Yep, anytime you can defer money, it probably works out best for the team. Use the immediate savings on other signings, while being able to watch revenue grow over the next however many years plus investing some of their immediate savings giving them more than enough to pay the rest of the deal well in the future without having it affect payroll too much. Nats did that with the scherzer deal. I think he's being paid over 15 years or so, but only signed with the team for 7 years. Obviously you don't want a situation where you have too many deferred contracts, but 1 or 2 on the books is probably a smart move to land a key big money free agent.

Of course that doesn't get into how smart it is, in a post-rounds era, to sign any player who is about 30 (when most guys become free agents) to a long term big money contract, deferred payments or not.