On Monday, the Detroit Tigers announced that their top position player prospect, second baseman Colt Keith, had agreed to a six-year contract with three option years attached. The contract locks in Keith’s salary at very modest rates for his years of team control, but does frontload him additional money beyond the major league minimum he’d otherwise be set to make this season. In exchange, the Tigers bought the rights to his first three free agent season well down the road, also for pretty modest rates assuming that Keith’s bat plays as expected in the show. Because this is such an unprecedented move for the Tigers, there may be a tendency to view this as just the first of many such moves, but I wouldn’t get ahead of ourselves just yet.
Colt Keith’s contract is more likely a rarity than a trend for the Tigers
