Here’s our list of the largest contract each of the 30 MLB teams has ever signed. Each contract is linked to its MLBTR post, with the exception of those that predate the site’s existence.
- Angels: Albert Pujols – 10 years, $240MM (plus personal services contract valued at $6,841,811). Signed 12-8-11.
- Astros: Jose Altuve – 5 years, $151MM. Signed 3-20-18.
- Athletics: Eric Chavez – 6 years, $66MM. Signed 3-18-04.
- Blue Jays: Vernon Wells – 7 years, $126MM. Signed 12-18-06.
- Braves: Freddie Freeman – 8 years, $135MM. Signed 2-4-14.
- Brewers: Ryan Braun – 5 years, $105MM. Signed 4-21-11.
- Cardinals: Matt Holliday – 7 years, $120MM. Signed 1-7-10.
- Cubs: Jason Heyward – 8 years, $184MM. Signed 12-15-15.
- Diamondbacks: Zack Greinke – 6 years, $206.5MM. Signed 12-8-15.
- Dodgers: Clayton Kershaw – 7 years, $215MM. Signed 1-17-14.
- Giants: Buster Posey – 8 years, $159MM. Signed 3-29-13.
- Indians: Edwin Encarnacion – 3 years, $60MM. Signed 1-7-17.
- Mariners: Robinson Cano – 10 years, $240MM. Signed 12-12-13.
- Marlins: Giancarlo Stanton – 13 years, $325MM. Signed 11-18-14.
- Mets: David Wright – 8 years, $138MM. Signed 12-4-12.
- Nationals: Max Scherzer – 7 years, $210MM (present-day value of $191.4MM at time of signing). Signed 1-21-15.
- Orioles: Chris Davis – 7 years, $161MM. Signed 1-21-16.
- Padres: Manny Machado – 10 years, $300MM. Signed 2-19-19.
- Phillies: Bryce Harper – 13 years, $330MM. Signed 2-28-19.
- Pirates: Jason Kendall – 6 years, $60MM. Signed 11-18-00.
- Rangers: Alex Rodriguez – 10 years, $252MM. Signed 12-12-00.
- Rays: Evan Longoria – 6 years, $100MM (team also exercised three club options from previous contract, which had a total value of $30MM). Signed 11-26-12.
- Red Sox: David Price – 7 years, $217MM. Signed 12-4-15.
- Reds: Joey Votto – 10 years, $225MM. Signed 4-2-12.
- Rockies: Nolan Arenado – 7 years, $234MM. Signed 2-26-19.
- Royals: Alex Gordon – 4 years, $72MM. Signed 1-6-16.
- Tigers: Miguel Cabrera – 8 years, $248MM. Signed 3-31-14.
- Twins: Joe Mauer – 8 years, $184MM. Signed 3-21-10.
- White Sox: Jose Abreu – 6 years, $68MM. Signed 10-29-13.
- Yankees: Alex Rodriguez – 10 years, $275MM. Signed 12-13-07.
Good look that the pirates was 20 years ago, and the smallest.
The White Sox is probably the smallest considering market inflation. Embarrassing for a big city team.
Better than Cubs throwing away money for losers like Darvish, Chatwood, and Heyward – just to name a few.
Darvish? He’s been under contract for one season, in which he was injured. He’s always been an excellent pitcher when healthy. I think you may need to hold your horses on that one.
How about the money they spent on Zobrist, Lester, and the bevy of bullpen arms that has helped them have one of the best pens year in and year out? Or we just nitpicking the bad deals on a team that’s been way more relevant than the White Sox the past 5+ years?
U must have missed the 2017 World Series Game 3!!
Darvish a bust.
A sample size of one game? Okay.
Lester a bad sign? He’s probably the best/only large FA sign Epstein has ever made that has worked out decent since he’s been a GM at either Chicago/Boston!
This is the same guy whose previous signs included (the) Julio Lugo, keith Foulke, Carl Crawford, jason heyward, Matt Clement,Edgar Rentaria all those as total wastes, then there was JD Drew and john Lackey who were hit and miss years.
Epstein to build a farm? you bet, but a huge mistake letting him make any calls on FA signs, he’s pure bust all the way.
Heyward?! 8 yrs $184MIL!
That’s what this article is about. The big signings.
Darvish paid to sit out games with his lack of confidence.
and game 7.
Think he’s saying they were good signings. Which Lester was/is.
In my experience as a Cubs fan, Sox fans in general have always been significantly more knowledgeable and informed about their team as well as baseball as a whole. As a diehard fan, it can be really annoying when I get lumped in with the bandwagon fans (and there are plenty) and their half-hearted, insincere enthusiasm for a team I love so much.
So I just want to say thank you for reminding me that there are exceptions to every rule. I’ll have to tell my South Side friends about this absolute moron Sox fan! They’ll be so ashamed lol
When I lived in Chicago I frequented White Sox games – it was the year they won the WS. I mostly went because of the 5$ Mondays and tickets could usually be had pretty easily, even late in the season. I did find the fans pretty knowledgeable and interested more in the game than in the party outside. (It helps that the White Sox stadium doesn’t have its own Wrigleyville), although I did like to go to Home Run Inn before the games). But yeah, that dude seems to have a real pathology.
Fans like you are why the team is the way it is now. Why should the owner spend the money when he can draw his 1.5m fans a year and not have to pay rent on the stadium. Revenue sharing is a beautiful thing
That world series flag you lose so much sleep over is still flying, and still making you look like a fool every time you rant about how badly run the Cubs supposedly are…
Mmmmm..Home Run Inn. Even the frozen pizzas at Jewel are tasty.
Yes, the only frozen pizza that is good, IMO
How full of themselves Cubs fans are. This started as a mention to the Pirates. Quickly got hijacked to be about the Cubs.
It was a white sox ‘fan’ who brought them back in to it, FYI.
How’s the Cubs farm now?
No, it was an anti-Sox fan who started it. Have your mommy read the “embarrassing” comment for you.
Probably a Cubs fan.
His response was actually a factual observation, so not really ‘anti-sox’
Yours was the usual anti-cubs gibberish you’re always making up, which is how the Cubs got drawn into it.
So yeah, it was not a Cubs fan who started down this road, it was your bad trolling.
ChiSox-fan does not speak for White Sox fans, nor does he really ever say anything that supports the White Sox., He is more obsesses with the North Siders and making excuses and trolling on this site. . He is suffering from some form of Cubbie pxxxs envy. If you were a RedSox-fan or a Cardinal’s fan you could brag about this century but White Sox not so much. Red Sox have had lots of bad contracts all the way to the bank. You win some and you lose some but you got to try.
It’s almost as if the teams that win are the ones that take an occasional risk… Weird
Thank you. Nothing annoys me more than a “Sox fan” comparing them to the cubs. Acting like the Sox have had 2 decades of great success.
The white Sox are scared to make a big splash in the off-season because of the 13-14 seasons, and scared to rush young talent up thanks to Gordon Beckhams lack of success.
Really disappointing to be a white Sox fan these days. Go cubs I’ll be rooting for them
Smartest too
The Marlins look good on this list.
Some of these really stand out, and it’s not the big ones.
The worst ones I see are ones that were derided as being bad deals from day 1.
Gordon, Davis,and Wells seem like the worst to me. Maybe Pujols
For me, it’s Davis hands-down. He still has four more years left. It’s right up with Ryan Howard’s awful contract.
I can’t wait for 2015 Davis to show up in 2019 and prove you wrong.
Would also be funny if 2016 Trumbo also showed up and went off.
I honestly think the Orioles won’t be anywhere near as bad as they were last year.
I can’t wait for 1957 Hank Aaron to come out of retirement and prove father time wrong!
Chris davis 2015 is never coming back. just like the angels expected 2011 josh Hamilton when the angels signed him. That sinker down and away killed these guys.
Yea as an Os fan, Davis is definitely a really bad one
anyone seen Miggy 09-16?
Miggy was years from free agency and already a one trick pony. There was no need for that extension.
Him and Pujols are up there with Davis.
If the one trick is winning a triple crown, its hard to complain. Other than his contract making him untradeable, its really had no effect on the Tigers spending.
4 batting titles, 2 MVP’s and a Triple Crown? More like a 3 trick pony. Mike I did not care, he had money to burn. He truly wanted to take care of his players for life. But I agree, the extension timing was unexplainable.
Pirates are disgusting. 19 years since they signed someone to a 60m contract. No wonder fans are pissed. On the other hand the Orioles did a nice job of throwing money away with crash Davis.
Davis got $3M for a 6.5 bWAR season in 2013 and $13M for a 5.3 WAR season in 2015. That is extremely underpaid. The contract is evening up the seasons he was amazing in, not what he did in future/current seasons.
How is this SO HARD for so many posters in this thread to understand?????
Although they mostly signed him to that deal because they didn’t re sign Nelson Cruz and it was a way to “make up” for it
“The contract is evening up the seasons he was amazing in, not what he did in future/current seasons.”
The point is that they have absolutely no obligation to do that. You’re absolutely paying for future performance because you could have just let him walk. Owners aren’t interested in ‘evening up’ anything. Most of them are downright miserly and would gladly pay all of their players league-minimum.
You think the Orioles were thinking, ‘Man, we got a great deal on Chris Davis for a few years. That wasn’t very fair to him. Let’s massively overpay him for the next decade to make up for that, even though his skills are declining and we could just let him walk’? Please.
You are getting close, why can’t everyone just admit owners are always the problem here? True they are under no legal obligation to pay more, but they can and should or else the players will strike again. The players are who we root for, not the faceless billionaire owner who has led a life none of us could even remotely relate to.
The massive, MASSIVE profits the owners are making are increasing year in and year out, EVERY team should have a $200M payroll now, but that adjustment is not happening due to propaganda like Moneyball or just having a beat writer who hates a guy making more money than him.
Sounds like you either think that baseball owners owe YOU something, Or maybe you think all owners should be banned from baseball, so there won’t be any baseball for you to complain about anymore.
I’m not ‘close’, I’m right. You are wrong. Mind-boggling that you can badmouth owners as terrible penny-pinchers in one breath and then say that they’re altruistically overpaying declining years because they got such a good deal on the prime years in the next breath.
Look, I’m with you in that the players should be making more money. But the problem is not with these mega deals. It’s in the arbitration structure that doesn’t allow a player to truly cash in until they’ve been around for 6-7 years. They need to pare down the years on it, or raise the minimum salary by a decent amount. If neither of these things happen, I would fully support them striking.
I’d be really interested in seeing some numbers that support your viewpoint. There is not a ton of information on how much the league or individual teams profit, that I am aware of.
One way to estimate annual earnings is to take the club’s value and divide by a common earnings multiplier. According to Forbes, they value the Yankees the most at $4 billion. A common earnings multiple is 15x for many established industries. So you could estimate the annual pre-tax earnings of the Yankees by taking $4 billion/15 = roughly $270 million. In this context, earnings generally do not include taxes or interest paid by the company. The Yankees player payroll is roughly $200 million (also pre-tax).
Just a rough estimate with a single team. Maybe someone with better data or methodology can chime in.
You and I are of like minds. And of course we are right.
players are the problem for not living up to the contract. They are getting paid for a level of production. They aren’t asking for less as that production goes down. Just saying this to tick S4 off.
Strike Four has some good points and some that I don’t agree with. I do think that MLB profits have went up over the years and the percentage that has went to players has not stayed on pace with that (similar to what has happened to the “middle class” in this country).
I don’t think that the solution to this is for owners to make sure that they overpay for decline years. The entire structure needs to be changed so that younger productive players and minor leagues get more money. This is going to be an interesting CBA negotiation
S4, why is it so hard for you to understand that contracts like that hurt the younger players who DO perform. You complain about that too.
You constantly spew have-filled rants about how much teams have to spend, but when anyone here asks you to back it up with evidence you disappear. Why is that?
BTW, the days of any “make up” contracts are long gone. Is that what has you so upset? Were you the guy who was on the negotiating on behalf of the MLBPA and are embarrassed that you didn’t see the changes coming?
Teams are under no obligation to massively overpay players for past seasons. That whole concept is ludicrous. Oriole fans should just sit there and be happy with the albatross of his contract because he was good for a few years but wasn’t making top pay? In that case the David Wright contract was great!
Of course they are getting paid for past performance. What do you expect them to be paid for? Projections (ie guesses)? No one knows what any player is going to do in the future. As soon as projection become THAT accurate, there is no point in even playing the games anymore. Players get paid for what they actually have done on the field, not for what a computer thinks they might do in a vacuum.
Ok, random question, but are you the same hiflew who posts on Night Owl Cards’ blog?
My God but that’s a terrible defense of a terrible contract… Like, even for an internet argument that’s bad…
You listed about the only 2 good seasons he had before getting the monster deal, and still don’t get why it was a bad deal…
Don’t disrespect Crash like that. Rumor is he’s still crushing bombs (and babes) all over North Carolina.
Pirates…..$60 mil?? Almost 20 yrs ago? Well that sure explains a lot. Changes my mind about the ownership and their mostly losing recent history.
I have to agree with you. I don’t mind teams being frugal but that’s ridiculous. I looked up McCutchen’s contract and it was a 6 year/$51.5 million. He’s making almost as much now for 3 years with the Phillies than he did for his entire peak years with Pittsburgh when he was an All-Star MVP.
Kinda crazy that 3 of these contracts are older than the MLBTR website itself.
Also kind of crazy that A-Rod is on here twice
note that very few of these contracts actually worked themselves out.
Note how you don’t know that teams pay for past performance, not future performance. They are getting paid for getting the minimum when they were elite. How is this so hard for people like you to understand?
The owners created this “bad contract” narrative to help them cheat them system and on top of that they own the media and can force this “this bad contract is hurting the team” narrative that people like you eat up without thinking of the bigger picture for even a second.
It’s not smart to pay players for past performance when they are unlikely to continue at that level.
And when a player changes teams? Are the Phillies paying for what Harper did in Washington? Are the Padres paying for what Machado did in Baltimore?
Is SD paying Hosmer for what he did in KC?
The Angels are paying Albert for his great years in St. Louis. And we thank them!
you must be veron welles. hindered the blue jays with the bad contract., In your logic, the angels nor the blue jays should have never traded welles and the yankees never released him. kendall did not preform close to what he got paid. Rangers never competed in the post season until they dumped rodriguez, and ironically struck out to send texas to the ws.
Votto, freeman, kershaw and Abreau among some actually worked. signed long term contracts before they hit their prime.
Stanton isnt even with the marlins anymore and wright was perpetually injured.. the days of past performance money are dwindling down.
A lot of them are too early to make a final judgment.
Not really. A-Rod (the first one w/ Rangers), Robinson Cano, Ryan Braun, Matt Holliday, Freddie Freeman, Jose Abreu, Max Scherzer, and Evan Longoria have all been great values for their teams. That’s 8 out of 30, or 27%, which is hardly “very few.”
Then about 3 of them are about neutral in value: Joe Mauer, Eric Chavez, Jason Kendall,,
Another 5 or so of these were just signed in the last 2 years so it’s too early to analyze them: Altuve, Machado, Harper, Price, Arenado
That’s already 16, which means at worst, only the remaining 14 can be classified as bad signings.
How can you qualify the first A-Rod deal as a good value for the Rangers when they had to pay money to the Yankees to get our from under it and it resulted in the Rangers filing for bankruptcy and then having to sell the team?
Those 5 contracts signed in the last 2 years are not exempt from consideration as bad contracts they are just too early to tell.. Incidentally Price was 3 years ago and they were ready to run him out of town after 2 and at $10 million per WAR so far it hasn’t been good value and is only likely to get worse as he ages.
This puts it back up to as many as 20.
A-rod put up 25WAR over those 3 years in Texas. Missed 1 single game. Led the league in HR every year. OPS over 1.000. Literally couldn’t have performed better.
Wow. A lot to unpack here.
Alex Rodriguez put up over 50 fWAR under the life of the contract. That the Rangers had financial management issues and failed to actually build a legitimate contender around him (hence the reset 3 years later) has nothing to do with this discussion.
Lastly, the Rangers traded him away in 2004, and the Rangers filed for bankruptcy in 2010, so it is quite disingenuous to paint a straight line between the two. In reality, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes, from a major financial recession, to an owner who suddenly wanted to abstain from supporting the team. The below Reuters article provides additional reading on this topic (and the ESPN article verifies other details mentioned here).
See:
espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/14330504/alex-rodriguez-25…
reuters.com/article/us-texasrangers-bankruptcy/tex…
At $3.7 million per WAR back then he was only worth $31 million on average. When you add in the extra money they had to pay to get rid of him they wound up paying $116.8 million for 3 years, an overpay of $8 million per season.
businessinsider.com/arod-career-earnings-by-team-2…
blogs.wsj.com/bankruptcy/2010/05/24/texas-rangers-…
“New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez has $24.9 million in deferred pay at risk in the Texas Rangers’ bankruptcy case stemming from the record-breaking contract he signed with the Arlington, Texas, ball club after the 2000 season.
Rodriguez tops the list of the Rangers’ unsecured creditors”
You have to go a little deeper than that. They obviously had the money in 2001 when they signed him in the first place. Then in 2009 they no longer had the money? It was the same amount of money per year every year. So where did the money go? Either they never had the money to begin with and made poor financial choices, or they made poor financial choices in the interim 8 years, and rendered themselves unable to continue paying A-Rod.
There is a missing variable in this story, and it is not Alex Rodriguez.
ARoid put up 25 steroid fueled WAR over those 3 years in Texas.
There, FTFY.
Some of these contracts you consider good value, I would have to disagree.
The first ARod contract handcuffed the Rangers even though he played at elite levels.
The Mariners just unloaded Cano’s contract.
Braun has had one good year during his extension and is not a good player any longer.
Longoria was unloaded after the first year of his extension. The Rays kicked in some money to the Giants.
The contract for Chavez probably handcuffed the A’s during the last half of it.
I have no problem with players getting as much as they can. I also have no problem with owners being skittish in the recent free agent markets, especially since the chances of a long term expensive contract panning out is probably more like 25% to 33%.
Evan Longoria’s contract began in 2013, and the Rays received great production from him for 5 years thereafter.
Rangers bailing on A-Rod had way more to do with the Rangers. See my above comment that I just posted on that.
Mariners unloaded Cano’s contract after receiving elite production for 4.5 years, with 20 fWAR already in. Just because they don’t deem his contract to be valuable going forward, doesn’t mean it was not a great value in the aggregate.
You’re right on Ryan Bruan though. I had his two contracts mixed up, and forgot the expensive one started in 2016 (as opposed to 2009 when he signed his first one). He definitely goes in the “bad” pile. So sorry about that.
Ok, I give you Cano, but Longoria still has 4 years, $73 million left on his contract. He has not been an All-Star for years and needs to be at least above average the rest of the way.
It is at best a coin flip that a long term free agent contract will be at least a neutral value.
“Mariners unloaded Cano’s contract after receiving elite production for 4.5 years, with 20 steroid fueled fWAR already in.
There, FTFY.
I wouldn’t say “very few.” It seems, just at first glance, that about half of these ended up being decent contracts, and probably a quarter of them are too soon to tell.
Just rough and dirty, looking at this list
Good or at least neutral contracts:
Braun
Kendall
Freeman
Holliday
Greinke
Kershaw
Posey
Cano
Scherzer
A-Rod (on-field performance only)
Votto
Mauer
Price
Abreu
Bad
Wells
Pujols
Heyward
Encarnacion
Davis
Longoria
Miggy
Gordon
Injury:
Chavez
Wright
Too soon:
Altuve
Machado
Harper
Wild Card:
Stanton
So IMO, it’s not completely dire, and it’s not really figuring in things like impact on attendance or jersey sales or other sorts of off-field impact. (the Phillies famously set a one-day record when they introduced Harper’s jersey for sale, and I’m sure the Padres are selling mountains of Machado jerseys”
A more interesting list to me would be “players who produced the most pre-FA value for their teams.”
It will be interesting to keep track of how many of these contracts get traded. I count six so far with a bunch more that the signing team would have loved to trade if they could get another sucker organization to take it.
I would really like to see these ranked from best to worst.
Not surprised to see the Mets at 20th on this list. And they’re getting a good chunk of it back on insurance.
I would say about 7 out of the 30 are actually good contracts rest are either border line bad or down right scary
You pay for past performance, not future performance – why do people keep thinking otherwise?
Which is why mlb is going towards a lockout no way can average salary keep steadily rising soo high while viewership keeps going down
Profits are getting exponentially higher every single season, I don’t know what lies you are believing that made you post this.
I can’t tell if your just crazy or a snotty troll
I can’t tell if you are just an idiot, or a moron
Thanks for the clarification friend
It’s ok, also your and you’re are different words #themoreyouknow #dontinsultmefirstIwillinsultyouback
Strike Four seems like an unhappy person or a bitter agent. That, or way too much caffeine.
S4, the whole move to analytics is changing that.
Teams are no longer willing to pay guys for past performance. I realize that has you upset, but things ain’t the way they use to be and they’re not going back there.
The MLBPA has to figure out a way to get guys paid when they are younger. That means they are going to have to give up something to get that.
I don’t know what that is, but the next CBA is going to be a doozy to negotiate.
If the players strike, let them. I love watching baseball, but I have other things I love to do also. The big losers will be the players if they do strike – especially the high paid ones.
If they strike for almost a full season like they did back in the 90’s, the Stantons, Greinkes, Arenados, Harpers, Prices and many others will lose millions they will never get back.
of the 5 teams that have never handed out a 9 figure deal, 3 are in the AL central. interesting
MLB should put the owners of the A’s, Pirates, Rangers, Angels, Blue Jays, Brewers, Cardinals, Mets, Twins and Yankees on the clock to break their team record within the next 3 years. Yankees (Judge, etc), Angels, Mets and Cards (probably on Goldy) will have no problem, but the other teams are just pocketing profits over improving their teams and MLB should force them to spend on players, or sell their team.
Are you going to order fans to go to games and watch teams on TV that are in last place but meet your payroll requirements? People have a lot of sports and entertainment choices. They will pay up to see a winner, but won’t even take discounted tickets to see a loser. Baseball is a business and they recognize this. Build a winner and get paid or cut costs and gear up for a future winner.
Ummm, teams can actually draw zero fans and still make hundreds of millions in profit. You don’t understand just how much money MLB makes. Please do some googling, it will blow your mind.
A team like the Royals won a World Series without a big contract. Why would the MLB force teams to spend and match large market teams?
Gordon’s $18mil a year didn’t exactly work out great to continue our teams winning. Sure, we paid him for his name, for leading us to two pennants and a championship, and he had great defense the entire contract.
But the Royals didn’t win off mass spending. Most teams don’t win off mass spending. So maybe you just don’t understand winning in the MLB as much as you think you do.
The As are always contending every couple years at least without spending big on free agency. They’re great for the league.
The pirates had a few good years without paying big money. Maybe they could spend more but why is it the leagues place to force them to?
The Jays. The Brewers. All teams you mentioned that have had great success in recent years.
You mentioned the Angels, who have been bogged down by Pujols and his deal since he signed it. Sure, he has been good but the big contracts they also gave to Weaver and Wilson really killed their chance to build a team around Trout. So why did you even mention them? They’re probably the top example as to why spending doesn’t help a team.
The A’s are great for the league and owners profits, but terrible for the players who make those profits. The A’s are actually terrible for baseball and Moneyball is pro-owner propaganda.
W-L record is not what this is about. You connected those dots why?
This is about paying players in a broken system the correct amount of money for those elite seasons at a later date.
This whole notion of “Bogged down” is owner propaganda – owners have UNLIMITED money. You think otherwise, why???
Easy to spend other people’s money I see. “W-L is not what it’s about.” What are you even arguing here?? Lol. It’s a business. Sure. A business that draws fans and success no matter what. But draws immensely more when you win.
I think you’re just a troll, or an imbecile or both. Would you have any major leaguer make 10 million a year without proving themselves?
I like how you didn’t mention anything about the Angels. Spending crippled their franchise success.
Spending money on big name players is impossible for the Royals and small market teams.
It isn’t black and white. Owners don’t have “unlimited money.” Lol.
Keyboard warrior over here knows the ins and outs of baseball ownership. What team do you own?
“Ummm, teams can actually draw zero fans and still make hundreds of millions in profit. ”
You have been asked numerous times on this site by many to back up these kinds of statements:
Here’s your chance……………..
hello? you there…………………?
We wouldn’t know since teams never really lower ticket prices or opt out of exclusive cable-only TV deals which cost fans more than most 1/2 season ticket packages.
You normally have to spend money to field a winning team and nobody knows what the season holds until you play it.
Why are you so sure Goldy will stay in STL?
they’re literally all banking on him loving the “cardinal way” and the “best fans in baseball”, kinda like what happened with jason heyward except that didnt quite work out for them. goldy has been underpaid for his entire career, he’s waited long to hit free agency, i dont think he would take another discount.
My favorite is them always bringing up Matt Holliday even though he was a free agent when he signed with STL and no other team is confirmed to have offered him more money.
And anytime you bring up Heyward they’re all like “And how’s that contract working out for CHC?” like they weren’t genuinely upset when he chose to sign with the Cubs over them.
exactly. the team that offers the most money will get goldy, i doubt he’ll sign a huge extension before he even plays a single game for stl
the Mets dont have a good candidate unless they get DeGrom to bite, and the Angels have a goos chance of not being able to offer him enough money regardless.
How on earth do you make the list of teams that ‘will have no problem’ breaking their previous record and leave out the Angels and Mike Trout? And wouldn’t a much, much better plan to be to institute a salary floor and not just ‘oh hey, you paid Vernon Wells an insane amount of money a few years ago, now you MUST do a contract of greater value’? Good grief.
At first I thought you were joking. Now I realize you’re serious. What a nutty idea.
Interesting mix of deals. Some worked out well, some handcuffed teams for years.
NONE of these deals handcuffed any team – that is owner propaganda making you believe that outright lie. These are billionaires who make hundreds of millions in profit off their team every year.
Why do fans think owners are just regular people like them? Oh right, they also control the media and do hit pieces on player salaries constantly, and being that you don’t respect that baseball skills drive a billion dollar industry, you don’t like how much more money the players make than you, and you buy into the propaganda. But you need to be questioning the owners motives, not the players.
The former Rangers owners would dispute that as the A-Rod deal lead to the team being sold in bankruptcy court.
Don’t use facts here, you might scare him away
None of the deals handcuffed teams?
Are you making this up as you go along?
Yeah, Strike Four makes a lot of stuff up.
Either that, or he believes what he is typing, which then makes him batsh*t crazy.
The vast majority of these contracts are bad to terrible. I don’t want to side with the owners because they are raking it in or worse, trying not to win, but when the vast majority of big contracts are regrettable I can see their point.
How about a 5 year 250 mil salary cap? That would take the risk out of some of the horrible long term contracts. And a lot of players would start making a lot more money.
Terrible idea. Listen, you pay the SEVERELY UNDERPAID PLAYERS FOR THE ELITE YEARS THEY HAD AT MINIMUM WAGE.
I am getting sick of repeating myself here, but EVERYONE needs to understand this.
Maybe stop repeating yourself then? Wouldn’t want you to throw up all over your keyboard/phone.
Why do like 90% of posters in here just not get it though? I explained why but fans really do think players make “too much” money…in an industry….that makes billions of dollars…..that is dictated by the players skills….why….
Just because you explained it doesn’t make you right.
Because it’s NOT just dictated by players’ skills. There is a lot more that goes into it than that. Some of these things have been explained to you on this site. Why don’t you “get it”?
Your thinking is so one dimensional you remind me of Raymond Babbitt.
If it makes you feel any better, we’re pretty tired of you repeating it too.
I’m having a good time going back to these old MLBTR articles and reading the comment sections of these mega-deals.
funny how many people criticised the people who even suggested the Pujols contract couldve gone bad eventually.
The Pujols Contact didn’t go bad. It helped the Angels sign a multi billion dollar TV contract.
All moves are not all about the product on the field.
By “gone bad”, I believe he is referring to the player’s on-field performance.
That was a point you did not address. And, yes, I do acknowledge that more factors into it than just WAR/$$ on the field.
Vernon bleeping Wells
It was an overpay and very few wanted to admit it at the time. Wells was, however, regarded as one of the best all-around CFs in the game at 28 years old. Funny considering the GM at that time arrogantly declared that he could win in the AL East with a payroll under $50-mil (paraphrasing).
He was a very good player at the time and an even greater ambassador for the team. I am still amazed at his drop off and more amazed that the Jays managed to get Napoli for him and traded him before even playing 1 game.
The whole thing seemed botched by both the Angels & The Jays
After a nice little bounce back season in 2010, Angels thought Wells was the guy to replace Kendrys Morales.
While it is still too early to tell how some of these contacts will do at the end of the contracts, many of these contracts were considered bad before they ended, eg. Pujols and Arod. Arod never even finished his contract as a player. Though giving Arod a contract into his 40s was more reflective of the stupidity of Cashman. If Cashman was on any other team, he would have been gone long ago for his constant bad financial decisions. Yanks still deal with the huge Ellsbury signing that never was good and prevents them from making a big signing else go over the luxury tax every year.
the Yankees have had the money to make deals that aren’t the best value, but in the end they still get the players and win WS.
Not since 2009.
Cashman is easily the most overrated GM. 1 title in 19 years with unlimited resources. Nope.
I think it was Steinbrenner who wanted to sign Arod to the second contract after he opted out, not Cashman.
But he’s paying players for their past performance. How could that go wrong?
A-rod 2 was a steinbrenner signing. Ellsbury was also an ownership signing. also they’re the yankees, they can make any move they want and still have enough money to wipe their butts with
honestly i’d have to say easily the most criticizable team based on this is the White Sox
they play in a fairly large market, yet their most expensive contract is $68MM?? people like to talk about the mets, who spent over double that on a player. i get that they are overshadowed by the Cubs, but they’re not playing in Kansas City or anything (who signed Gordon for $72MM)
let’s see if the front office continues to lowball elite players in free agency
Yet people are harping the pirates deal which was 20 years ago. That was actually a big contract at the time.
I don’t think the issue is that it was a small number 20 years ago. The issue is that they haven’t beaten that even now, where that number actually is pretty small. That is a very sad amount of spending for a team that could have extended their competitive window by quite a bit with some spending.
oh, this certainly does nothing to exonerate the pirates haha, even as salaries have become larger of late, the pirates have done little to nothing to adjust their spending habits. so that equates to fatter pockets for ownership and still general mediocrity (a nice 3 year run notwithstanding)
lol @ oakland A’s
Greinke deal is also working out well it’s just that the team isn’t very good but he’s lived up to it thus far
It’s a bad deal because the team can’t afford him. The fact that the Diamondbacks would love to move that contract means it is not a good deal for them.
in terms of performance vs salary (which should be all we look at, not whether it makes sense for the team), the contract is worth it
walls17 – yep – it’s a good contract in that sense. It doesn’t become a bad contract arbitrarily because the team couldn’t build a winner around him. he’s living up to his end of the bargain.
The median averages for each category.
7 years / $184M / $23M AAV
Also, median year is 2013/2014.
Reviewing the contracts at a glance.
Bad = 10
Angels / Pujols
Blue Jays / Wells
Cubs / Heyward
Diamondbacks / Greinke
Mets / Wright
Orioles / Davis
Red Sox / Price
Royals / Gordon
Tigers / Cabrera
Twins / Mauer
Okay deals = 3
Athletics / Chavez
Pirates / Kendall
Yankees / Rodriguez
Good deals = 9
Braves / Freeman
Brewers / Braun
Cardinals / Holliday
Dodgers / Kershaw
Giants / Posey
Nationals / Scherzer
Rangers / Rodriguez
Reds / Votto
White Sox / Abreu
N/A – Too soon to tell = 8
Astros / Altuve
Indians / Encarnacion
Mariners / Cano
Marlins / Stanton
Padres / Machado
Phillies / Harper
Rays / Longoria
Rockies / Arenado
Greinke has been one of the very best starting pitchers in baseball since signing that contract, and Mauer and Price are both pretty debatable, IMO. Encarnacion is firmly in the “bad” for me, while Cano and Altuve are already good contracts and Longoria’s is definitely in the bad column for me.
Mauer isn’t debatable. His first year under the new contract was 2011 and he generated about 15 fWAR for the $184M including 4 of the 8 years where he was at 1.2 fWAR or below.
Price is probably debatable as N/A too early. He’s signed for $30M / year and he’s looking like a good, but not great pitcher with little hope for recovering his once elite form.
Greinke hasn’t been nearly as good as you’re making him out to be. He’s 15th in fWAR since he signed his contract, his peripherals are in significant decline and he’s being paid more AAV than any pitcher in MLB. This past offseason he showed 29 other teams in MLB view his contract as a negative considering it’s currently looking like $10M / WAR. Basically, just because he’s good doesn’t mean his contract is.
Altuve and Cano have more than 1/2 their contracts left and more than enough opportunity to fall off the map for production IMHO.
Mauer has massive off-field value, of course, and I think you could probably put him in with Wright and Chavez as “injury” cases w/r/t value – if he had continued to be a catcher his bat would still be well above-average. I think Greinke is still a very good starter, and I’m trying very hard to find his peripherals in “significant decline.” In 2018 he had the third-best WHIP of his career, more strikeouts than hits allowed, the HR and BB rates were in-line with his prime, fourth-lowest hit rate in his career, third-lowest hard-hit rate. Greinke is still really really good.
Exactly. Everyone is just basing whether contracts are good or bad based exclusively on on-field performance. Players are far more than just robots that get unpacked right before the game and put on ice directly after it. As you mentioned Mauer had a lot of community value and David Wright had almost as much in Queens and Todd Helton in Denver and Alex Gordon in KC. Homegrown players can help franchise far beyond on field performance.
Now paying a lot of money for someone else’s player, not as good a deal. For example, Albert Pujols is a bad deal for the Angels, but for the exact same contract would not have been viewed AS bad a deal for the Cardinals.
I like Mauer. I was really pulling for him and believed he could make a comeback. If he hadn’t gotten the concussion, I strongly believe he’d be a first ballot Hall of Famer by now with more than 80 career WAR instead of a borderline candidate and he would have easily outplayed his contract… but he did get hurt. That’s what my analysis looks at. Production for cost with no excuses. None from poor front office management (like Texas’ ownership struggles resulting in A-Rod’s trade to NY) and none from injuries because injuries are a huge consideration for all long term contracts.
The “off field value” arguments are nothing more than a reaching excuse for poor production. Fans aren’t fans because of a player, ever. Fans always find a new favorite player on the team.
Twins attendance went UP after Kirby Puckett retired for example. There’s never been a more beloved Twins player, but fans just bought other jerseys and went to the game anyway.
Are you insane? How can both Arod’s deals be good or ok? The Rangers had to pay the Yankees to take him, and he never finished his Yankee contract as a player. Arod was also horrible or not playing for 7 of the 10 years. It’s not too early for Longoria either. The Rays had to pay money for someone to take him, and he still doesn’t justify his contract now. Longoria deserves to be under bad deals.
…ummmm yeah. I get it. You hate A-Rod. In other news, he was the best baseball player (better than Trout and Bonds) to play the game in the last 20 years.
So back to the trade… the Yankees gave up an All Star stud 2B in Alphonso Soriano in his cheap arbitration years and the Rangers compensated by paying $67M of the contract over 6 remaining seasons (which became $45M when A-Rod opted out).
From 2001-2010 A-Rod generated 64 fWAR for what would have been $252M or under $4M / WAR. He was a GREAT DEAL. The Rangers being unable to properly run their franchise is a completely separate issue.
In Rodriguez’s second contract, I included 2007 by mistake. It was a bad contract.
How teams mismanage their talent, rosters or payrolls after they sign contracts has nothing to do with how much value the players produce for the amount they get paid.
matras, you are forgetting to add Ryan Howard to your list.
No I’m not. He wasn’t on this list. Bryce Harper replaced him. 🙂
The Athletics just haven’t had the money to sign anyone worth more than a littler over 10 mil
Huh??? A’s have money. It didnt take an article to explain common sense, but if you wish,find in Forbes. Pro teams like the A’s continue to cry poor as an excuse to collect money and never feel the pressure to invest any back into their franchise. Their ignorant fans eventually buy in and stop questioning commitment.
Well, they did win 97 games last season, so they’re doing something right.
Man Heyward’s contract is absolutely ridiculous. Nice move Theo.
He was paid for past performance.
In all fairness, he helped bring a WS to a starving fan-base and franchise. That’s worth its weight in gold..
Hey Cup… I hear you on that. Past performance is not worth a penny today. But you make a valid point. Zito stepping up in postseason and pitching his way to one of the most important victories in Giants history earned his pay, as far as this Giants fan is concerned.
19 seasons and the Pirates have not exceeded 60 million dollars. Their revenue has nearly tripled in that time and they’ve moved into a new stadium. Where did their expenditures and commitment go?
Strike Four- Teams don’t have to play players based on past performance. To try and defend the Davis contract is just outright delusional. He’s had like three good years in his career.
Even if some of these contracts were “based on past performance” as Strike Four repeated at least two dozen times, it seems like front offices are getting more analytical with their approach to signing free agents and weighing more on potential future performance and inevitable player decline…I would even go as far as saying that approach most likely stems from the unfavorable outcome of a lot of contracts on this list…so perhaps in certain instances players have been paid for past performances but that in no way shape or form is done by owners out of the kindness of their hearts
aka Horrible contracts.
I’m not even an Orioles fan and that Chris Davis contract makes me nauseous
The highest paid player for each team… but certainly not considered the “greatest player of the franchise.”
I know, I know, there are so many other factors involved. Just saying.
I did a little number crunching about team performance for the 3 years prior to signing a team record contract and the 3 years directly after signing it. These numbers do not include teams that haven’t completed a 3 year period since their biggest signing — so no Phillies, Padres, Rockies, Indians, or Astros.
The average record the 3 years prior to signing was 84.4-77.6, or 253.2 wins over three years.
The average record the 3 years post-signing was 82.5-79.5, or 247.6 wins over three years.
The average team lost about 1.9 games more per year in the 3 years following their biggest signing.
Interestingly, the numbers change if you look at the signings based on their total value. For teams that had their biggest signing over $200M (Nationals not included, since Scherzer’s present-value at time of signing was under) GAINED about 2.3 wins per year after signing their biggest contract. Only the Rangers, Tigers, and Angels lost more games post-signing.
Teams that had their biggest signing between $100-200M LOST about 3.9 wins per year after signing their biggest contract. Only the Cardinals, Blue Jays, and Cubs improved their 3-year win total in this group.
Teams that had their biggest signing under $100M LOST about 6.4 wins per year after signing their biggest contract. The Athletics and Royals really drag this category down.
If I had time to do more research, I’d love to look at whether it makes a difference if the player was signed as a FA or as an extension and at the number of playoff appearances pre- and post-signing.
Tom, good post. It’s anecdotal at this point, but what you may have uncovered is that signing the “pretty good but not great” player (less than 200), even if it’s for less money than the great player (200+), is a fool’s errand.
The reason they’re not getting the mega money is that they are really not that good, and it’s only the higher end of the market guys pulling up the salaries because they signed for more than 200.
Most make sense. But some look really bad or are simply small contract comparatively speaking. Like the A’s lol
Longo was worth every penny.
Past performance
So the padres have two contract over 100 million
Yet, white Sox have Zero
If the rays actually spent money. What is wrong with those other 5 teams?
The worst seem to “fall off the cliff” early, abruptly and completely.
Thanks, guys. You, especially, Swing-and-an-extra-miss, for the laugh at “paid for past performance.” The fact that it is all guaranteed money allows for that interpretation, but I don’t think you can stop there.
They get paid for the expectation of that performance continuing for a significant part of the term of the contract.
Which of these deals would have been described as bad if the player had, for example, continued the performance that got him the deal …for the first third of it, dropped to solid plus contributor for the middle third, and finished their contract as league-average?
If it was my money, I’d have a hard cap at age 35 and take my chances with any of these guys on a deal up til that age.
sad how low some of these are.
As a Dodger fan, I may be a little biased, but the Kershaw contract remains a very good deal. He is the fact of the franchise, has been one of the best starting pitchers in MLB since he signed it, and what many don’t know about or else seem to forget is that he and his wife donate a lot of money to charity. They have helped countless people in the Los Angeles, and Dallas/Ft. Worth areas as well as in Africa. Even without a World Series title yet, Kershaw is a Dodger for the ages, and when he gets into the Hall of Fame, his #22 will be retired.
Alan Grossman – I disagree.
Clayton Kershaw has not been “one of the best”.
I am a Phillies fan, and I will state he IS the best. From 2009 – 2018:
fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&…
There are others who have had good runs, but the only guy close is Verlander. Everyone else is far behind once you get past the top 3.
You gotta love the Rays. Their biggest contract is a middling one they got huuuuuuuuge value out of, and then offloaded most of it on the downside, and got serious prospects back. It’s not like they tricked anyone, either. Longoria was on the downside before they traded him, the Giants knew exactly what they were getting.
It’s insane to me how well that organization is managed. Apart from their choice of town to play in, of course.
I know it’s a small thing, but any chance you can update this with AAV’s so every individual reader doesn’t have to?
Anyone else notice Alex Rodriguez was put on this list twice LOL although something tells me in a couple years he will be removed from one of these less
Pay an elite salary for past elite performances when the player’s salary wasn’t elite?
That’s an outrageously haphazard way to run a company; not to imply that company would be in business for long.
Since omglolwtf contracts are the current benchmark for the subjective “elite” status, the logical & mutually fair/beneficial direction would be to implement a league-wide standard
Raise the League Minimum (NOT “Cap”)
Establish & Value Levels of Goals/Benchmarks
Result:
Steve Nebraska gets called up at the League Minimum then finishes the season 27-2, sub 2.00 ERA, Triple Crown, etc
He’s not “rewarded” with a 10-15 year $400 contract
His pay for that season is exponentially increased
… regardless of his team’s “success”
That’s the only win/win model; which makes it the only model that will never happen
The small market teams need to step up or move…
Oakland move to Vegas
White Sox to Montreal
Cleveland to Nashville
Pittsburg to Puerto Rico
Tampa Bay to Orlando
Kansas City to New Orleans
Hahaha
A few on that list are exactly the reason why we’re not seeing as many contracts like these anymore.
Ans an equal number of them should kind of encourage teams to take more risks. A lot of them have turned out to be good investments.
By and large, those are extensions rather than “pure” FA deals. For whatever that’s worth.
Not sure there’s that much of a difference. It’s still taking a big financial risk. You may be more comfortable with the proverbial devil you know, but it can still go just as bad.
I know it’s ‘common knowledge’ these deals supposedly never work out, but the statistical evidence doesn’t really support that conclusion or justify suddenly all of baseball getting gun shy.