MLB Contracts: The worst contract on every team

As free agent season begins, here’s a look at the worst MLB contracts impacting every current major league team

Every family has a blemish, an under-achieving member nobody wants to associate with over the holidays, but whose inevitable presence can’t be consigned to the attic, much less the kiddy table.

It’s the same way in Major League Baseball, except that the family black sheep are kin by contract rather than blood.

As this free agent season ramps up, the one sure thing is that some team will sign some player to a contractual millstone. Because of its heft, the deal will initially be greeted with virtually unanimously favorable press. But next summer, or the summer to follow, reality will set in. That reality may take the form of an injury,  unrealistic expectations or the unfulfilled need to compensate some other player with assets already committed to the millstone.

Whatever the reason, the contract will soon be exposed for what it may always have been: a bummer.

Here we look at the worst of baseball’s worst, the existing deals from hell. They are presented one per team in order of their damnability, from the least awful to the truly wretched ones threatening to damn a franchise to the eternal flames of fifth place.

The criteria, which are subjective and thus debatable, include the contract’s length and cost, its impact on the signing team, and the value returned by the player for the contract’s duration. Feel free to disagree.

In every case, the introductory information provided below includes the signing player plus the length of the deal, its cost to the team, the years it is in force as well as the agent or agency that negotiated it. Note: This piece is not intended as a criticism of any team, player or agent, even if one agency is responsible for nearly one-quarter of the contracts that are singled out.

30. Oakland Athletics

Fernando Rodney, 1 year, $5.2 million, 2019. Octagon

With a $70 million payroll, the A’s can’t afford to make many mistakes…so they don’t. They enter 2019 with just three players under multi-year deals: Stephen Piscotty, Yusmeiro Petit and Fernando Rodney, the latter on a $5.25 million club option. Although none of the three contracts is especially egregious, Rodney’s is probably the worst of the three.

In fact, given Billy Beane’s widely recognized view of the fungibility of relievers, his willingness to pick up Rodney’s option comes across as out of keeping with Beane’s character. Rodney signed the deal with the Twins before being traded to Oakland in the heat of last summer’s pennant race. With Oakland, he worked 21.2 innings and compiling a 3.92 ERA.

His role for the 2019 Athletics is probably open-ended. The team’s winter depth chart lists him as a fourth bullpen option behind Blake Treinen, Lou Trivino and Petit.  But that’s a loose interpretation; the same depth chart lists Sean Manaea as the team’ No. 1 starter, and Manaea has already been written off for most if not all of 2019 with arm issues.

With his 64 saves in 2017-18, Rodney might also be viewed as an insurance policy against Treinen failing to repeat his exemplary 2017 performance as Oakland’s closer.

29. Houston Astros

Josh Reddick, 4 years, $52 million, 2017-20. ACES

Reddick’s contract is bad only because it’s needless. Coming from Los Angeles following the 2016 season, Reddick batted .314 for the World Series champs before retreating to .242 this year. His OPS+ for the first half of the deal is about 115, making him entirely usable if not a star.

Here’s the problem. At $13 million, Reddick was Houston’s fourth highest paid player in 2018, trailing only Justin Verlander, Brian McCann and Dallas Keuchel. The Astros just lost McCann – no big whoop – but they are also likely to lose Keuchel, and that would be a big deal. Beyond that, a bunch of entirely useful spare parts – Evan Gattis, Charley Morton, Marwin Gonzalez, Tony Sipp  — are also free agents.

With Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer all controllable at least for the next few seasons, the Astros have plenty of offense, making Reddick’s prime contribution somewhat redundant. Couldn’t they better use the $13 million they’ll pay him next year to fight the good fight to retain Keuchel, Gonzalez, Sipp or Morton?

Consider that question in the context of Reddick’s receding slash line. It was .314/.363/.484 in 2017. But those were all career bests or close to them.  His 2018 season represented a solid reversion, to .242/.318/.400.

There’s no reason for the Astros to expect more than that in 2019 or 2010…certainly less reason than there is to expect them to pay Reddick another $26 million. Unless they move him, they will certainly pony up that cash.

28. Pittsburgh Pirates

Ivan Nova, 3 years, $26 million, 2017-19.  Legacy

Nova came to Pittsburgh in mid-season 2016 from New York, where he’d been a Yankee rotation regular for more than four seasons.  As a former Yankee, he brought with him a certain cachet that made re-signing him to a three-year deal at season’s end seem like a rational act.

Once a guy has pitched in Yankee Stadium, he can pitch anywhere, right?

Well maybe. With the Pirates, Nova has gone 25-25 in 71 starts with a 3.99 ERA. Would you call that average? I would. Did the Pirates expect they were paying $26 million for average? One hopes not.

Still, there is a place in the game for average, and in Pittsburgh that place is as the team’s No. 4 starter. At least that’s where the Pirates are penciling in the guy who at $9.17 million projects to be their third highest paid player in 2019, behind Francisco Cervelli ($11.5 million) and Starling Marte ($10.33 million.)

What they don’t figure to get from Nova is much more production than the 3.3 total WAR he’s generated under his new contract.

Nova’s biggest upside is his relative durability. He recorded 187 innings in 2017 and another 161 in 2018, so if nothing else he’s showing up for work. He also keeps his walks down, resulting in WHIPs around a respectable 1.25.

What he’s not going to do is blow people away. Nova has given up more than one hit per innings pitched every season since 2014. He is, in short, a rented mule, useful to have but unlikely to get you anywhere fast. The problem is that by Pittsburgh standards, he’s being paid like a thoroughbred.

27. Minnesota Twins

Jason Castro, 3 years, 24.5 million, 2017-19. ISE

When Castro became a free agent following the 2017 season, his career stats – a .232/.302/.340 slash line suggested he’s be lucky to catch on anywhere.

But the Twins saw something –who knows what – that they like and extended the three-year deal, which to nobody’s surprise Castro accepted.

During Minnesota’s 2017 playoff run, Castro exceeded the low expectations his career record had set for him, batting .242 with 10 homers and 47 RBIs in 407 plate appearances.

But Castro turned 31 in 2018 and his injury-hampered performance reverted to form. He was batting just .143 in May when the Twins sidelined him with a chronic knee problem involving a torn meniscus, a catcher’s occupational hazard if ever there was one.

Castro is expected to make a full recovery; indeed, the Twins have penciled him in as their starter entering 2019.  But that prompts a question: recovery to what? There’s still the matter of that career .231 batting average and .697 OPS, neither of which expresses a compelling justification to pay him the $8 million he’ll pull down in the final season of his deal.

Even at his best, Castro hit .276 with 18 home runs, figures that probably establish his plausible upside. The problem is he did that for Houston in 2013, and is now six seasons plus a knee surgery removed from that time frame.

26 Boston Red Sox

David Price, 7 years, $217 million, 2016-22. McKinnis

As might be expected of the reigning World Series champions, the Red Sox don’t have many contractual stinkers in their ranks. The Price deal is probably the worst of the non-bad.

Since signing prior to the 2016 season, Price has started 76 games with a 39-19 record and a 3.75 ERA. He’s averaged 3.0 WAR per season. The standards for assessing starters are so ephemeral these days that it’s hard to know how to view those numbers.

One number, however, is not up for debate. Price has made $30 million during each of his Boston seasons.  He has been the team’s highest-paid player every season he’s been on the roster, and that status is likely to continue until such time, if any, as Mookie Betts signs away his free agency rights.

Against that, it’s fair to ask what Price has delivered to the Sox … aside, of course, from that World Series championship thing. He ranked only seventh on the team in WAR in 2016, 10th in 2017 and fourth this just-concluded season. Until the 2018 World Series, Price’s post-season chops were also questioned, yet he starred in that series

The larger Price-related question may involve the future. Boston is committed to him through 2022 at a rate of $31 million to $32 million per season. He will be 36 by the time his contract expires.

The good news for Boston fans is that Price’s performance has not yet plateaued. Following a 2017 season unbefitting his contract, Price rebounded in 2018 with 30 starts, 176 innings, and a 16-7 record. You can make of his run support what you will. It averaged 5.4 runs per Price start, a healthy figure. At the same time, in seven of Price’s starts, he got exactly one run of support, so there were ups and downs.

25. Miami Marlins

Wei -Yin Chen, 5 years, $80 million, 2016-20 with a 2021 club option. Boras Corp.

When the Marlins signed Chen, the plan was to fit him in as a reliable No. 2 starter behind Jose Fernandez, let him school up-and-comers Tom Koehler and Adam Conley, and ride that rotation plus rising stars Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna to a World Series title oh…right about now.

Plans, however, have a way of changing. Fernandez was killed in a boating accident in September of 2016, neither Koehler nor Conley developed as expected, the team was sold and the new ownership divested itself of Stanton, Ozuna and Yelich.

Given all that, what’s the point of paying Chen $20 million in 2019?

His record has been just so-so. Since coming to Miami, he’s 13-18 in 53 starts with a 4.75 ERA, numbers that don’t justify the $60 million he’s earned to date. Beyond that, injuries sidelined him for much of 2017. He was, however, healthy in 2018 when he started 26 games and produced a 4.79 ERA.

During his two healthy seasons for the Marlins, his park-adjusted and ERA has been not climbed out of the high 70s on a scale where 100 represents average.

Chen holds a 2021 vesting option ensuring him $16 million if he works either 180 inning in 2020 or 360 innings over the next two seasons combined. His high in Miami to date is 133 innings. Combine that with the unlikelihood of the new Marlins ownership wanting to keep Chen (at $16 million) into 2021, and you can estimate the chance of him getting much work for Miami these next couple of seasons at between zero percent and less than zero.

24. Texas Rangers

Shin-Soo Choo, 7 years, $130 million, 2014-20. Boras Corp.

When the Rangers were a contending club, the Choo deal made plausible sense.  Coming over from Cincinnati following the 2013 season, he started for AL West championship teams in 2015 and 2016, although both of them went out in the first run of post-season play. Choo batted just .208 in is six post-season games, homering once but driving in just three runs.

But Choo never projected to be a transformative figure for the Rangers; he was more of a solid co-star. In Cincinnati and before that in Cleveland, he had hit consistently in the.280s with 15 to 20 home runs. But he had never been an All Star or a Gold Glover.

So when the Rangers turned bad following their 2016 post-season failure,  it came as no surprise that Choo’s presence did little to resist the collapse. He has batted in the .260s in both of the past two seasons, he’s hit his 20 home runs and he’s driven in his 60 to 80 runs…but what of it? The team, in need of something Choo cannot provide, has regressed from 95 victories in 2016 to 78 in 2017 and then to 67 in 2018.

While none of this is Choo’s fault, it remains true that as the team’s highest paid player, he is naturally looked to for production. Since arriving in Texas, his average 107 OPS+ reflects what he’s been what he’s always been – a solid complementary player. But he’ll never be what Texas is presently asking him to be, a franchise building block. That’s not in his skill set.

23. Arizona Diamondbacks

Zack Greinke, 6 years, $206.5 million, 2016-21. Excel Sports

The essential problem with the Greinke deal doesn’t lay in the player’s on-field performance. By that standard, the contract has been fair. In his first three seasons with the D-Backs, he’s averaged 15 wins against 8 losses, he’s made his requisite 30 starts and 190 innings per season, and his 3.53 ERA has been fully representative, if not elite.

With a 17-7 record and 3.20 ERA in 32 starts, he was a central factor in Arizona reaching post-season play in 2017.

The problem, which the Diamondbacks certainly should have seen coming,  is with the heavy weight it has laid on Arizona’s financial situation. In 2018 Greinke earned about one-quarter of Arizona’s entire payroll commitment. It is impossible for a team to commit that level of payroll to one player without affecting team depth, and the diamondbacks paid the price, falling 10 games in the standings and out of the playoffs.

Nor is the problem over. In 2019, Arizona will pay Greinke another $34.5 million, this time on a payroll that will probably revert back to the pre-2018 levels of about 100 million. In concert with Paul Goldschmidt, Greinke will eat up nearly half that $100 million.

That is not a sustainable position, a fact recognizable by the losses of pitcher Patrick Corbin and outfielder A.J. Pollock to free agency. It’s also why the D-Backs are heavily marketing both Goldschmidt and Greinke.

Particularly with Greinke, if any team does take the bait they’ll be getting a quality starter. They’ll also be paying through the nose for that starter.

22. Colorado Rockies

Wade Davis, 3 years, $52 million, 2018-20. Jet Sports

The attraction major league teams have to sexy closers is like the attraction Charlie Brown has to kicking the football Lucy is holding. They always fall for the allure, and they almost always end up on their butts.

Davis was a quality closer for the 2015 World Series champion Royals, and also for the 2017 Cubs. But because they work so few innings, closers such as Davis have notoriously unpredictable year-to-year production patterns.

Still Colorado took the chance, signing him following the 2017 season with the hope of returning to the NL post-season in 2018.  They did that, no thanks to Davis.

True, he saved a career high and league-leading 43 games. But all that reveals is the inherent invalidity of the save statistic. In 65 innings of work, he allowed 30 earned runs, easily his high since becoming a pen ace in 2014. Granted, he was pitching in Colorado, but even factoring that in his park-adjusted ERA+ collapsed from 396, 448, 232 and 192 the previous four seasons to 114.

He was, in short, slightly above average, which may have been less than the Rockies hoped for when they threw $16 million at him. The stereotype is that closers on good teams truly make their money in the post-season. For the Rockies, Davis’ post-season lasted two appearances totaling nine batters, four of whom he retired. The other five generated two walks and two home runs in the final game of Colorado’s NLDS sweep at the hands of the Brewers.

21. Cleveland Indians

Jason Kipnis, 6 years, $52.5 million, 2014-19. Beverly Hills

For most long-term deals, the team’s hope is to gain value during the first season or two, recognizing that the final season or two will be a losing proposition. That’s certainly the case with the Kipnis contract.

What did Cleveland get for its money? Most critically, it got three post-season runs plus one World Series appearance, in all of which Kipnis played a role. During that 2016 World Series season, he batted .275 with 23 home runs and 82 RBIs while holding down a central defensive position, second base. He batted .290 in the World Series against the Cubs with two home runs, one of them coming at a potentially decisive moment during a Game 4 victory that moved Cleveland within one game of the championship.

Entering 2019, though, the inevitable appears to be occurring. As Kipnis has aged, his production has fallen, to a .230 average and .704 OPS in 2018. His combined 2015-2016 WARS of 8.8 dwarfs his 2017-18 WARS of 2.0. Jose Ramirez is now a better second baseman, consigning Kipnis to the outfield where he is at best a neophyte.  The $14.67 million he is still owed has become enough of a drag on the team that Indians officials would love to move Kipnis somewhere, if only they could find a buyer.

20. Milwaukee Brewers

Eric Thames, 3 years, $16 million, 2017-19. Sosnick Cobbe

The Brewers probably have as few bad long-term deals as any team. For a few months in 2017, the Thames deal, too, looked like a gold strike. Coming over from the Korean League, he peaked at .370 in mid-April that season, homering 11 times in his first 22 games and driving in 15 runs before the season was three weeks old.

Then the gold dust rubbed off. From .345 in April he fell to .222 in May  and  .163 for June. When Jesus Aguilar hijacked his job entering 2018, Thames was relegated to bench duty, and he hit just .219. Aguilar hit .274 with 35 home runs and 108 RBIs. In other words, he was for an entire season what Thames had been for three weeks.

Since Thames only counts for about $6 million against Milwaukee’s potential $100 million 2019 payroll, the Brewers can afford to take the hit. Ryan Braun, Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain all remain productive, they have an affordable core including Josh Hader, Orlando Arcia, Hernan Perez, Corey Knebel and Zach Davies, and Aguilar is out-producing Thames at one-fifth Thames’ cost.

Still, Milwaukee’s revenue situation is tight enough that any unproductive payroll expenditure hurts, and that’s what they now have in Thames.

19. Los Angeles Dodgers

Matt Kemp, 8 years, $160 million, 2012-19. Reynolds Sports

Ned Colletti originally signed Kemp’s contract. During the 2015 season, Colletti’s successor, Farhan Zaidi, traded Kemp to the Padres. Then A.J. Preller traded Kemp to the Braves. Then Alex Anthopoulos traded him back to the Dodgers.

In other words, Kemp’s contract is the baseball equivalent of regifting.

There have been moments when the deal looked plausible, if not great.  Kemp batted .303 in 2012. He topped 30 home runs in 2016, and surpassed 100 RBIs in both 2015 and 2016. His OPS+ has twice times exceeded 120. He made the 2018 All Star team.

For the most part, however, he’s been a solid, productive but unspectacular big leaguer. His post-contract batting average is .279. He’s averaged 22 home runs and 78 RBIs, a .480 slugging average and an .815 OPS.

When the Dodgers re-acquired Kemp prior to the 2018 season, they obtained an extremely bifurcated quantity. In mid-June, he was batting .340 and contending for the batting title. Why things went so suddenly and abruptly off the rails may have been as simple as a regression to the mean, but from June 10 to season’s end he batted .252. With 10 home run and 40 RBIs through the first 62 games, he produced just 11 and 45 across the final 100.

Part of the remaining $21.75 million owed to Kemp for 2019 will be paid by the Padres, so his financial liability isn’t quite as severe as it might first appear. Still, the Dodger depth chart lists Joc Pederson, Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig as its starting outfield for 2019, with Kemp relegated to backup duty.

Would the Dodgers trade Kemp to get out of that contract? Sure…in fact they already have once.

18. Atlanta Braves

Ender Inciarte, 5 years, $30.525 million 2017-21. Octagon

This deal may yet work out for the Braves. Inciarte is a young, talented middle outfielder with leadoff potential. Beyond that, he’s established a valuable major league profile and he’s still in his 20s.

Having said that, Inciarte’s 2018 season was a bad sign. His average fell to a career low .265, and his on base average dropped to .325, prompting his demotion from the leadoff spot to sixth in the order. Inciarte has never been a power threat, compounding the damage done by the reduction in his on base skills.

Yet to be determined is whether 2018 represents an aberration or a trend. The Braves aren’t giving up, as they shouldn’t; they continue to project Inciarte as their top center fielder.

But they are also priming themselves for a more serious run at post-season glory, the evidence being their $23 million signing of free agent third baseman Josh Donaldson. Inciarte started 2018 slowly, hitting in the .190s through the first 15 games. If he begins that badly in 20019, will the Braves be as tolerant?

Beyond that are signs that Inciarte may not be the solid regular some anticipate he can be. In his first five seasons, he had never exceeded an  OPS+ of 100, falling to a low of 91 last season. That’s attributable in some measure to OPS+’s fondness for power, an attribute Inciarte is unlikely ever to provide.

17. Washington Nationals

Stephen Strasburg, 7 years, $175 million, 2017-23. Boras Corp.

Is it possible to handle a player any more stupidly than the Nationals have handled Stephen Strasburg?

First of course was their 2012 decision to cap his innings, which meant not using him in Washington’s debut post-season. He was a young phenom with a future, his agent didn’t want him overworked, and the Nats didn’t want to anger his agent because they hoped to re-sign Strasburg. So they sat him out and crashed in the minimum number of NLDS games.

As they saw it, even that decision contained two plus sides: Strasburg was healthy and there would be other post-seasons. How’d that work out?

At least the Nats were able to re-sign him following the 2016 season. But the deal has catches, and all of them work against Washington. Strasburg can opt out following both the 2019 and 2020 seasons. If he does, the Nats likely lose him. If he doesn’t , they owe him $138 million through 2023, including $45 million in that final season.

Oh and by the way, they stand to lose Bryce Harper in the interim due at least to some degree to their commitment to Strasburg.

Not that Strasburg’s been bad; he’s actually pitched pretty well. With the Nats he has a 94-52 career record and a 3.14 ERA. But he is the Wedgewood China of pitchers, only taken out for special occasions and used daintily.

Since 2012, he has averaged just 27 starts and 162 innings of work, barely enough to qualify for the ERA title. In 2018, his 22 starts included just one appearance into the eighth inning, with an average workload falling short of 18 outs per game.

About the post-season. Since holding Strasburg out in 2012, he has made it there both in 2014 and 2017.  The 0.47 ERA is imposing. But he’s worked just 19 innings and three starts, continuing the theme of a pitcher considered almost too good to actually take advantage of.

16. San Diego Padres

Eric Hosmer, 8 years, $144 million, 2018-25. Boras Corp.

It’s not that Hosmer is a bad player. It’s not even that Hosmer had a bad season in 2018. He didn’t – sort of. He batted .253 with 18 home runs and a 99 OPS+ that placed him almost squarely in MLB’s “average” category.

But come on, did the Padres $144 million for average? And given San Diego’s 66-96 record, is Hosmer really the piece the Padres intend to build around?

Padres management must have thought so because the Hosmer contract ate up just short of one-quarter of the team’s entire 2018 payroll.  What follows is certainly subject to change on short notice, but as of this moment the Padres intend to pay Hosmer more than twice as much in 2019 as their next three highest-paid players combined.

What could Hosmer do to justify that outsized level of payroll commitment? In 2018 he produced a 1.4 WAR that was actually below the MLB average, one more part of the explanation for why the Padres fared so poorly.  For the Padres, this was a sort of small-scale revisit of the 2015 splurge when they brought in Matt Kemp, both the Upton boys and James Shields for a combined $60 million, then proceeded to lose three games in the standings and finish fourth in the NL West.

15. New York Yankees

Jacoby Ellsbury, 7 years, $153 million, 2014-20. Boras Corp.

The Yankees signed Jacoby Ellsbury prior to the 2014 season. At the time their lineup lacked punch, featuring only one player (Robinson Cano) who had hit more than 17 home runs or batted above .275. Elslbury didn’t provide power, but he was a .298 hitter and fast enough to lead the American League in steals with 52.

More importantly, he had done so in Boston, meaning that New York’s gain deprived the Red Sox of a player who had been a key asset in their 2013 World Series win.

The deal may have made a lot of sense for a season or two. In New York, Ellsbury‘s average has hovered around .265. He generated a  111 OPS+ in 2014, contributing 39 steals and a 3.6 WAR.  Since 2015, however, Ellsbury has become a fifth wheel, his presence on the roster rendered more redundant by the successive developments/acquisitions of Aaron Hicks, then Aaron Judge, then Giancarlo Stanton, then Andrew McCutchen.

Hip problems that eventually necessitated surgery sidelined him for all of 2018, and make his status for 2019 questionable. On their winter roster, the Yankees – who activated him from the disabled list in October — list him as their backup center fielder.

On a roster as famously rich as New York’s, it is noteworthy that whether he plays or not, Ellsbury at $21.14 million might enter 2019 as the third highest-paid Yankee, behind only Stanton ($26 million) and Masahiro Tanaka ($22 million). Indeed, it’s not out of the question that he still holds that distinction in 2021.

14. Philadelphia Phillies

Carlos Santana, 3 years, $60 million, 2018-20. Wasserman

The problem with the Santana signing is its short-sightedness. The best evidence is that a mere year later, Phillies management is scrambling to find a way to undo it.

Santana was signed as a first baseman on a developing team. He is not a defensive asset — with Cleveland through 2017, he had been trending toward a DH role – but with OPS figures in the 800s during 2016 and 2017, he can hit.

But Santana’s signing forced the Phillies to transfer their obvious future first baseman, Rhys Hopkins, to left field. There is a long held view in the majors that the prime requirement of a left fielder is the ability to hit .300, fully qualifying Hopkins for the role.

The problem was that the stereotype didn’t hold. Hopkins became a defensive liability in left, and the move also appeared to stunt his offensive development. All three elements of his slash line fell, in some cases precipitously,  and his defensive metrics trended badly negative.

Santana might have offset that with his own strong performance at the plate, but in 2018 he posted the lowest average of his career, just .229. In short, the Phils got the worst of both worlds, screwing up their best prospect by signing a player who returned a sub-par season in his own right.

13. Seattle Mariners

Robinson Cano, 10 years, $240 million, 2014-23. CAA-Roc Nation

The Mariners are now precisely halfway through their mega deal with Cano, which is kind of a standard point for regret to enter the picture. And sure enough, here it comes.

For the most part, the first five years were presentable, if not successful.  True, Cano failed to lead the Mariners to any post-season appearances, which was pretty much his first job. But he did live up to his career profile, delivering a .300 batting average with better than 20 home runs and more than 80 RBIs annually.  It was good enough to make three All Star teams; good enough, in other words, to constitute a reasonable return on investment.

That all changed, of course, when Cano was suspended for a PED violation.  With the forced move of Dee Gordon to second base, Cano, at age 35, has become expendable.

But expendability is problematic when the moveable asset is a 35-year-old middle infielder owed $120 million through 2023 and with a drug suspension on his rap sheet.

It wasn’t as if Cano’s production collapsed following his return. He posted a .317 post-suspension batting average with 6 homers and 27 RBIs in 41 games, all that translating to an entirely satisfactory .497 slugging average.

But his return failed to translate to any improvement in the standings; in fact the Mariners went sub-.500 with Cano back and fell from contention for what would have been their first post-season spot since 2001. Now the M’s appear to have concluded that if they can’t win with Cano, they are better off without him. Making that happen, however, may be another story.

12. Chicago White Sox

Welington Castillo, 2 years, 15 million, 2018-19. ACES

Coming out of the 2017 season, the White Sox rebuilding program included a young catcher named Omar Narvaez. At the time Chicago was committed to rebuilding, having just moved Chris Sale for a bunch of prospects.

Behind the plate, however, the Sox lost faith in their own program, opting instead to sign free agent Castillo as their regular, and booting Narvaez back to fill-in duty.

That move blew up when Castillo was suspended 80 games for a PED violation. It forced Chicago to use Narvaez, who responded with a .275 season and .366 on base average in 322 plate appearances and an OPS solidly in the 120 range.

In a logical world, Narvaez would enter 2019 as the presumed regular, relegating Castillo to the status of $7.5 million backup. Narvaez out-performed Castillo in all three slash line categories, hit more home runs, had a better WAR and a virtually identical defensive WAR.

In Chicago, however, neither logic, performance nor self-interest can be taken for granted, and money often rules. That probably explains why the Sox winter depth chart lists Castillo ahead of Narvaez, who is making rookie money.

The Sox can obviously do what they want, but here’s the data. Following his return, the newly cleansed Castillo played in 16 games, hitting zero homers and driving in zero runs. His slash line was .241/.281/.278, and the Sox allowed 5.7 runs in games he started.

During the same period with Narvaez behind the plate, Sox pitchers allowed a virtually identical 5.68 runs per game, and he batted just .222 . In every other category, though, Narvaez was clearly the more productive option. He had 3 homers, 6 RBIs, a .300 on base average and a .389 slugging average

11. Toronto Blue Jays

Troy Tulowitzki, 7 years, $134 million, 2014-20. Paul Cohen

The Blue Jays acquired Tulowitzki just prior to the 2015 trading deadline. They were a playoff contender that won the AL East before eventually losing the ALCS in six games to Kansas City, and they needed a shortstop with punch.

At the time, that neatly described Tulowitzki, a career .300 hitter with 188 home runs to his credit. But the remarriage never worked. When Tulowitzki left Colorado he was batting .300; he hit .239 in Toronto and .205 in post-season.

He fell to .254 in 2016, to .240 in an injury-riddled 2017, and he missed all of 2018 with back issues, the Jays paying $20 million for his idleness. To date he has earned $80 million in Toronto while averaging fewer than 250 plate appearances per season. During the three seasons he has played, his Toronto OPS+ has averaged 90, 100 being an average season.

Whether Tulowitzki will be back in 2019 is a matter of some speculation. The team’s depth chart continues to list him as the regular shortstop. But even if he does return healthy, what of it? He will be 34 on opening day; he won’t have played a game since July of 2017, and he won’t have produced a full season of production since 2016.

Absent an act of God, the only thing certain to continue is Tulowitzki’s income. The Jays owe him $34 million through 2020 with a $15 million team option for 2021 that Toronto cannot wait to decline.

10. Kansas City Royals

Ian Kennedy, 5 years, $70 million, 2016-20. Boras Corp.

It was probably team pride that possessed the Royals to view Ian Kennedy as a logical addition. They signed him coming directly out of a World Series championship with the aim of replacing Johnny Cueto, who was to be lost to free agency.

What the Royals overlooked was their own imminent need of a rebuild, and the unlikelihood that a 30-something journeyman starter fit anywhere into that rebuild. In short order, Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas were gone. Fate, in the form of a fatal car crash, removed pitching phenom Yordano Ventura. The Royals quickly sank from 95 victories in 2015 to just 81 in Kennedy’s first year, then to a mere 58 in 2018.

In that context, precisely what value was Kennedy’s $61 million deal bringing to the club? He had never been an audience draw, and since signing he has produced just a 19-33 record. Obviously that’s attributable in part to the miserable team surrounding him. But Kennedy has contributed to that misery, producing a 5.38 ERA in 30 starts in 2017.

In response, the Royals reduced his 2018 workload, funneling starts to prospects of the stripe of Heath Fillmyer, Erik Skoglund and Jacob Junis.  While that make sense from a developmental standpoint, it also re-enforces the question of what the Royals get from the $32 million they still owe Kennedy through 2020. The Royals now project him as no more than a fourth starter entering 2019.

8. St. Louis Cardinals

Dexter Fowler, 5 years, $82.5 million, 2017-21. Excel

The Cardinals would never admit this, but they gave Fowler a mega deal at least in part because their rivals, the Cubs, had just won the World Series with a former Cardinal, Jason Heyward, alongside Fowler in the outfield.

They believed they needed a leadoff man, and Fowler, a leadoff man, was coming off his career season, including a .393 on base average for the Cubs.

In St. Louis, Fowler reverted to and below his career norms, basically a .260 average, 10 or 12 homers and a 105 OPS+. In 2018, he hit just .180 in limited playing time and was surpassed in the outfield rotation by system products Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill, journeyman Jose Martinez and trade product Marcell Ozuna.

There were rumors that Fowler’s problems stemmed from a rift with manager Mike Matheny. But the record suggests otherwise. Following Matheny’s mid-season replacement by Mike Shildt, Fowler played in fewer than 20 games and batted just .200 as Bader and O’Neill both eclipsed him.

Entering 2019, the Cardinals still project Fowler as their starting right fielder, but that largely is a nod to the need to justify his contractual status.  His OPS+ plummeted to 59 in 2018, and he is now in his mid 30s. The combination means that he’ll need to make a strong early season impression or return to the bench. What St. Louis will do through 2021 with a $49.5 million bench player is a question yet to be answered.

7. New York Mets

Yoenis Cespedes, 4 years, $110 million, 2017-20. Roc Nation

In 2015, the Mets traded for Cespedes and went to the World Series. In 2016 he batted .280, made the All Star team and was a fixture in the middle of the team’s batting order. So the Mets committed long-term.

What they’ve gotten in return has been next to nothing. Cespedes’ defensive skills were always a question, and health issues quickly complicated them. Hobbled by heel injuries that eventually required surgery, Cespedes has come to the plate just 478 times in exchange for the $51.5 million he’s been paid since the start of 2017. He underwent that surgery last July, the hope being that he will return some time in 2019. But it is by no means certain that he will come back to the production level that prompted his signing in the first place.

In his absence, the Mets have taken steps to cover themselves against the prospect that the Cespedes deal may bust completely. They now project Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo as their starting left and center fielders. Jay Bruce and Juan Lagares are expected to suck up most of the remaining time in New York’s outfield.

That raises the prospect that, in Cespedes, the Mets may have signed a $110 million hood ornament.

6. Chicago Cubs

Tyler Chatwood, 3 years, $38 million, 2018-20. RMG

When assessing bad Cub contracts, the default option is Jason Heyward’s eight-year, $184 million deal. But two things mitigate against condemning that deal. The first is the fact that Heyward actually helped the Cubs win the franchise’s World Series in 108 seasons. The second is that while he hasn’t justified the amount he’s being paid, he hasn’t been a true bust.

Chatwood’s deal, signed prior to the 2018 season, carries with it both of those problems. Signed as a rotation starter, he won just four games in just 20 starts before being benched for incompetence. In only 104 innings, Chatwood walked a league-leading 95 batters, eventually necessitating the trade that brought in Cole Hamels.

Once Hamels arrived at the trade deadline, Chatwood became Chicago’s invisible man. He made just five appearances, only one of them a start, and pitched just nine and two-thirds innings. In fact the case could easily be made that Chatwood’s season-long failure to perform cost Chicago the chance to compete for a World Series return in 2018. Remember, the Cubs only lost the NL Central in a playoff following a second-half collapse that coincided with Chatwood’s functional disappearance.

The question facing Chicago is what happens now? Chatwood is not injured, so he’ll return to spring training as a potential rotation candidate. But that status, obviously, will hinge on his ability to demonstrate that he has fixed his pitching radar.

If he doesn’t, then what? The combination of his contract and performance render him untradeable, leaving the Cubs with three options. They could ship him to Iowa, making him the most expensive minor leaguer in history and hoping he improves there. They could release him and write off the $25.5 million he is still owed. Or they can keep him and essentially operate with a roster of 24.

5. Cincinnati Reds

Homer Bailey, 6 years, $105 million, 2014-19. Excel

Two front office generations ago, Walt Jocketty signed Bailey to that multi-year deal on the presumption that the then 28-year-old would be a franchise anchor.  He was coming off back-to-back seasons with ERAs in the 3.50 range, two no-hitters and more than 200 innings of a workload.

But arm injuries and Bailey’s own failure to develop have undermined the deal’s value.  The injuries, a torn tendon in 2014, Tommy John surgery in 2015 and a bone spur in 2017, limited him to part-time duty all four years and to just eight starts and 34 innings of work in 2015 and 2016.

Bailey returned to supposed health in 2017, but the results haven’t come close to expectations. He’s worked fewer than 200 innings largely due to a 7-23 record and ERA solidly above 6.00. In 22 of Bailey’s 38 starts, opponents have scored at least five runs; in 8 of those the damage exceeded 10 runs. The problem has been hittability. Bailey has allowed 253 base hits in those 197 innings of post-2016 work, creating WHIPs solidly in the 1.6 range. That’s not survivable.

As a result, despite still being owed  $48 million through 2020, the Reds’ 2019 winter depth chart now does not project a role for Bailey going forward.

As with several pitchers who signed multi-year deals and then flopped, the Reds’ options with Bailey are limited. Nobody needs a bad $50 million pitcher. Given Cincy’s usual $100 million payroll, eating one-quarter of that by cutting Bailey isn’t a viable option. So they’ll hold on to him in the hope that he magically regains his fastball…or something.

4. San Francisco Giants

Jeff Samardzija, 5 years, $90 million, 2016-20. Wasserman

The Giants figured they were smart when they inked Samardzija to join a rotation that already had Madison Bumgarner, rising star Chris Heston and a resurgent Tim Lincecum.

Granted, since leaving his starring role on Chicago’s North Side for the rigors of the American League, Samardzija had become a .500 pitcher. In Oakland and then with the White Sox in 2014-15, he’s won only 16 of 35 decisions, leading the American League in earned runs allowed in 2015.

But the Giants deduced that all Samardzija needed was a return to the National League style of ball. So they gave him the five years and $90 million he wanted and sat back to reap the rewards.

What they’ve gotten instead was almost precisely the pitcher Samardzija had shown himself to be since leaving the Cubs: a below-average one. With the Giants he’s 22-31 in 74 starts with a 4.32 ERA.

He is now viewed as at best a No. 3 starter, and even that status depends on the kinds of health issues that often undermine long-term deals with pitchers. In Samardzija’s case it was lingering shoulder inflammation that limited him to just 10 2018 starts.  He has said the required cure is a winter’s worth of rest, and he remains hopeful of a strong return in 2019. But shoulder inflammation is an occupational hazard for pitchers approaching 1,500 career innings of workload – Samardzija has thrown 1,447 – so even a winter lifting nothing heavier than a soda pop can is no assurance of recovery.

3. Los Angeles Angels

Albert Pujols, 10 years, $240 million, 2012-21. MVP Sports

The surest signal that the Pujols contract was a clunker came when Pujols’ former team, the Cardinals, walked away from competing to retain their three-time MVP. Arte Moreno signed Pujols both because he believed in the player’s on-field value and also believed in his marketability.

The deal has essentially flopped on both scores. On the field, the Pujols-led Angels have netted one division title – they lost the division series in three games – and more losing seasons (four) than winning ones (three).

Off the field, average home attendance has actually fallen, from 39,090 the season prior to Pujols’ arrival to around 37,200 each of the past four seasons. Team revenues have risen, from $226 million in 2011 to a peak of $350 million in 2016. But in baseball’s money-rich world, revenues are up everywhere. In fact Angels revenues have fallen the past two seasons, to an estimated $334 million in 2018.

Pujols’ contract is part of the reason the Angels are losing because the $87 million he will be paid through 2021 has become a major drag on Angels’ plans. Pujols and Trout together are tying up 37 percent of the entire team payroll.

That would be excusable if Pujols was putting up Trout-like numbers. Instead, he’s turned in back-to-back .245 seasons with a steeply declining OPS and WARs that have lapsed into the negligible level.

2. Detroit Tigers

Miguel Cabrera, 8 years, $248 million, 2016-23. ISE

The deal Cabrera signed in 2015 was something akin to a lifetime achievement award. Cabrera was a favorite of then team owner Mike Ilitch, he was coming off a league-leading .338 season – his fourth batting title in five years —  and Ilitch was willing to pay any price in the hope of building a winner…so that’s what Ilitch did.

The deal made perfect sense … for one season. In 2016 Cabrera batted .316 with 38 homers and 108 RBIs for a Tiger team that finished second in the AL Central. In 2017, however, Tiger hopes and plans turned sadly and decisively.  In February, Ilitch died, leaving the team to his son, Chris. Cabrera started slowly, batting below .240 in mid-May, and the team’s fortunes sagged as well, falling as low as fourth place by late June.

Chris Ilitch, less covetous of victory than his dad, responded logically, trading away most of the team’ assets: Justin Verlander and J.D. Martinez among them. Cabrera, whose deal made him unmoveable, finished at .249.

In 2018, leg and arm injuries limited him to 157 plate appearances. He enters 2019 as a 36 year old yet still owed $154 million through at least 2023, when he’ll be 40. Seen in the context of his 2017 and 2018 performances – a net -0.2 WAR and – he does not fit the profile of the kind of asset a rebuilding team would covet.

1. Baltimore Orioles

Chris Davis, 7 years, $161 million, 2016-23. Boras Corp.

In 2015, Chris Davis led the American League with 47 home runs. Two years earlier he had hit 53 and driven in 138 for Baltimore. At the time the Orioles were a plausible AL East contender – they lost a painful 1-0 wild card game to Toronto – so tying up Davis seemed foresighted, even though he had also averaged 193 strikeouts in his previous three seasons.

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Since signing his seven-season, $161 million deal, Davis has improved his statistical profile in only one of those areas. Hint: It hasn’t been home runs. Those have fallen to 38, 26 and 16 in the intervening three seasons.   Rather, he has averaged 202 strikeouts with batting averages that have fallen to just .168 in 2018.

His OPS+, 147 in the year prior to signing his current deal, was an extraordinarily unproductive 50 in 2018. If you’re a fan of WAR as a value of expression, know that Davis has generated a cumulative 0.4 WAR over his first three seasons of his current contract. The Orioles paid Davis $69 million for that four-tenths of a WAR.

The four years and $92 million remaining on Davis’ contract essentially make him untradeable, meaning that new Orioles GM Mike Elias’ only option is to hope for the best.  But seen in the context of the major renovation project expected to sweep through Baltimore, even a modestly productive Davis would have little true value to the Orioles going forward … unless he could resuscitate his game enough to make him marketable.

There you have it. The worst MLB contract on every team. Did you see any that were missing? Disagree with our choices here? Comment below!