Last week the Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays faced off and in a fitting matchup the Thursday finale featured a battle between Trevor Cahill and Ricky Romero. Cahill lasted eight innings and Romero last 7 1/3, but both each gave up only one run in a game decided in the bullpens. It was a fitting matchup because a few days later Romero has impacted the A's in their eventual signing of Trevor Cahill to a long term contract extension.
Although the A's have not confirmed or denied the reports, the general reports are that the A's and Cahill came to terms on a five year contract extension worth $30.5 million. The year-by-year breakdown is not available at this point, but the deal does also include a pair of options years at $13 million and $13.5 million. The team buyouts for those two years are $300,000 and $500,000 respectively.
Romero factors into this equation because he signed a five year extension worth $30.1 million last August. At this point in their careers the two pitchers have very similar numbers. Their strikeout totals are quite different, but much of the rest of their pitching lines are fairly similar. It made sense to make this kind of deal given Romero's deal.
The timing of it is interesting for A's starter Brett Anderson. He signed a long term deal with the A's last year that was for four years and $12.5 million. That's not to say Cahill wasn't deserving of the extension he got. Cahill is the first of the young pitching staff to really put it all together for a whole season. Throw in the timing of Romero's deal and it's not a surprising contract. It cost the A's extra money, but these things happen.