Baltimore re-signs Chris Davis: 7 years, $161M

The Baltimore Orioles are bringing back free agent first baseman Chris Davis on a 7 year, $161 million deal, according to multiple reports.

Davis, Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton are the three big free agent hitters who had remained unsigned into mid-January.  The Orioles had reportedly been in talks with Cespedes, after their lengthy negotiations with Davis had failed to get a deal done, but with Davis now back in the fold, Baltimore would seem to be out on Cespedes.

Kudos to Scott Boras for getting this sort of contract for Davis...while Davis led the majors in home runs in 2013 and 2015, those are his only two really good full seasons.  Davis turns 30 in March, so this deal will cover his age 30-36 seasons.  As a high-power, high-strikeout hitter, the Orioles are going to have to hope he is able to maintain contact rates good enough to keep him productive for some time to come.

UPDATE -- There's a lot of deferred money here, with Davis getting $17M per year for 7 years, and then the remaining $42M paid out for a number of years after that, without interest.  The total value of the deal, per Ken Rosenthal, is less than $150M, though Rosenthal also says that the original $154M offer had deferred money.