There comes a point when being hard-headed stops being useful and starts being stupid. After locking heads with Scott Boras on second overall draft pick Pedro Alvarez's contract for over a month, someone either in the Pirates' offices or in the Alvarez camp realized that refusing to budge was going to keep Alvarez from playing this fall and set his development back a full year. Accordingly, the two sides agreed to a revised deal last night that will get Alvarez into the Pirates' system as soon as possible. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the deal isn't much different from the originally signed $6 million bonus for a minor league contract beyond the fact that it's now a major league deal, which puts Alvarez immediately on the 40-man roster. The bonus is $6.35 million, but it's payable over four years instead of being immediately due. In the end, it's hard to say one side benefited more than the other.
It's likely that a lot of people will be unhappy with the Pirates because negotiating this deal after the deadline sets quite a precedent for Boras in the future, but the Pirates can't be concerned with that. I mean, have you seen the Pirates play lately? They're terrible. They need all the help they can get and a player of Pedro Alvarez's quality certainly qualifies as "help."
