Dejan reported that Pedro has agreed to a deal with the Bucs. It looks like little more than a reshuffling of the original offer. Alvarez gets his $6M bonus, but in four annual payments instead of two.
His contract is worth a tad more now, $6.4M, making him the highest paid rookie this year, and he gets a major league contract, meaning it's guaranteed and he goes on the 40-man roster now instead of being exempt for three years (see Andrew McCutchen, if you think that doesn't make a difference, especially in September).
The extra value of the deal is just about what the Pirates save by spreading out his bonus. And, of course, Boras gets his bragging rights, although somewhat belatedly. Our guess is that he would have taken this offer 15 minutes after Alvarez was drafted.
The MLB suits and the MLBPA have to settle their grievance before he's inked, and since it's now a major league deal, we assume the Pirates will give him a physical before the signing.
Our only two questions are 1) whether the arbitration issue will hang things up, and 2) how legit can a deal be when it's reached over a month past the deadline (and remember, now it's a MLB contract, not a minor league deal), while the original ended up in a hearing room for being maybe a 1/2 hour late?
What a tangled web we weave... But until his name is inked on the contract and approved by all the high hats, we're not going to count the Pirate eggs as being hatched. We just hope this isn't a situation where Boras outsmarted himself.
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