Even if I was pretty sure I was going to make more by waiting, it would be pretty hard to pass up $41M guaranteed. Yea it's not like he's a FA either. His ability to earn is limited by arbitration, which makes the figure harder to wrap our minds around since we're so used to basing figures off FA deals. Plus a guy who had lymphoma probably realizes more than most how quickly life can change, so you take that guaranteed cash even if its a 20% or whatever discount. But it's not just a discount, the team options are huge, and puts him in a spot where he will negotiate his next contract after he has already started to decline. $17m/year was the standard for upper echelon 1B a decade ago, and $20m+ has become the norm now. If the Cubs own options at $14.5m for each of his age 30 and 31 seasons, then he's going to be looking for that FU money contract starting with his age 32 season. The way things are going in baseball, he'll get it from somebody, but damn, I would have thought those options would be much more expensive than $14.5m.