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In Hart we have an example of a player who, while slightly riskier than Cruz, is probably better by enough to offset the health issues -- even forgetting the low base cost of his contract. Z clearly used his history with Hart as leverage in the deal, but he also clearly used his Cano signing early as additional leverage.
Cano's presence increases our leverage (not saying it's ALL him; calm down) and THIS is PRECISELY how it expresses itself. A player who ISN'T in premium position to negotiate a mega contract chooses the M's over the other suitors in part because the FO has already signaled their intention to compete by making a huge splash, and acting bullishly in the media about other moves (no Walker for Price, still seeking a rock-solid #2 SP, etc..).
So now, for a brief examination of one facet of roster construction (about which the local blog-o-sphere rages incessantly, but never seems able to express a coherent strategy for which doesn't revert to simple risk management expressed by predicting $/WAR and -0.5WAR/year declines), let's look at what this saves us.
Let's assume Hart makes all of his incentives and is paid $13m this year - that is STILL less than the rumored $15m/year Cruz was demanding. Naturally, the big win here is we get Hart (who's actually a year and a half younger) for ONE year's commitment while Cruz was apparently demanding MORE than five(!!!) for his services. Is it fair to say that he was demanding an extra year, at minimum, over the 5/75 floated around the net?
Let's say Cruz's demands were for $90m/6 years. Most people around the net with their noses in the archives of baseball history agree Cruz is a TERRIBLE bet past the age of 35. As in, he's more likely to implode into utter uselessness by 36 than to be a 1.5 WAR player (as he has ~been for three years running) from that point on.
This means you're looking at, generously, three years of positive production out of Nelson Cruz and for the sake of argument, let's say he earns every dollar during those first three years, WAR-wise (I'd say the likelihood of that is unlikely, but whatever).
That leaves $45m of his contract to be, essentially, written off. Seems likely to be the case too, with what we think we know about the current landscape of the market and Cruz's contemporaries/comparables (remember also that Nelson Cruz over the last THREE years, in TEXAS, has been worth a COMBINED 3.9 WAR. Think he'd do better or worse in Safeco? ::shudders::).
So Robinson Cano's contract, in part, has to be viewed as RESPONSIBLE for limiting the downside on subsequent FA contracts - or, at least, helpful in efforts toward that end, regardless of whether or not the FO decides to utilize it. How much of that $45m can you attribute to Cano? I don't know; I'm smart and arrogant, but not smart enough OR arrogant enough to think I can come up with some college algebra equation to express the answer. For myself, I'm going with half, because it's nice and simple and I think it's probably in the ballpark.
So for me, Robinson Cano just cut $22.5m off the M's future obligation to pay a guy like Nelson Cruz to go fishing for the last few years of his contract, mostly because Cano signed before the winter meetings rather than 'waiting for his market to develop.'