When Brewers ace Yovani Gallardo signed his five year, $30.1MM extension earlier today, it marked the largest contract ever signed by a pitcher with less than three years of service time.
Let's look at the richest contracts by service time, in terms of guaranteed money…
Less Than One Year
Position Player: Ryan Braun. Eight years, $45MM
Pitcher: C.C. Sabathia. Four years, $9.5MM.
One To Two Years
Position Player: Chris Young. Five years, $28MM.
Pitcher: Fausto Carmona. Four years, $15MM.
Two To Three Years
Position Player: Hanley Ramirez. Six years, $70MM.
Pitcher: Yovani Gallardo. Five years, $30.1MM.
Three To Four Years
Position Player: Albert Pujols. Seven years, $100MM.
Pitcher: Scott Kazmir. Three years, $28.5MM.
Four To Five Years
Position Player: Miguel Cabrera. Eight years, $152.3MM.
Pitcher: Justin Verlander. Five years, $80MM.
Five To Six Years
Position Player: Derek Jeter. Ten years, $189MM.
Pitcher: Jake Peavy. Three years, $52MM.
Six-plus Years
Position Player: Alex Rodriguez. Ten years, $275MM.
Pitcher: C.C. Sabathia. Seven years, $171MM.
Some thoughts…
- The most regrettable deals were signed very early in the player's career, Young and Carmona. Might be a lesson in using up those pre-arbitration years before taking the plunge.
- The largest contract signed by a position player with less than one year of service time after Braun's deal is Evan Longoria's, which will pay him just $17.5MM over six years. Is Braun overpaid, or is Longoria underpaid? I think the answer is clear.
- Sabathia's four year, $9.5MM deal nearly tripled Roy Halladay's three year, $3.7MM deal with Toronto, which was the previous record for a pitcher with less an a year of service time.
- One only of the above contracts has expired.
Thanks to Cot's Baseball Contracts for the info.
I think Longoria is well underpaid.
What gave you that crazy idea?
me too switchhitingjesus i just wont tell friedman that lol
Jason Heyward should be on that list within a matter of weeks, methinks.
I hope I’m talking about the right Chris Young here…but wow, you can’t just hand out contracts like that to anyone with one to two years of service time. Too risky, especially because of the dreaded sophomore slump.
Braun was a steal.
Longoria was a supa-steal
In fairness to the Carmona deal…..if he improves this year, that deal isn’t as bad since it includes not 1 not 2 but 3 team option years after that. So could turn into a good deal. Definitely looks bad now though.
The CC deal worked out very well. What’s not included in here was that CC was willing to except a cheap extention since he felt the Indians did well by him when he was young. People forget that CC was suppose to be a free agent after the 2006 season. He agreed to a 2 year extentions during the 2006 season. So locking up guys early does have it’s benefits.
There are definite risks…..but I’d argue there’s less of a risk then locking up any free agent player. You see more busts there than with young player signings……
The Carmona deal doesn’t look so good in retrospect. I’m not sure it looks all that good going forward either. But you never know with pitchers, even good pitchers go through uneven and inconsistent performance. Only Fausto’s has lasted the better part of 2 seasons now.
If you consider that Longoria has two years less and will likely sign a mega deal when it runs out paying him 18-22 million per year, the total 8 year value of his earnings could significantly exceed Ryan Braun’s…
Really good point that wasn’t mentioned! Obviously buying out Free Agent years of someone who could be a superstar should cost quite a bit extra. Never really thought of it that way until you mentioned it though!
Really good point that wasn’t mentioned! Obviously buying out Free Agent years of someone who could be a superstar should cost quite a bit extra. Never really thought of it that way until you mentioned it though!
Interesting that in all categories, the position player’s contract was significantly higher salaried than the pitcher (averaging about 3x more).
Interesting that in all categories, the position player’s contract was significantly higher salaried than the pitcher (averaging about 3x more).
This is deceiving with so many players receiving so much before ever even stepping on the field. Like say the 5 year, 10MM with full-no-trade joke of a deal we gave Shark-Bait out of ND. It tops the one given to Sabathia
Hey mike i just wanted to let you know that CC’s contract was for 161 million, not 171 million. Thanks