Quote Originally Posted by Patler View Post
No, his strategy doesn't fall apart at all, you simply factor in the increases too. Players understand that part.

Players can understand Cobb making nearly what Nelson does, perhaps just a slight bit more. They might not understand the idea of Cobb making $11M or more.

I think the idea of players taking anything significantly less to sign early is antiquated, at best. All it does is anger them a year or two later At best, signing early gives the team a bit more freedom to manipulate cap hits, but the players still (mostly) expect whatever would be fair if they were in fact a FA at the time
Nelson has done it twice, both times he traded in the risk of the last year of a deal for new guaranteed money and a longer term deal. Nelson accomplished what many do when they take a shorter deal and hope to hit FA in their peak again (like Finley tried to do). Nelson did it by taking less, earlier.