PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. _ On Dec. 12, 2013, Robinson Cano put pen to paper and signed a $240-million contract with the Seattle Mariners, a decade-long commitment to a much different city on the other coast, leaving the Yankees behind after his agent, Brodie Van Wagenen, landed him the third-largest free-agent contract in the history of baseball, topped only by Alex Rodriguez's pair of 10-year deals.
Halfway through that pact, Cano has made it back to New York, courtesy of Van Wagenen, who in his first major move as Mets general manager traded for the second baseman and closer Edwin Diaz.
And still, Cano's contract is a momentous mark. No free agent has received more money since (though Giancarlo Stanton and Miguel Cabrera signed more expensive extensions). That includes Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, superstar free agents whose continued unemployment is a surprise to many, Cano included.
"Oh yeah. For sure. I'm surprised," Cano said Sunday, his first day in Mets camp. "Guys like Harper, Machado, those are young guys that they're in this league, put up numbers. Machado played in the World Series last year, Harper won an MVP before (in 2015 at age 22). I thought by this time they would be already signed."
At the outset of the offseason, the conventional thinking was Harper and Machado would blow past Cano's $240 million, perhaps even more than Stanton's $325 million, split up over 13 years. Harper and Machado are each 26, after all, whereas Cano was 31 when he became a free agent. And as Van Wagenen contended at the time of the Cano trade, the Mariners received good value for Cano's $24 million average annual salary, even including his 80-game PED suspension last year.
But now, with the open market lagging for a second winter in a row and spring training underway, how much Harper and Machado sign for _ or with whom or when _ is anybody's guess.
"It's hard when you, as a player, you go out and put in the effort in the offseason, during the season and be able to put (up) those numbers and are just waiting to be able get a deal _ and not only getting one, you deserve a deal," Cano said. "Because you put the numbers and you're young, you have the talent. To not be able to get a deal, that tells you baseball is going to a different direction now, because there's a lot of guys that don't have a job."
