Heyman's Best-Ever Free Agent Deals

Lance Berkman @ $85M/7yrs (or $100/8 if option picked up) is a much better contract than Magglio or Vlad's $75M/5

Pujols' deal was not a free agent signing.

Everybody forget about the sweet deal that the Red Sox got with Dice-K?

Approximately $8.7M per year over 6 years beginning with his age 26 season. And, he's been worth every penny since.

For those who may mention the $51.1M posting fee, that is not part of the contract, and we're talking strictly about contracts

Okajima? More like Joke-ajima.

"Ortiz has done much more than that, and is probably a Hall of Famer based only on the half a career he's spent in Boston."

Cool so not only was it a 1 year deal but now apparently 5 solid seasons as a DH gets you in the HALL OF FAME now?

Hall of Fame players dont clear waivers early in their careers. This article is garbage

Well they did mention Ichiro's posting fee in his contract. And it didn't cost $51 mil.

Ortiz went .288 31 HR 101 RBI in his 1st season in Boston. Was great for the money. But #1? Maddux got a few Cy Youngs and Won a WS in his deal.

And what about Carlos Pena's free agent deal last year? He got $800,000 and hit .282 46 HR 121 RBI

These the best are FREE AGENT signings ever, not the best contracts ever. Pujols, Berkman, Dice-K were not free agents when they signed their current contracts.

People, pay attention (ie, Wreckard), everyone's favorite baseball writer (outside of the genious that is Dayn Perry of course), Mr. Heyman lists Bernie Williams as a signing. So as far as I know Bernie only played for the Yankees, so yes, Pujols and Berkman and their cheap contracts (I'm talking relativity here) could be added to the discussion.

Also, how about Peavy? That's a pretty team friendly deal....

Peavy has also never been a free agent. Unlike the players on Heyman's list.

what I was trying to say, asm, is....I'm stupid.

Yeah. Bernie was a great signing considering he was dead weight and couldn't play the outfield by 2004....

This proves that it's a lot easier to find the worst contracts than the best. I'd be interested to see Tim's list on this as oppose to well, anyone who writes for SI.

I like the Dawson comment. Pena's deal was amazing as well, probably better than Ortiz. I disagree that 1 year deals can't rank with the best, because they can often lead to team friendly deals down the road, as happened with Ortiz.

Vlad's deal was dirt cheap looking back at it, and he includes options. Given his age and production, he is worth twice that easy.

Remember when the A's got Frank Thomas to play basically for free and he catapulted them from never-going-to-be's to within 4 games of a World Series appearance?

Nah that simply didnt happen because its a west coast team, nevermind.

"Awwww how quaint a person using era to discuss a pitchers effectiveness. Oh and congra-tul-ations on turning nonsense into a hypenated word."

What if someone used BB and GB rates?

Really? Papi is better than Bonds? C'mon. Just ... c'mon.

"While Papi and Key led their respective teams to championships, Pena led his to last place in all major league baseball. I'm sure Heymen had that in mind when he made his list."

so you are saying that the Rays would have gone to the playoffs or even won the WS if they had the '03 Papi in their lineup?

Oh wait, they did have the '07 version of Papi and still finished in last. You think that maybe Papi may have had a little help?

I'm a little upset with this site for even linking to SI. The off the cuff responses make more sense than that garbage. Did Heyman run out of TP?

“While Papi and Key led their respective teams to championships, Pena led his to last place in all major league baseball. I'm sure Heymen had that in mind when he made his list.”

…The RedSox didn’t win a championship in 2003 ~ they were the WC, and lost to the Yankees in the Championship series… Besides, he didn’t lead that team ~ that distinction goes to Pedro, or Manny, or Mueller, or Nomar or Varitek etc…

…And Key didn’t lead his team to a championship during the life of his contract either. In 1996, the 4th year of his contract, they did win the WS ~ but Bernie Williams, Paul ONeill, Andy Pettitte, John Wettland and multiple others have to be considered “leading” that team over Key who was like their 3rd-4th best starter. (Behind Pettitte and Cone while basically being a perfect clone of Rogers on the season)

The David Ortiz deal is a good choice to have at the top of the list. To a sign a slugger like Ortiz for a just one million and a quarter, good move there by Epstein. To me, a deal that should be included is the Albert Pujols deal. Since signing the deal, Pujols has really come into his own and is now feared as arguably "the best hitter in the game." He signed for 7 years, $100 million. Some comparable players to Albert have received much more in recent deals. A-Rod at $275 million, Cabrera at $150+ million, sounds like Howard will ask for more than that $100 million, and even though he's not a hitter, do I need to mention the Barry Zio contract at $126 million? All these hitters just mentioned, Pujols puts up numbers almost identical, if not better than those hitters, yet his deal was only at the century mark. To me, Pujols gave the Cards a pretty team-friendly deal for what kind of a hitter and now defensive players that he is.

Seriously, Heyman even mentioning the Braves in connection with Hampton was a joke. The Braves didn't pay him 2003-2005 and got ~430 innings of above league average pitching. In 2006 and 2007, insurance picked up the majority of the tab for Hampton's contract. The Braves had paid him less than $10 million total coming into this season . How is that not an amazing deal?

"No, he was in the twilight of his career."

Who cares if he was past the "twilight of his career", he was absolutely dominant in the 1997 and 1998 seasons.

Ahhh ... the Duquette joke. Flew right over my head.

(And Clemens still should have been on the stupid list.)