I agree on the player's end, but from the team's perspective, deferring that kind of money can make sense. For one example, maybe you want to try to build a winner and spend the big bucks now. For another, present-day money costs more than future-money (this is basically what interest is), so with the same dollar figures, it's slightly cheaper to pay him later.

On the other hand, the Braves have done the opposite of this in the past, essentially putting some of the money they received from Colorado aside to spend on the later, more expensive years of Mike Hampton's contract; while they're in reality paying him $15M this year, in their books it's something like $9 or 10 million, with the rest coming from money they'd previously put in the bank.

So I guess it can depend on a team's preference or current situation.

Do you think Helton's contract has some to do with the way Tulo's pay is structured? Helton's last contract year is 2011 for $19.1 mil and $4.6 mil buyout for 2012. Seems like a changing of the Money Guard...

It always makes sense for the team to backload the contract. If you have extra cash laying around at the front end, you can easily invest the money somewhere, take the interest, and then use the money to pay out the contract later.

There is no situation in which it makes sense to front-load a contract from a team's perspective.

"I'd probably want to pay the $5 million a year as well. If Troy does get injured, I'd rather pay $5 million for nothing that $10 million."

I want to do more business with you, Dave. By the time you got to 2013 you will have paid out $30 million for the injured Troy with $5 million due. The way it's structured by the Rockies, they will have $19 million sunk and owe $10 million. No matter what happens to Troy the Rockies are $6 million to the good in that scenario without even factoring in the time value of the money that is deferred.

That $6 million should cover a replacement level SS for one year by 2013.