Worst Contracts in baseball - Grantland

[MoreTrife]

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

 

some real ugly ones in there. a few former Brewers on there. Certainly happy calling them former Brewers now when looking at those contracts. Woof! Fielder 6 yrs, 144 mill!

 

Would have been happy to get (and certainly would've been more reasonable) them at the Melvin special of 4-5 yrs $100 million.

[gregmag]

I was just reading this yesterday. A lot of us thought Fielder would end up on this list. We dodged a bullet. That said, I love the guy, and I hope he comes back, earns his money, and proves us doubters wrong.

 

I was half-expecting to see Braun's name on this list. Obviously this year is pivotal. If he can come back as some version of his productive self, his contract will look fine. Not great, but okay.

[JackNicholson1974]

Melvin supposedly did everything he could to keep Sabathia and Fielder. Some fans didnt believe he did enough. Thank goodness we arent stuck with them.

 

This is the new-age of baseball, which is really the old-age of baseball. In the 90s and early 2000s players actually got BETTER after the age of 30 with PEDs. In the 70s and 80s it was common place for players to be shells of their former selves after the age of 33.

 

When contracts were being handed out in the late 90s and early 2000s it was never a second thought to give a 29-31 year old Free Agent a 5-8 year deal, because they were using PEDs to keep themselves from breaking down. Now a guy hits 30 and he wants a 5-10 year deal but he might be league average or worse by the time he is 34.

 

In my opinion the increase in value of youth combined with league minimum salaries and team friendly deals that buy out 1-2 years of FA hugely favor small market teams, or at the very least, put small market teams on the same footing as the big spenders, as it allows teams to secure talent from the age of 21-23 up until age 30, after 30 let the Angels pay some one 25 million a year for 10 years and dont look back.

[reillymcshane]

Big contracts for people past 30 rarely work out, especially in the post-PED era. Doesn't mean they can't, but for the most part, they are usually poor investments.

 

A basic franchise model should be to plan on a player being with the team 5-6 years (through the arby years). The player is then traded before reaching free agency (replenishing your young, cheap player pool) or allowed to leave via free agency (hopefully with a draft pick compensation attached). Some players, especially your better guys, you can try and lock up earlier and buy out a year or two of free agency (like what we did with Lucroy and Gomez).

 

As hard as it is sometimes, you're usually better off letting a player in the 30+ age group leave than give them a 5+ year contract.

 

It should be noted that every player and situation is different. The model can (and should) be a guideline - not a hard and fast rule that is never broken. But by adhering to the rule (for the most part), it allows you to bend the rules when you really need to.

[MadScientist]

Melvin supposedly did everything he could to keep Sabathia and Fielder. Some fans didnt believe he did enough. Thank goodness we arent stuck with them.

 

Actually the 5 year deal offered to CC would have worked out well enough. I would have been done two years ago, just before the decline. Fielder would have been bad, but at least not as bad as the actual contract.

[reillymcshane]

Melvin supposedly did everything he could to keep Sabathia and Fielder. Some fans didnt believe he did enough. Thank goodness we arent stuck with them.

 

Actually the 5 year deal offered to CC would have worked out well enough. I would have been done two years ago, just before the decline. Fielder would have been bad, but at least not as bad as the actual contract.

Sabathia's contract is (somewhat) unique in that he was entering his prime (age 28) when he became a FA. The Yankees, if they had been smart, would have let him walk when he had his opt-out option after year four (of course, hindsight is 20-20). Still, the guy was entering his age 32 season and had a ton of miles on his arm. But this being the Yankees, they rolled the dice with a 5-year/$120 millionish extension.

[SRB]

More A-Rod hate from the petty baseball media.

 

3/$60M is the worst contract in baseball? Really?

 

He is firmly at the end of his career, but from 2012-2013 A-Rod still hit .265/.352/.428 for a .342 wOBA. In 166 G he was worth 2.7 rWAR, which means he was about a league average starter.

 

At the market rate $20M/season is what, 2.5 WAR? I don't know if he will be worth 2.5 WAR per season after an entire year away from baseball, but as old as A-Rod is he's not even 40 yet, and he is one of the most talented players of all time. Without any sense of hyberbole, I bet you could bring Barry Bonds out of retirement tomorrow, start him at DH, and he could put up a 2.5 WAR season.

 

If the Yankees would stop being idiots and just let A-Rod play, he likely would not justify that contract but he wouldn't be a disaster. The Yankees and the baseball media have created a circus. That is the only reason it's a bad contract as opposed to a slight overpay.

[Ennder]

The thing is most of these contracts were called bad by at least the stat guys when they happened. Verlander was questionable but not totally unreasonable, Shoo is just incomplete at this point. The other 8 were instantly viewed as bad deals. Why do the GMs not realize this?

[davego]

I'm quietly pulling for A-Rod. I was never a fan, but now I think I support him (some) due to the excessive criticism directed at him. Like the heel in WWE.

[Warning Track Power]

I'm quietly pulling for A-Rod. I was never a fan, but now I think I support him (some) due to the excessive criticism directed at him. Like the heel in WWE.

He is beyond unlikeable and I was a huge A-Rod defender because I thought he received excessive criticism. Then he came out in 2010-ish and said he used in Texas and then all the details of the Biogenesis thing. The guy is a just a chronic liar and phony. I get that Braun could be called the same but he at least has tried to rehab his image around Milwaukee and in interviews.

 

Serious question...What has A-Rod done?

[MadScientist]

I'm quietly pulling for A-Rod. I was never a fan, but now I think I support him (some) due to the excessive criticism directed at him. Like the heel in WWE.

He is beyond unlikeable and I was a huge A-Rod defender because I thought he received excessive criticism. Then he came out in 2010-ish and said he used in Texas and then all the details of the Biogenesis thing. The guy is a just a chronic liar and phony. I get that Braun could be called the same but he at least has tried to rehab his image around Milwaukee and in interviews.

 

Serious question...What has A-Rod done?

 

He's taken and continues to take a large chunk of money from the Yankees that could have been used to inflate prices for other FA's that the Brewers might want. So I'm fine with him getting the bonus for hitting 6 more homers, just because. Also he and the other horrible contracts may help reign things in so that the Brewers are in better shape to compete.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I loved this line, and it made me actually chuckle out loud

 

Bobby Bonilla, for example, will be getting money from the Mets until the sun explodes

[danzig6767]

The thing is most of these contracts were called bad by at least the stat guys when they happened. Verlander was questionable but not totally unreasonable, Shoo is just incomplete at this point. The other 8 were instantly viewed as bad deals. Why do the GMs not realize this?

I've been wondering this for awhile.

 

Take Votto. When he was healthy and at his best, i think he is the last hitter in the NL i'd want at the plate vs the Brewers in say the 9th inning of a close game with the bases loaded. What a fabulous hitter when healthy, but that contract he got was ridiculous given the length and dollar amount.

 

My guess as to why GM's do these mega long term deals is they want to win in the present and think odds are they won't be around when the very ugly side of the contracts fully hit on the back end, so then it will be the problem for a different GM to deal with.

[MadScientist]

My guess as to why GM's do these mega long term deals is they want to win in the present and think odds are they won't be around when the very ugly side of the contracts fully hit on the back end, so then it will be the problem for a different GM to deal with.

 

I don't think GM's plan to not be around, but there are a number of reasons for signing a short-sighted, long-term contract.

1) Owner pressure to do something to win and/or put butts in seats.

2) Win now. A WS win will buy a GM time during a re-build.

3) Hope that revenue growth will make bad contracts not so bad.

[pete]

Yeah, Giants have signed some stinky contracts and if I were to say that near Bochy or Sabean they'd probably use their World Series rings to reflect sunlight into my eyes.

[tmwiese55]

But the Giants can afford a 150 mil + payroll so can absorb the screwups of Zito, Lincecum, Rowand, and a few others over the last few years. Teams like MKE and KC can't take those risks.

 

I laughed at the Votto contract as soon as I saw it. Combine it with the Phillips and Bailey and Cincy will soon be the worst team in the NL Central. Milwaukee has avoided those long term albatrosses so far so we can consistently be competitive. I'd rather toil away in the 75-85 window that we appear destined for most years and then hope for the right situation to present itself and then go for it, like we did in 08 and 11. Beats the heck out of what they did from the early 90s until 2005.

[Ennder]

Yeah, Giants have signed some stinky contracts and if I were to say that near Bochy or Sabean they'd probably use their World Series rings to reflect sunlight into my eyes.

 

I consider the Giants the Eli Manning of baseball. They got hot at the right time and had some better teams play poorly to help them out. Those Giants teams (in both sports) were not one of the 5 best teams in their sport when they won their championships. I think it is idiotic to judge a QB by his Super Bowl wins but it is just as bad to judge a GM by World Series wins. It is rare in today's game that the best team wins it all.

[danzig6767]

Yeah, Giants have signed some stinky contracts and if I were to say that near Bochy or Sabean they'd probably use their World Series rings to reflect sunlight into my eyes.

 

I consider the Giants the Eli Manning of baseball. They got hot at the right time and had some better teams play poorly to help them out. Those Giants teams (in both sports) were not one of the 5 best teams in their sport when they won their championships. I think it is idiotic to judge a QB by his Super Bowl wins but it is just as bad to judge a GM by World Series wins. It is rare in today's game that the best team wins it all.

There is some truth in that, but a few thoughts

 

1. Bottom line is the number one objective in pro sports is to win a championship and the SF Giants have three in the last five years. So regardless of the randomness factor which can take place in the MLB playoffs, you have to be doing something right to accomplish that. Poorly run MLB teams won't win three rings in five years.

 

2. A team has to first make the playoffs to have a chance at that ring and in the long 162 game season which baseball has, good fortune won't allow a very mediocre team to keep making the playoffs as the Giants have under Sabean.

 

That said, what those Giants teams, the Cardinals in 2011, and other title winners of the last decade or so have shown is that simply making the playoffs is enough to give pretty much any team in those playoffs a realistic shot to make the World Series. You don't have to have a certain type of roster, just get hot at that time and maybe have a few more breaks fall your way than against you.

 

So while i totally get why a number of Brewers fans get frustrated over Attanasio/Melvin's desire to go with a win now approach each year, history for awhile now has shown that just getting into the playoffs can be enough to have a legit shot to win it all, even if during the regular season they weren't one of the best few teams.

 

BTW, when it comes to Eli Manning, i've yet to hear many if any people who follow the NFL closely say that he's one of the top QB's in the game just because he has two rings. He does deserve plenty of credit though in those two seasons when NY won it all because for all of his faults overall in his career, he did play great in the playoffs during both title winning seasons. He wasn't one of those quarterbacks who was very mediocre in the playoffs, but yet was still lucky enough to get a single ring, much less two. Kinda like Flacco who also hasn't been great in most regular seasons, but has been outstanding in the playoffs the last few trips. That can't be just brushed aside as no big deal.

[Ennder]

Oh he definitely isn't a bad GM. I just think it is being overblown a bit. MLB network listed him as the #1 GM in baseball and it is almost purely based on the world series wins. While that is the goal the point is that the team that is built the best isn't going to win the whole thing even close to half of the time. It takes a skilled GM to get to the playoffs, it takes some good fortune to win it. I'd rather define success by playoff appearances than by world series wins.

[homer]

I loved this line, and it made me actually chuckle out loud

 

Bobby Bonilla, for example, will be getting money from the Mets until the sun explodes

 

 

I thought I read somewhere that there are a lot of contracts like this one. I could be wrong about that.

[logan82]

We have at least 3 right now. Not Bonilla long but at least a couple years after the player is gone.

[645]

Yeah, Every player that becomes a superstar will end up on that list once they pass their prime.