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PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Can a guy win a Cy Young Award one year and get better the next? David Price is convinced that's possible. And if he's right, that could mean big trouble for the American League.

"I really figured out in my last four starts last year how I can become a lot better," Price says. "In my last four starts, I really feel like I did that. You have 27, 28 starts at that time, so you're just as tired as everybody else in the big leagues. Being able to push through that and being able to learn new stuff at that point, like I did last year, is a great feeling."

So what could a pitcher, on his way to a Cy Young, learn in mid-September? Well, this Cy Young winner says he learned something he considers to be a major breakthrough.

"I really figured out a lot of stuff with my off-speed pitches, what I'm trying to do with them, how I want to throw them," Price says. "I'd never thrown a changeup with fastball arm speed, with fastball intent, before. At the end of the year, I finally started doing that."

His light-bulb moment, he says, came in a Sept. 25 start in Boston. Early in that game, he remembers, he was executing pitches, throwing his fastball exactly where he wanted to throw it, and those Red Sox hitters were "sitting on certain pitches … and just launching stuff, and it made me mad."

In a span of 10 hitters, Price allowed six hits, was called for a run-scoring balk and headed back to the dugout, fuming. He and catcher Jose Molina decided to switch everything around. Pitch selection. Patterns. The execution of his changeup. And he recalls standing on the mound, watching the reactions of a lineup full of hitters who thought they’d found something, thought they’d figured him out.

"The stuff that I felt in that game, it has really made me excited for 2013," he says, "because I know I'm nowhere near the finished product I'm going to be. It might not happen this year, which is fine. It's still a work in progress. And you're never going to be a finished product, really, in anything you do.

"This game is always evolving. I know that. That's why I've tried to pick up new pitches, work with different grips. I switched sides of the rubber last year. I'll do anything to try and gain an advantage. That's what we're trying to do here, gain every advantage that we can."

It's actually easy to forget what a short time Price has been around. But consider this:

He won a Cy Young only 125 appearances into his career. According to research by the Rays, only five AL pitchers had fewer at the time they won their first Cy Young: Vida Blue (57), Roger Clemens (69), Ron Guidry (83), Barry Zito (84) and Jim Lonborg (116).

"The most impressive thing about David," says Rays executive vice president Andrew Friedman, "is he’s gotten better every single year. In 2010, he was better than '09. In '11, he was better than '10. In '12, he was better than '11. You can’t ask for much more than that. … And the scary thing is, as good as he was last year, I still think there’s more upside there."

More from the 2012 AL Cy Young winner …

• On his dog, Astro, getting his own bobblehead night: "He's handling it well. He's still the same dog he was before all this happened to him. … He's a big fan of the bobblehead. I've put it in front of him a couple of times, and he runs up and licks it, and he takes his paw and plays with it. He did better with this than he did with the action figure that he had two years ago. I put one of those down in front of him, and he used it as a chew toy. So I had to take that away from him."

• On the void left by the trade of James Shields: "He's one of my best friends, outside of baseball. So it is a little bit different in here. He’s a guy with a very big personality. He can be very loud. So he was very good for this team. That's why his personality void is way bigger than the innings [they have to fill without him]. If every starter can add 10 innings to his total from last year, we can make up for the innings that James Shields provided for us. It's just his personality, his demeanor. … His presence is always felt here. It still is today. We talk about him all the time, the things he taught us to do here and the way he went about showing us how to do them."

• On whether he feels a need to fill that leadership void: "That’s stuff I've been doing anyway. Whatever knowledge I have in the baseball world, I'll share that knowledge with these guys, and they all know that. … I've been a leader ever since I've been a little kid. On every team I've been on, I was always the best player and a leader of the group. In everything. It's not something I'm just kind of rolling into. It’s something I did on my minor league teams. It’s nothing new."

• On the script he’d write for himself for this year: "Win the World Series. That’s our goal. Obviously, I'd rather not go 0-and-33, but if I did that and we won the World Series, I'd be fine. I mean, if I had a respectable ERA and did that, that would reek. … But I want to get back there. That's our main goal."

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- He's a man with a brand-new Cy Young trophy. He's a face of one of baseball's most innovative franchises. He's the proud owner of a French bulldog with both a key to the city and its very own canine bobblehead.

So in many ways, David Price is truly a man who has it all.

Except for one thing.

He definitely doesn't have an answer to that increasingly persistent question: How much longer will he be employed by those Tampa Bay Rays?

“I do think about it from time to time,” Price admits as he basks in the laid-back spring vibe of the only franchise he’s ever played for. “But as of right now, I’m a Ray. And I love being a part of this group.”

But he’s also a perceptive human with a firm grip on reality. His close amigo, James Shields, used to occupy the locker next door every spring. And if the banter that emanated from those two lockers didn't make it the most entertaining chunk of clubhouse real estate in America, it was right up there.

These days, though, Shields is hanging out in exotic Surprise, Ariz., where the Royals train, thanks to another one of those roster-churning mega-trades the Rays have become famous for. David Price has astutely noticed that.

So he doesn't need to watch every episode of “Elementary” to deduce that the next ace to call the moving vans just might be him. Heck, of course it could.

The Mariners shoveled $175 million ($25 million a year) at Felix Hernandez to make sure he never stops admiring the view of Mount Rainier. The Giants forked over $127.5 million ($21.25 million per year) to keep Matt Cain hanging out by McCovey Cove. The Phillies located $144 million ($24 million per year) to fund Cole Hamels’ cheesesteak budget for the next six years.

But in Tampa Bay, well, let’s just say they graduate a lot of seniors. And while there’s no cap and gown hanging in David Price’s locker, he knows his graduation day could very well be approaching. And frankly, the whole idea is bumming him out royally.

“In a perfect world, I could be here for the rest of my career,” Price says, with total sincerity. “That would be awesome. I've gotten multiple phone calls from ex-teammates, who say, 'Aw, it’s not the same. I’d give anything to be back in Port Charlotte.' … So the grass is not always greener on the other side. It doesn't matter how much more you’re making if you’re not happy where you are.”

That’s a fascinating statement if you’re into taking it literally. It certainly implies that contentment and comfort level will weigh significantly into the momentous contract decision that Price will be confronted with one of these days, weeks, months or years.

And if that’s the case, it’s hard to imagine, from listening to Price talk, that he could possibly achieve a higher state of bliss anywhere than what he’s found here on the euphoric grounds of Joe Maddon Gardens.

“We all enjoy being here,” Price says. “We do things differently here. So if that day ever did come where I go somewhere else, I know it’s probably going to be night and day, compared to the way we do things over here, and it would definitely take some adjustment period.

“I try not to think about it,” Price confesses, with the tone of a guy who’s getting increasingly nostalgic the longer he talks, “because I love being here. Honestly, I think that would just put me in a bad mood.”

Uh-oh. If David Price were to turn grumpy on us, it would pound a serious dent into the well-being of this inspirational piece of literature. So to cheer him up, we can pass along this important tidbit:

His team loves him, too.

Asked to appraise where this situation might be heading, Price’s favorite executive vice president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, puts it this way:

“In a vacuum,” Friedman says, “the starting point is that we’d like David to be here for a long time, and David would like to be here for a long time. So at least that’s a good starting point. And it remains to be seen whether that’s feasible.”

Oh, it remains to be seen, all right. So let’s frame this big picture for you:

Price, 27, can’t be a free agent for three more years. He’s working on a one-year deal for this season, at about $10.1 million. And that’s the most money the Rays have ever paid any pitcher, in any season, in their 15-year history.

It’s also the most any second-time arbitration-eligible pitcher has ever earned in one season. The previous record holder, Jered Weaver, signed a five-year, $85 million contract with the Angels before the next season. And the fact that Weaver’s deal is now viewed as (ahem) a “bargain” tells you where the market for stud starters has gone since.

Now let’s look at how the Rays have handled their most marketable starters under Friedman’s watch.

They traded Matt Garza in January 2011, when he was three years away from free agency. They dealt away Shields this winter when he was two years from reaching free agency.

So now here’s Price, three years away, countdown clock ticking. Despite what you may hear, it’s incredibly unlikely his team will entertain trading him this July. Too talented a roster. Too carefully built to contend. But next winter? Whole 'nother story.

“Obviously,” Friedman says, “at the end of this year, that’s a topic that will be debated publicly, but at this point, it’s premature to speculate on.”

Not that that’s stopped half the population of Tampa Bay from speculating away pretty much 24/7. But the fact is, Friedman says, even eight months from now, you never know how either side will feel.

“This season could play itself out in too many different ways,” he says. “There are too many things that could play out to have a good feel for how things are going to evolve.”

“

In a vacuum, the starting point is that we’d like David to be here for a long time, and David would like to be here for a long time. So at least that’s a good starting point. And it remains to be seen whether that’s feasible.

”-- Andrew Friedman, the Rays' executive vice president of baseball operations

Despite the Rays’ history with Garza and Shields, remember, this is also a franchise that held on to both Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton until the end of their deals, in the name of trying to win. So is it poured into the cement mixer that Price has to get traded at some point in the next year or so? Not 100 percent, it’s not.

We should also remember that the Rays are constructed to contend for years to come -- especially if Price is still fronting the rotation. So they’re sending signals they’re in no rush to move him unless they’re getting back a franchise-altering package.

But then there’s the other half of this equation. By which we mean:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

No matter how long and hard Price professes his love for life as a Ray, one word he always forgets to include in his love letters is that magic word: “discount.” And if the Rays are going to be forced to pay a state-of-the-market Price tag, then it’s tough to imagine that, eventually, they won’t be forced to do what they have to do.

A mere three months ago, they did find another $100 million to add to Evan Longoria's deal, which swelled their commitment to their third baseman to $136.6 million over the next 10 years. But that, Friedman says, was kind of “the perfect storm.”

In Longoria’s case, they had a 27-year-old position player whose work ethic and makeup made him the kind of player who could be projected, reasonably safely, to hold up physically and serve as the ideal centerpiece player to build a franchise around.

“And he loves being here and wants to be here, and was willing to make some sacrifices that others haven’t,” Friedman says of Longoria. “Now there’s no right or wrong answer. It’s a personal decision. For him personally, that’s what made the most sense for him, and it also lined up with what made sense for us, so we were able to do a deal. But it’s hard for all of those things to line up.”

Of course, there are lots of people hanging around the grouper-sandwich emporiums of Tampa Bay who would love to see Longoria convince Price to “make some sacrifices” himself and stick around. But Longoria says that as much as he loves the guy, “that’s not my job.”

“This is a great place to play,” Longoria says. “And we've got a great team and a great manager, and we've got a lot of good things going for us. So if I had my way, of course I would love to have Price here for a long time. But that’s not my call. All I can do is enjoy every day with him.”

So with all those Stu Sternberg dollars committed to Longoria, could a money-challenged franchise like this possibly afford another nine-figure deal?

“As I said at the time we signed Evan,” Friedman says, “we could sign another player to the same contract. The question is: If our resources don’t increase, then it’s going to be really difficult to compete. And at the end of the day, that’s what’s most important, is our ability to compete. We could easily afford another [contract] like it. The problem is the other 23 guys and what you have left to spend on them.”

But the Ace can’t sit around this spring and piece together that jigsaw puzzle. He’s too busy trying to win another Cy Young and a World Series. In the meantime, though, while others are all but printing his boarding pass out of town, David Price continues to believe there’s “absolutely” a chance they can find a way for him to stay.

“I hear we have a new TV deal coming up,” he says. “Hopefully, there’s a new stadium in the works. And that all increases revenues. So I know there’s a way. There absolutely is a way. So if we can figure that way out, that would be great.”

Ah, but if they can’t? Well, it’s hard not to notice that his dog’s bobblehead day is scheduled for April 21 … and not July 31.