The Pirates and Contract Extensions

What do Evan Longoria and Matt Moore
have to do with the Pirates and
Contract  Extensions? Click to find out!

Big news! The Pirates signed Andrew McCutchen to an extension! By now, whoever is reading this probably already knows.  It's awesome news.  Digging a bit further though, I'd like to comment on an interesting observation I had, specifically about contract extensions.

The McCutchen extension fell in line with two recent extensions that have created a model.  The Arizona Diamondbacks were able to sign Justin Upton followed by the Cincinnati Reds signing Jay Bruce to virtually identical contracts. Both players were like McCutchen, young outfielders going into the third year, their last year prior to arbitration.  Point being, the parallels are more than obvious.  That's not the only model though and it may not be the best.