If Tulowitzki keeps playing the way he played last year, then the contract will be a bargain not just for 2013 and 2014, but for 2011 and 2012 too (when he would be eligible for arbitration).

Sure this gives guys like Fielder and Papelbon a chance to complain about being underpaid right now, but if you offered this same contract to Fielder right now, he would be an idiot to take it. Seven years from now, Fielder will probably have two arbitration seasons at $5-10M each and two free agent seasons at $10-20M. I guess that Tulowitzki could out-earn him over the next seven years, but, barring some injury or something, I doubt that will happen.

2007 was Tulo's 1st full season in the bigs, his 6th year comes in 2012. That means the Rockies bought out 1 year of FA and have an option on his 2nd year.

Tulo only played a partial season in 2006. A player must accumulate 6 FULL seasons before he can taste FA.

... but if my speculative scenario below is realistic, and the union has glimmers of it coming to pass, the players might be justified in being worried about getting short-changed relative to salary growth the last 10-15 years.

... perhaps O'Dowd's move signals a move toward attempting to pay projectable well-above-VORP players for their performance while they're performing, rather than paying for past performance (which has been the norm since the advent of the current general CBA framework).

If GMs start up-adjusting the early-FA/arb-buyout years while ceasing to overpay for the past perfs of "name" vets (which we may already be seeing with the lack of offers for Piazza/Bonds/Stewart/ et al), it would be a much more sensible/rational expenditure plan.

(I also might be tempted to speculate that such an approach would make sense in a post-PED landscape, where post-arb FAs may age more "normally," thereby giving even less of an ROI.)

First of all, the impact of signing Tulo through his arby days is not limited to Tulo. I mention Tulo primarily because of his 6-year contract after 1-year of service time. Your argument is based upon that Tulo's defense is worth all of that money. I agree and I also agree that Tulo did give the Rox an early 'hometown discount;' however, Tulo is one player and that is the problem. Therefore, I still blame O'Dowd even though this contract is a bargain. A correlation could be made with Tulo's contract and Albert Pujol's contract in terms of length and service time accrued; however the difference that I delineate is, is that hitting stats are what gets big contracts, rightly or wrongly, and how Pujols hit in his first two years in the league is unprecedented in the FA era and therefore not comparable to Tulo. Maybe the market has changed that much since then to where contracts are significantly tied to defense, but I don't see how unless a player has a good agent because I am unaware of any defensive measuring tool that you have mentioned is used for deciding arby hearings or deciding what tier a player is in FA. Again, defense is key to winning and O'Dowd gets credit for that, but the league parameters are not in place to have him valued as such. Maybe O'Dowd is being progressive for giving a contract based upon defense, but I don't see how since contracts are still given to porous defenders all of the time. I think his contract is 'ahead of its time' and therefore unnecessary. If we are there, then I am very happy, but I just don't think that we are.

The reason why the impact of Tulo's contract is wide-ranging is because not only will it have an effect on Tulo's teammates, but also the rest of baseball. It is not rocket science. It is not a coincidence that Hamels, Papelbon, Fielder, and Markakis started complaining about their contracts. Personally, I consider Hamels to be one of the 10 best SP in baseball. I consider Papelbon to possibly be the best closer in baseball and he is one of the top 3. I think Fielder is one of the 5 best hitting 1B in baseball. I think Markakis is really good, but I have to believe that he is completely full of himself now that the O's have traded their two biggest named players and is trying to exploit the situation.

Essentially what I am saying is, is that all of these players are worth more money than they are getting paid. That doesn't mean that I think that they should be getting paid more money. I think that all players should have to earn their money by basically becoming arby-eligible. Getting back to the team concept, when a player like Tulo signs his deal, he is thinking about the team, but not all of his teammates invariably are and how many times do we hear players talking about long-term deals? Which is my next point:

The argument you are using with Tom Tango's contract generator is similar to what A-Rod was actually worth when he signed his contract except that defense, again, is not typically included. However, that is a projected value. Most attempt to predict the future, but it is never guaranteed... unlike a MLB contract. Simply, the precedent of signing a 6-year contract regardless of its cost is a pretty big risk in my opinion between injury or whatever. Again, I think this is one of those things where there is a huge impact in the team concept. If I am Garrett Atkins, then what do I think? Yes, there is pressure to sign a long-term deal, but there is also pressure from the union to get paid according to his assigned tier and position. A player then is put in a difficult situation, whether us fans like to admit it or not, and then they have to deal with those expectations and invariably let one of the two parties down.

I dunno... I am just against contracts that long with the exception of a very, very small group of players and I don't know if Tulo fits that category yet. And I am against contracts being proposed when they just don't have to be proposed like that.

One last thing, my biggest concern is, is that more and more teams are basically going to be trading Dan Harens and Nick Swishers for prospects because their contracts are going to be inflated that much more and I personally believe that this will further widen the gap between the big market teams and everyone below them.