Next Thursday night, there's a very good chance that Buster Posey will pick up the National League MVP Award. It would (will?) be the final piece of hardware in a nearly unheard of trifecta: batting title, World Series win and MVP. The MLB Network is going to make an event out of the award.
Posey is all the way back from the gruesome injury he suffered against the Marlins in 2011. And he is in line to land a big old contract from the Giants at some point in the near future.
Writing about that very subject on Wednesday, ESPN's Buster Olney believes that the Giants will "work on a whopper long-term deal" for Posey at some point this offseason.
"You'd have to figure that the Giants will work on a whopper long-term deal with Buster Posey sometime this winter," Olney writes. "Posey has demonstrated he is all the way back from his shattered ankle, having generated an MVP-type season in 2012, and he also has the athleticism to make a position switch whenever the Giants determine that is in their best interest."
It's funny: the Giants probably should have signed Posey to a big deal before he came back from the injury. But no one expected for him to return as healthily as he did or for him to improve on his rookie numbers following the nasty collision.
Posey is eligible for arbitration this offseason and could set the record for catchers in first-time arbitration; his arb number is going to be even higher if he wins the MVP. Paying him his arbitration figure year over year until he's a free agent might be a bit more than the Giants want to stomach.
Instead, the two sides could figure out a number south of $100 million to give Posey security for the immediate future and try to hammer something out this offseason. The Giants are coming off the World Series so they should be flush with cash, they've got some bigger contracts coming off the books now and soon after, and no one's going to complain if Posey gets a ridiculous deal considering the way he played this year.
