In another example of what has gone from cute trend to basically the norm, the Brewers locked up Ryan Braun with an 8-year, $45 million deal that takes effect immediately. Braun has been a hitting machine since coming up last May, winning NL Rookie of the Year honors with 34 home runs while batting .323. Just for fun, we wanted to poke around at the economics of the move. So we compared this to what the Cardinals did with Albert Pujols, who also had a sensational rookie year. The Redbirds got three years of Pujols on the cheap before they paid up in 2004 with a seven-year, $100 million deal. So essentially they got 10 years of Pujols for about $102 million, while the Brewers are getting nine years of Braun for less than half that price. Even though Pujols is a better player, that’s still quite the relative bargain. It’s easy to see why this is becoming the new model. In hindsight, it would be been great if the Twins had done something similar with Justin Morneau before ponying up $80 million for six years this past offseason. That said, Morneau didn’t show the same numbers Bruan showed right away, so it would have been harder to justify. But it will be interesting to see if the Twins try such a thing with Carlos Gomez or Delmon Young, to name a couple of youngsters, if they feel like they’ve seen enough to think they will be mainstays.

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