rizzo’s average-annual value (AAV) around $6 million, Yelich’s around $7 million.

Like Rizzo’s, Yelich’s contract includes a team-friendly option: $15 million for an eighth contract year, which would carry him through his Age 30 season, which might also represent the latter stage of his prime. Locking up an outstanding major leaguer for eight years (including the option) for just $65 million? It hardly gets any better than that.

Clayton Kershaw: Kershaw is unique among the players on this list, because he already earns a (relatively) hefty salary: nearly $36 million this year alone, with more of the same from 2018 through ’20. Which makes his marginal value all the more impressive, because even at $36 million per season, Kershaw is a huge bargain, his performance actually worth somewhere around $60 million per season, assuming he remains reasonably healthy. And, yes, $215 million is an awful lot of money. But don’t worry: The Dodgers can afford it.

Kevin Kiermaier: Tack on a $13 million club option in 2023, and the Rays can lock up Kiermaier all the way through his Age 33 season. Now, you might be surprised to find Kiermaier, nobody’s idea of an MVP candidate, so high on this list. But even with the rise of the analytics cool kids, defensive value remains undervalued in both the market and the wider world. And Kiermaier is among the greatest defensive outfielders of this era.

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