White Sox, Alexei Ramirez Agree On Contract Extension

Quality shortstops are a precisous and rare commodity in baseball, and outside of the steroid era, they always have been. There were a total of just four shortstops with at least 4 WAR in 2010, 6 in 2009, and 4 in 2008 - and Hanley Ramirez was the only one to be worth at least 4 WAR in each of those seasons. So in the rare event that a team finds a player they feel can provide long-term production at anywhere near that level, it behooves them to do everything within their ability to do just that.