worst contract out of these $100 million contracts

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!

Jonah Keri ranks the top 15 stinkers currently on the books

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8914127/jonah-keri-worst-contracts-mlb

Good job by whoever picked ARod in the original poll, but I think Hampton still "wins" for almost putting up a negative WAR during the length of the contract. Looking back at his numbers now, I can't believe that a guy who was walking 100 batters per year got a $100M contract.

Some skepticism about Felix's contract:

http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/02/king-felixs-new-clothes/

(The writer is not claiming it as the worst, by any means, but this seemed like an appropriate thread.)

I agree that its a little bizarre to give a guy a record-setting deal when he's not even a free agent yet, but you do have to consider that A) Seattle may have to overpay to get superstars and B) these contracts aren't ever built to be great in their last year or two. you overpay in the end because a guy who produces 8 WAR is really worth $45m or so and you can't pay that much in one year. that said Felix seems to cap out at 6 WAR. seems like another slight upside/massive downside signing but I guess Seattle feels they'll really be competitive in a few years?

Vernon Wells would get a lot more votes if we did this poll today.

Neyer wrote last week about the dodgy future of pitchers w/ Felix's workload, age etc.

the Vernon Wells signing was obviously pretty bad but I'm much more baffled by the Angels trading for him after the awfulness of his contract was long since established

Bonus points go to contracts that were indefensible at the time. Wells' was at least somewhat defensible -- he'd been a 4-5 win player on average up until then, still a good defender, and was entering his age-27 season. The market for outfielders was thin, and he was a popular homegrown player. I don't think the disaster signs were obvious compared to the Zito and Hampton signings (or A-Rod's 2007 re-up).

Most of the debate was about giving superstar money to a guy who wasn't a true superstar. The Jays had been waiting for Wells to break out for a while and then paid him like the player they expected him to be, not the player he was. There are always guys like that e.g. Jay Bruce where people keep expecting a breakout season but it never comes and eventually you just accept that he is who he is. Even so, the argument was that the Jays were paying 5-6 win money for a 3-4 win player, but even that wouldn't have been so bad.

i always appreciate being reminded how legendarily awful adam dunn's 2011 season was

Has anyone ever had a worse season? I mean usually the "worst case" scenario for these big guys in their 30's is that they wind up around 0-1 WAR like Wells has but I've never seen a dropoff so steep where it got to the point that the guy was actively way worse than replacement level and was outhit by like half the pitchers in the league. And he was in a situation where the Sox had really no choice but to play him. You might never see another season like that again!

Not anywhere close to $100 million (relative peanuts, though not for you or me), but who knew that Bobby Bonilla was still getting--and will continue to get--million-dollar cheques for the next two decades?

the highest paid relievers lolz

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/9/17/6264159/highest-paid-relievers-baseball

the current worst

http://grantland.com/features/worst-mlb-contracts-2015-alex-rodriguez-ryan-howard-prince-fielder/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9c1IY7CEAI4C6n.jpg

zing

1 war is worth abt 6m now on the market right?

after this year, yeah. chart should adjust for WARflation for the older deals.

Ryan Howard for the win!

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.