The Rangers made a legitimate offer to first baseman Mark Teixeira before trading him. Apparently they offered him an eight-year, $140MM package. That’s an average annual value of $17.5MM. A little light, but not a bad starting point.
But since the deal covered the 2008 season and Teixeira would’ve gotten around $14MM regardless, it was really a seven-year, $126MM offer – same as Barry Zito’s contract. $18MM a year for Teixeira sounds reasonable, but who knows how it will seem a year from now? He might be a $22MM player at that point. Teixeira will, of course, hit the open market after the 2008 season.
