Ten year: Watching your child grow from a squirming baby to a wriggling adolescent. The rises and falls of fads, technology, and pseudo-celebrities. Premieres and finales, a generational gap, the lifespan of a large dog.
The passage of time is, of course, terrifying, and we gloss over it whenever we discuss baseball contracts. When we think, “Bryce Harper or Manny Machado could get a ten-year deal from the Phillies,” as Jeff Passan says, it’s just the number that’s next to their projected money. There will always be opt-outs, trades, backdoor contract shenanigans, and falling pianos. But as an idea, the point of a ten-year deal is to be security for the player: You will be employed, and at least for a while, it will be by us.