To any Yankee fan the perils of paying too much money on aging players are obvious. Alex Rodriguez is the ultimate example of the dead weight that can wind up on a team’s payroll from these large contracts, and Mark Teixeira isn’t far behind. Within the Yankees own clubhouse Robinson Cano serves as evidence of the other direction a team can take. Cano may soon become a very expensive player, but the Yankees have already benefited from years of cost effective production.
While the Yankees may continue to move away from the mega contract model of team improvement, other clubs in baseball can’t seem to learn the lesson. The Angels are currently the prime offenders in the American League. You’d think that any team with Vernon Wells would understand the risks these excessive contracts pose, but the Angels doubled down on this strategy with the C.J. Wilson and Albert Pujols contracts. Wilson’s first season with the Halos was at best mediocre (3.83/4.04/4.10), while Pujols’ debut was a disaster. After getting off to an incredibly slow start, Pujols managed to piece together a .285/.343/.516 season. Fangraphs estimated his performance was worth $17.7 million, which was better than his $12 million salary, but only because his monster deal is incredibly back loaded.
We often talk about Tex or A-Rod as examples of players in decline, but Pujols should be added to that list as well. In 2008 Pujols put up an other worldly .459 wOBA. His numbers have declined every year since. Last season his .360 wOBA was the lowest of his career. Pujols may bounce back in 2013 now that he’s more acclimated to Anaheim, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I’m an A-Rod fan. I know better than to expect an aging player to return to his old form simply because I’m used to it. Pujols may be better than he was in 2012, but his days of being the best hitter on Earth are over. The Angels are going to love paying him almost $30 million a season eight years from now.
Needless to say the Halos haven’t learned their lesson. As a Yankee fan I know all too well how devastating Josh Hamilton is with the bat. But as a baseball fan I also know that he won’t be good for the last two or three years of that contract. In fact, Hamilton’s entire reputation is largely built on one season, 2010, and maybe his home run derby performance in 2008. Josh had a .445 wOBA in an injury shortened 2010 season, and he’s never come anywhere near that in any other season. In 2011 his wOBA was .369 and in 2012 it was .387. These are great numbers, but they are not $25 million per year great. Combine that with his high injury risk (2008 is the only season he managed to play in at least 150 games) and his well documented off-field issues and you have to wonder what the Angels are thinking. Does anyone in Anaheim truly believe that Hamilton and Pujols will be any good in 2017?
That doesn’t matter. The Angels are clearly trying to win now and ask questions later. They also have serious young talent to help pare down costs for next several years. However, the Angels, the Dodgers, the Tigers and of course the Yankees all represent teams with time bomb contracts on the books. It is a guarantee that all of these teams will regret these decisions.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
4 Responses to Not learning from their mistakes
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
Perhaps the Angels are expecting high inflation. The federal government has been printing large amounts of money to help fund all their spending. So far inflation has been under control. However, there’s a good chance that inflation might really kick in within the next few years. High inflation would make a long-term contract better from the team’s POV (unless the contract has some sort of inflation adjustment built into it.)
Inflation when George Bush left office was 6.8%
Inflation today is 1.3%
Try getting some facts before writing things which prove you’re a total fucking retard.
— “They also have serious young talent to help pare down costs for next several years. “—
WTF?
pare down costs???
the Angels have $97 million committed to just 4 players in 2016….
they gonna pay the other 21 players $8.75/hr???
Mark it down:
A-Rod will not play in 2013 or if he does he will be single-digit homerun total, two months of RBI at most crap and will retire before the beginning of the 2014 season because no way will he want to incur the wrath of the Yankees, the fans, and the media by returning to legally steal $25M from the Yankees in 2014. He’d never hear the end of it and he shouldn’t for what the @#$% is he doing back in 2014 when he is a shell of his once great self? The money, what else? Yeah, he’s contractually entitled to it but c’mon. If he came back in 2014 I’d bench him for life, grin and bear it or retire cuz we’re not trading or releasing you and you’re untradeable and unreleasable anyway.
Yes, he will forfeit $86M in guaranteed salary ($25M for 2014 + $21M for 2015 + $20M for 2016 + $20M for 2017) and $30M in homerun milestone bonus money because he will realize he is done and to play another five years would only make him look like a paycheck collector and cost him induction into the Hall Of Fame because how the hell could the writers induct a guy into the HOF when he was awful in the final seven seasons of his career, overall awful in the final decade of his career, and a cheater for three consecutive seasons before that? One could seriously argue he cheated 2004-07, too, because look how sharply his homerun totals dropped in 2008-10 and quickly he broke down 2011-12.
If I’m A-Rod, I tell myself I have two beautiful daughters, fame, fortune, a World Series ring, and enough money where I’ll be a billionaire by the time I’m 50 if I grow it wisely enough, and I’m only 38. I walked away from the game when I felt could no longer perform at the level I expect myself to perform. No one attempted to trade me, buy me out, put me on waivers outside of the everyone on waivers period, or void my contract. I left on my own terms. The $86M guaranteed and $30M bonus money I walk away from could be used to further strengthen the Yankees who would no doubt forever be indebted to me for such payroll relief and give me lifetime designated field box seats like the San Francisco Giants gave my pal Barry Bonds. I retire with 647 homeruns, only 17 more than what my old teammate Ken Griffey Jr. hit, but maybe it was meant to be that way, and I’m not hanging on like Jim Thome.
If A-Rod retires before 2014, he not only walks away from the game the guy who scored the biggest contracts in American professional sports history because he was a great player, but he walks away from the game as the guy who forfeited the biggest amount of guaranteed and bonus money American professional sports player has ever walked away from because he is done. That would make him a hero.
If he plays out his contract, he will be a seven-year embarrassment (2011-17), the biggest bust in American professional sports history in terms of production for cost over the life of a contract, and someone I couldn’t possibly see being voted into the HOF in because again, how do you vote in a guy who cheated 2001-03, was probably still cheating 2004-07, and overall sucked 2008-17 (three good years followed by seven awful ones)?
Retire before 2014 and you can preserve your legacy. Hang on through 2017 and you are Pay-Rod, a paycheck-collecting bum