Rusney Castillo signs with Red Sox for 7 years, $72.5 million

The Red Sox announced that Castillo, who defected from Cuba in December 2013, will report in the coming days to their “Fenway South” facility in Fort Myers, Fla. to resume baseball activities.

Rusney’s contract is for seven seasons, including 2014. He will be paid a $5.4 million signing bonus, followed by the following yearly salaries, per Jon Heyman of CBS Sports:

Rusney Castillo isn’t a prospect. He’s 27, and he’s supposed to help a major league team right away. The Red Sox were already flush with outfield options, both in the short and long term, but the idea of a potential superstar making regular-player money over the next six years was just too intoxicating to pass up.

We can still use Castillo to explore how prospects in the draft pool get hosed every danged year, though. Every danged year.

The reports were that the Red Sox would not be denied Cuban free agent Rusney Castillo, and they turned out to be true, with Boston inking the 27-year-old to a seven-year, $72.5 million deal, the largest ever for a Cuban free agent. It’s not actually a seven-year deal, however, as it begins in 2014, but there’s an important reason behind going seven with just a month left this year.

The Red Sox have plenty of room under the luxury tax to absorb a full season’s worth of this contract’s average annual value of $10.36 million, especially after trading away Jon Lester, John Lackey and Jake Peavy without bringing in anywhere near as much money back in return. Taking that hit for a month -- which also made Castillo happy to join the Sox, since he wanted to play in the majors before the year ended -- allowed the Red Sox to lower the AAV for the entire deal. Castillo could be disappointing, but he’ll only cost around $10 million per year for luxury tax purposes. If he’s great, however, he’s a huge bargain, as $10 million for a team with the space under the luxury tax that Boston has to play with is relatively nothing.

Castillo, a 27-year-old line-drive hitter with plus power potential and good speed, hit .319/.383/.516 in 360 games in Cuba. He has played some second base in his native country, but scouts don’t view him as an infielder at the big league level, according to Baseball America’s Ben Badler.