How much more money is Victor Cruz going to make in 2013 now?

Here's the answer to that question:

• Taking into account immediate signing bonus money and his base salary for 2013, Cruz got a $7,251,000 raise: 
• (I) his $9.5 million signing bonus for 2013 & 
• (II) a base salary of $630,000

In summary, Cruz is set to make $10,130,000 in actual dollars in 2013 (with $9.5 million upfront) vs. the $2,879,000 that he was set to make before this deal (with none of it up front), so he wins from an immediate standpoint. This explanation of the situation is according to this breakdown of Cruz's new contract by Jason Fitzgerald yesterday from overthecap.com:

• How Contract Extensions Differ from New Contracts

That $7,251,000 raise is quite a haul over what Cruz was set to earn this year had he not signed this contract. By agreeing to this contract, as Jason points out in the outstanding article above, "...Cruz benefits from the money now rather than later." Jason also states the following:

The Giants, on the other hand, benefit from the ability to begin prorating a signing bonus immediately, thus limiting their dead money hits on the contract since the CBA only allows proration for a 5-year maximum period.

This is significant to note because  of the fact that there isn't any dead money in the last year of his deal in 2018. This is due to the proration limitation of 5 years under the new CBA that was agreed upon two years ago between the players and the owners. At that point, with a year left on his deal, the Giants could simply release Cruz after the 2017 season, without any dead money whatsoever counting against the cap and clearing up $8.5 million in cap space in the process.