How decade-plus MLB megadeals suddenly became a thing

Christmas is still ahead of us, and yet the baseball industry has already spent in record numbers and signed away most of the best available players. Twenty-four of the top 25 free agents, as ranked by ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel in early November, have already chosen new teams, signing deals totaling close to $2.8 billion.

But it isn’t just the amount of money that is jarring — it’s the length of time teams are willing to pay it.

In the history of MLB free agency, only four players have received deals that have extended beyond 10 years — and three of those came this month. Trea Turner agreed to an 11-year, $300 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies on Dec. 5, Xander Bogaerts got 11 years and $280 million from the San Diego Padres on Dec. 8 and Carlos Correa landed with the New York Mets on a 12-year, $315 million contract — one week after agreeing to a 13-year, $350 million deal with the San Francisco Giants that fell apart over a disagreement about his physical.

Turner and Bogaerts will be paid through their age-40 seasons. Correa and Aaron Judge, who accepted a nine-year, $360 million contract to return to the New York Yankees, are locked up through age 39.

The idea of signing a player for a decade or more on a deal that will almost certainly take him to the very end of his career seems counterintuitive to modern roster construction. Front offices are smarter, more analytically minded than ever, hyper-focused on efficiency and well-schooled on the deficiencies of players in their mid to late 30s. The sport itself, proliferated by devastating breaking balls and triple-digit fastballs, has never been more unkind to the slower reaction times of those approaching middle age. And yet teams…