Reader Dan B. posed a question to me about the difference between major- and minor-league deals given to amateur players when they sign their first pro contracts:

Take Brian Matusz for example -- he got a four-year MLB deal. How exactly does that work? I know a minor league deal would give a team control over a player for six years. And once he starts collecting service time, it's six years MLB service time before he hits MLB free agency. What happens to Matusz after his four years?

(Note: Matusz, a left-handed pitcher, actually signed a five-year deal running from 2009-2013 with the Baltimore Orioles and also received a signing bonus worth $3.2 million.) There are two different concepts at work here: How long a player is under contract and how long he is under control.A player is under control to his MLB club until he has accumulated six years' worth of major-league service time. Any day spent on a big league roster or a big league disabled list adds one day of service to the player's tally, and when those add up to six years (172 days of service equaling one year), the player becomes eligible for major-league free agency at the end of whatever contract is currently in force for him.While accumulating those six years of service, the player will likely sign three or four or as many as 10 or 12 contracts of varying duration. The primary end of a contract is to set salaries for the player, and a typical minor league contract signed by an amateur player will fix his signing bonus and his salary for the first year of his minor league playing career. A major league contract, however, has several additional features. One appealing feature to clubs is that the player's signing bonus payment may be spread out over the life of the contract, rather than paid out in one lump sum.A major-league contract also puts the player on the team's 40-man roster immediately, regardless of where he's headed to start his career, burning a spot on that roster for at least one and probably two to three years when the player would not otherwise need to be on it. (A player must be on the 40-man roster to appear in the majors, for example.)When a player signs a major-league contract and then is assigned to the minors, the club is charged for one optional assignment against the limit for that player. This option covers the entire year in which the assignment is first made, during which the player can be sent up and down from the majors to the minors repeatedly without costing the team another option. The ordinary limit for one player is three options (that is, three years in which the player was assigned via option to the minors), but a player who signs a major-league contract out of the draft will almost always qualify for the fourth option exemption, if needed. Matusz signed a contract for 2009, so the team won't use an option for him this year, meaning that he'd be "out of options" after 2012 (assuming he was optioned in each of those four seasons) and then would have to clear waivers to be assigned to the minors.Back to Dan B.'s original question, when Matusz's five-year major-league contract expires, he'll be treated like any other player on the 40-man roster. If he's in the big leagues, he'll get a new deal commensurate with his service time, with the caveat that his salary can not be less than 80 percent of his total compensation from the previous year (salary plus bonus). If he has enough service time by that point to file for salary arbitration, he can do so and use his previous contract as a baseline to argue for a certain percentage raise rather than an absolute dollar figure increase. Regardless of the expiration of the contract, however, he'll remain under the Orioles' control until he accumulates the six years of service time required for free agency. So if, for example, Matusz debuts in the big leagues on Opening Day of 2010 and never returns to the minors, his current contract will expire after 2013, he'll earn at least $960,000 on a new contract in 2012, will become eligible for salary arbitration after 2013, and will be eligible for free agency at the end of the 2015 season.Matusz should be a fast mover through the minors and probably won't even use all of his options, but in general, major-league deals are bad deals for the signing clubs. The risk of a player running out of options is always there, and giving a player a 40-man roster spot before it's required means that the team may not have that spot when they need to add another player, either to recall him to the majors or to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. A player should receive a lower signing bonus if he gets a major-league deal because the club is losing the value of that roster spot for some period of time, and it appears that that's one of several ways in which the Orioles got a bargain in their negotiations with Matusz.