worst contract out of these $100 million contracts

i feel like no one in baseball respects Cliff Lee.

forgot about cliff, he's pretty much a lock

i think cliff is pretty well respected

yeah i mean soriano's '02 was epic and his '03 was really good, but his two seasons in texas were really pretty average, and i think his '06 was clearly some kind of final peak performance season, though his first year with the cubs was still above average.

I'm going to go back to something Jordan S said earlier:

the ONE cogent defense of the howard contract is that since he's always been with the phillies, there's more pressure to re-sign him/reward him/show fans you're committed

To me, franchise players have to be approached differently than whoever's just travelling through. The Cardinals have Pujols, the Phillies have Howard. When a team lets a franchise player get away--like the Dodgers did with Piazza--I think it's bad for the game. Even when a team seemingly turns out to be 100% right in letting a player walk (the Mariners and Griffey), it still feels wrong. And I say "seemingly" because, had he remained in Seattle, maybe Griffey's career would have played out differently.

Too much sentiment. I'd make a lousy GM.

i think it would be right to let pujols go if he was on the decline, which he doesn't appear to be, and his consistency will probably continue on for some time. howard still had a couple years left and he was already on the decline, so why jump the gun? by next season he might be a 30 HR/.260/.340/.510 kinda guy, and then you're stuck. he may not be, i mean he could go back to at least the levels of last season, but it's not something you can count on.

the guy is just traded So MUCH! it's like once a team gets him the find out he has cooties or something and they need to get him out the door asap!
and also his 2008 was completely out of nowhere. there was no indication that he could pitch like that before. i've been waiting for a regression since.

xposts

i don't think that teams should worry about what's best "for the game", but it's extremely tough to play the game of predicting the downfall of your franchise players and not paying them because of that & still remain a respectable franchise to your fans and other players

the thing with howard is that they gave him an extension before they needed to & that's the real egregious thing -- they wouldn't have been in that tough of a position if they waited two years

i don't know that lee's '08 was totally out of nowhere. he was really good in '05 and solid in '06. '07 was a disaster, admittedly. but since '08 he's been pretty awesome. he's been a little worse with the rangers than he was with the m's, but he's a cool customer, never walks anybody, and seems to be the kind of pitcher who would age really well.

it's extremely tough to play the game of predicting the downfall of your franchise players and not paying them because of that & still remain a respectable franchise to your fans and other players

^ this. no player wants to hear from a team (esp when they've played with their entire career there) when their contract is up that they aren't going to get offered the super mega bucks the used to make because they've been declining and are getting older and the team expects the very normal trend that happens to everyone to continue. 99% of players would say "screw you" and walk.

xpost

he was good on '05 - but it was still nothing compared to '08.

not only that, but it's also tough to sign guys where their contract ends at a point where they are still "good" but def on the decline -- it really wouldn't even have happened with howard if they hadn't given him the contract two years out

to get big players like this you are almost always going to be overpaying for 3+ years

i was expecting him to be another Esteban Loaiza, but he's kept it up pretty well. i guess at 32, if he's going to get himself 100 million, he's going to find a team that thinks he will pitch like this until he's at least 37.

xpost

ya - so i guess it won't be too hard for him to get that contract.

Thermo and I are going to buy the Pirates, restock the team with all our favourite Jays from years past--Moseby in centre, Robbie at second, Cliff Johnson DH'ing--and sign them all to big 10-year contracts. Just because we like them as people.

dude. i hope you're funding this one, i don't even have a job right now!

Key and Henke are key and urgent, btw.

I'll give you $145 in cash and a pickup truck full of watermelons for the stadium concession contract.

xxpost

btw i still think the dumbest contract ever was one that wasn't finished, cf. larry himes deciding that jose guzman, candy maldonado, randy myers, and dan plesac would be better for the cubs than greg maddux, who was 26 at the time.

like it kinda makes zero sense to pay a-rod 27.5 million per season over the life of a contract that will mostly be his late 30s and early 40s, because you can't reasonably expect him to continue at his '07 levels or maybe even his '08 levels. and soriano's deal was even stupider b/c they were basing his deal on his single epic season with the nationals and not a career of consistency.

― ('_') (omar little), Monday, August 23, 2010 4:19 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark

look, i'm firmly in your camp that he hits 25 hrs for next two seasons then settles into an 18 hr a year semi-DL endgame. still, it makes a lot of sense when the mere promise of a bonds hr record chase is the only thing out there that could goose the YES network's already high tune in numbers. ratings = dollars, it's not always sensibly sabermetrical.

I was just going to say that as a GM, I'd be very reluctant to hand out big-money, long-term contracts to pitchers, be it Lee or almost anybody. Obviously you have to to stay competitive, but I'd be very nervous. The Braves had arguably the greatest free-agent signing ever with Maddux. How many other long-term contracts ever worked out so well with a starting pitcher?

Considering the contracts after the fact is kind of unfair. The Griffey deal was pretty reasonable when it happened, but he got injured. He was totally worth it, and injuries happen.

On the other hand, Manny's deal was fucking crazy and yet he totally (and somewhat surprisingly) earned every penny of it.

yeah no one should be giving a pitcher more than 4 years unless they are 1) a legit ace and 2) seem to freakishly resist injury

i think CC will work out fine since he was so young, not sure about the inevitable Lee contract which will probably be about the same size

^ this. no player wants to hear from a team (esp when they've played with their entire career there) when their contract is up that they aren't going to get offered the super mega bucks the used to make because they've been declining and are getting older and the team expects the very normal trend that happens to everyone to continue. 99% of players would say "screw you" and walk.

Is this a partial defense of Wells' contract? Because your post seems to perfectly sum up the mood at the time (he's the face of the franchise, we let Delgado walk so now we have to keep Wells, there are no other decent CF's on the market).

Had Wells continued to hit the way he did in the couple of years before signing the contract, you could argue that the Jays got a reasonable deal. Obv he didn't deserve to get the 7th or whatever largest contract in the history of baseball to that point, but it's also true that nobody could have predicted how bad he'd become.

no, i wasn't thinking of Wells at all.

if anything i was thinking more about the scenario that leads to someone like Delgado walking.

I'm using hindsight and voting for Mike Hampton. Though I guess if we're really playing the long game, the Hampton and Neagle fiascos have made the Rockies FO ignore the possibility of signing hyper-expensive free agents, rather concentrating on the farm and reclamation prospects, which has served us very well the last few years.

Denny NAGL

howard 0-7 5 ks tonight

And an ejection, don't forget.

PLATINUM

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

126 Million Barry Zito 2007

proof, the Giants are leaving him off the 2010 post season roster.

The Giants are leaving not only Zito, but also Renteria and Rowand... their THREE highest salaried players (all healthy mind you) off their playoff roster, proof that the team is run by a Real Housewife of the Berkeley Hills.

That most recent A-rod contract is a humdinger innit..

Clearly those three Giants contracts were bad moves, but that hasn't stopped Sabean from assembling a very competitive team around them. Isn't the ultimate value of a GM determined by how good the team is, not based on which players make the most money? Since he made the terrible Zito and Rowand moves the Giants have made several good decisions, so it seems kinda weird to keep hammering him for those moves when the team is doing so well, and frankly is in position to dominate the division for the next few years. I don't think there's a team in the division that has recently drafted three better players than Posey, Lincecum, and Bumgarner.

vernon wells had a good year, certainly good enough that if he were to keep at it for the remainder of the contract it wouldn't be a complete waste. zito was good for one half and now, yeah...it's not his fault he got all that money and he seems like a bro but it's a horrible deal. the more recent a-rod one is pretty ridiculous, too. how much longer on that one?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

surprised at #s 2 & 4!

100 Million Albert Pujols 2004     1

Poly, just given Sabean's track record, I have to assume that the Stopped Clock Principle applies here. However, he and the scouting dept. do deserve credit for the recent drafts (don't forget Sanchez, whom I'd written off as early as this year, and the relievers).

/guilty

for the lawlz... :D

You mean you resisted voting for Zito? o_O

Anyway, I assume you voted Pooholes because of his advanced age?

i def voted twice, i think santana was the other one but i can't recall for sure. :P

i didnt cheat with multiple accounts but im pretty sure i voted johan a month ago and mauer two days ago. are polls broken?

When cookies expire you can vote again. Long polls are good for that.

what a moral swamp

ha ha!

i only voted once and my horse still won!

I'm posting the exact opposite here--or maybe this is the worst contract post free-agency from a player's standpoint. Ozzie Albies, of course. For seven million this year, the Braves have a 4.0-5.0 WAR second baseman with 30 HR, 100 RBI, and a .500+ slugging percentage, just heading into what should be the prime of his career. They also have him for the same seven million in 2024 and 2025.

Stephen Strasburg has retired. He signed a $245,000,000 contract in 2019 but threw only 530 pitches in the big leagues after that. pic.twitter.com/rrPKMmChwS

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) April 7, 2024

Actually unbelievable. They got their ring though 🤷‍♂️

I think Strasburg would have been good for a few more years if he had stayed healthy, unlike most of the players discussed on this thread.

this was a trickier situation than usual due to the size of the money owed to Strasburg and the Nationals' lack of insurance for his contract, which usually mitigates long-term injury risk.

i have no idea what it would have cost to insure a contract like that, but wow was forgoing it a terrible decision

It might not have been insurable if he had a history of injury

i hate to say it since i will love him forever, but that contract the Rockies gave Kris Bryant is looking pretty bad.

patrick corbin's first season in washington (2019):
14-7, 3.25 ERA, 138 ERA+, 5.0 bWAR (regular season)
2-3, 5.79 ERA in the playoffs but hey flags fly forever

patrick corbin's next 4+ seasons in washington:
28-61, 5.62 ERA, 73 ERA+, -1.9 bWAR

patrick corbin's earnings with washington: $140m

anthony rendon is having a rough one too

Padres shortstop second baseman Xander Bogaerts has nine seasons left on his deal, not including this season (he's on the IL and may not play again this year...)

(while terrible this season, he had time to get it together and he was good in 2023, so this is a speculative pick)

I think this has been raised in this thread before: I always differentiate between deals that go unexpectedly wrong, and ones you know are bad from the outset (Hampton and Zito are the two that come to mind). Bogaerts was so durable and so consistently good before this season (the term was maybe a bit much, but not unheard of).

The Zito contract meant he could pitch the two games of his life in the 2012 postseason so I don’t think anyone regrets that now

I looked at the two games, and at his start in the divisional series before that, and we disagree there.

the term was maybe a bit much, but not unheard of

you can make an argument for giving pujols or harper or trout or mookie or shohei decade-long deals as they head into their 30s -- those guys are all-timers and multiple mvp-winners. obviously the pujols deal was a disaster, and trout's is headed that way*. the others will need to win some titles.

*(tbf, people want to come to the park simply to see the latter four play, which is awesome and worthwhile. i'm not sure pujols was ever that kind of draw for the angels, but my god he was *so* good in st. louis)

anyway X is a really good player but he's not their calibre, and having to move him to 2B in the second year of an 11-year contract is alarming. but he's definitely a better bet than eric hosmer

Since we're on the subject, just came across this right now on my FB wall--weird!

https://i.postimg.cc/8kmy2PJK/lyman.jpg

This is amazing:

After the 1977 season ended, Bostock became one of baseball's earliest big-money free agents, and signed with the California Angels, owned by Gene Autry. Bostock had made $20,000 with the Twins in 1977 and signed a $2.3 million, six-year contract with the Angels. The Twins, Padres and Yankees had all tried to sign Bostock. Almost immediately, Bostock donated $10,000 to a church in his native Birmingham, Alabama to rebuild its Sunday school.

The 1978 season started off poorly for Bostock; he batted .150 for the month of April. Bostock met with the team's management and attempted to return his April salary, saying he had not earned it. The team refused, so Bostock announced he would donate his April salary to charity.

"He came into my office and told me he was reluctant to take his salary," Angels' general manager Buzzy Bavasi recalled. "He said, 'I'm not doing my job.' But I told him, 'I won't let you do that.' And he says, 'Why not?' So I told him, 'What if you hit .600 next month? You're sure as hell not getting any more money out of me.'"

Thousands of requests came in for the money, and Bostock reviewed each one of them, trying to determine who needed it the most. After his poor April, Bostock hit .404 in June and was hitting .296 when he was killed in September.

I looked at the two games, and at his start in the divisional series before that, and we disagree there.

We just disagree gyac. It's a game from 12 years ago...

Forget it, clemenza, it’s China Basin…

also lyman bostock is a fantastic Baseball Name

(rip)

It was a sad story already, and after reading all that, doubly so. (Agree about him name: euphonious.)

"him" = "his"