Six more years

The reigning AL MVP will be a Red Sox for the next six years. Dustin Pedroia signed a six-year, $40.5 million contract extension that buys out his first two free agent years and will likely keep him in Boston until 2014 with a team option for 2015.

Tony Massarotti put the deal in perspective, saying it's deservedly less than the seven-year, $85 million deal paid to Chase Utley, but also better for the team than the deal Robinson Cano has with the Yankees (four years, $30 million that can grow to $55 million over six years).

But it's also not a meager offer for MVPedroia:

Two years ago at this time, most of us thought Pedroia looked overmatched at the big league level and that he might be a career utility man at best. Now he’s guaranteed to make more than $40 million over the next six years.

There's no complaints about the deal over here. I may have one lined up myself - though for quite a few less zeroes. And I didn't link to him much, but the Phillies also lost a beat writer in this week's newspaper carnage.**

Unfortunately, Adam Eaton won't be sitting around looking for work in spring training. He'll be trying out again for a slot in the rotation.

"You can never have too much pitching," Amaro said. "There may be a time when we may need Adam Eaton, but we haven't made any final decisions on him. He's still part of the club."

Um, if Adam Eaton counts toward too much pitching, you can have too much pitching.

**Update 12/4/08: Radano's post has been taken down. I guess the newspaper didn't want to read all of the comments people made criticizing the decision to let him go. Doesn't make sense - it's one thing to delete and close the comments, but there was no reason to take down his farewell thoughts, which didn't say anything derogatory.