This actually came out more than a week ago, but I wanted to pass it along: Jonah Keri presents his 10 worst contracts in the game, plus a few dishonorable mentions.
A few notes:
--Alex Rodriguez gets the nod for the worst contract, with three years and $61 million remaining, plus a $6 million bonus when he reaches 660 home runs (he's six away). As Jonah writes, the debate for worst contract is between the A-Rod/Ryan Howard type where you have fewer years remaining but will receive little or no value in return, or the Albert Pujols/Miguel Cabrera type of contract where you have more years remaining but at least the player is still productive. Pujols still has seven years and $189 million left while Cabrera has nine years and $270 million. Will those deals have more than $61 million in dead money at the end of them?
--The Rangers have three contracts in the top 10 -- Prince Fielder, Shin-Soo Choo and Matt Harrison. Ouch. Fielder and Choo have to bounce back from injuries but Harrison may never pitch again.
--Jonah didn't include Joey Votto in his top 10. He has nine years, $213 million remaining. The problem with Votto's deal, compared to the Pujols or Cabrera contracts, is that Votto will end up taking up a much larger percentage of the Reds' payroll than those two will for the Angels or Tigers. We don't know if Votto is yet in a state of decline like Pujols. He only played 62 games last year but did lead the National League in on-base percentage the four previous seasons. Still, he's entering his age-31 season and has missed major chunks of time in two of the past three seasons.
--It's worth pointing out that bad contracts aren't necessarily crippling. Remember all those times Barry Zito was nominated for worst contract in the game? The Giants still won two World Series with him (he even contributed to the second one). Heck, even last year the Giants paid over $44 million to Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Marco Scutaro, who earned a combined -0.9 WAR. Of course, the Giants are a big-market franchise and can soak up some bad money.
