If you're one of the remaining fans wondering why analytics-friendly teams -- now nearly every team in baseball -- are stingy in the free-agent market, this is the list for you. Drop an easy popup? Leave a hanging curve in the strike zone? When players make these mistakes, they have to forget them and move on to the next inning or game. For front offices, their errors can haunt a franchise for a generation, ranging from embarrassment to crippling, depending on the other particulars of the franchise.
I'm running down the worst contracts in baseball for a sixth year running. This is a focus on what's left, so the past doesn't count. I'm also considering only players in baseball now, so we won't bring up the $1.2 million Bobby Bonilla makes every year through 2035, or the less famous $1.12 million a year that Bruce Sutter gets annually through 2021, with an additional $9.1 million bill due in 2021!
I've ranked the worst contracts in terms of surplus wins -- that is, the difference between the number of wins the team is paying for and the number of wins it's projected to get for the remaining years of the contract.
15. Troy Tulowitzki (minus-4.2 wins)
Future paydays: $20 million in 2018 and 2019, $14 million in 2020, $4 million buyout for a $15 million club option for 2021.
I was among the analysts who liked the Blue Jays' trade for Tulo, so to be too mean would be hypocritical. But from a numbers standpoint, last year's groin and hamstring injuries, the first that really had an effect on his qualitative performance, combine with this year's injuries to give enough of a down arrow for Tulowitzki to make this list ahead of Yasmany Tomas. In the end, the Jays-Rockies Tulowitzki trade didn't really help anyone as much as they hoped.
14. Ian Kennedy (minus-5.0 wins)
Future paydays: $16 million in 2018, $16.5 million in 2019 and 2010.
Kennedy deciding not to opt out of his contract after a 5-13 record and a 5.38 ERA was one of the least surprising decisions of its kind. Kennedy is off to a solid start in 2018, with a 2.35 ERA/3.84 FIP in his first four starts, but that's not enough to push the needle, given his 5.08 FIP over his two seasons with the Royals.
13. Homer Bailey (minus-5.1 wins)
Future paydays: $21 million in 2018, $23 million in 2019, $25 million mutual option in 2020 ($5 million club buyout).
Bailey's standing in this rank drops a little every year, not so much because he has shown significant signs of improvement but because that contract is slowly ticking out. Like Kennedy, Bailey has at least started the season strong, with three quality starts in four appearances, but that's not enough yet to significantly shift the outlook on the expense of having him.
12. Pablo Sandoval (minus-5.5 wins)
Future paydays: $18 million in 2018 and 2019, $5 million buyout of a $17 million club option for 2020.
It's getting increasingly confusing as to why Sandoval is on the roster of a team trying to win -- he no longer contributes anything at the plate or in the field. We're long past the point where he's just one more weight loss away from being a viable major leaguer; I think he'd be replacement level if he showed up in spring training in the Best Shape of Bo Jackson's Life. The Giants can at least take solace that it's the Red Sox who are paying all but the major league minimum of what's owed him.
11. David Wright (minus-6.1 wins)
Future paydays: $20 million in 2018 (some of it deferred), $15 million in 2019 and $12 million in 2020.
Wright is still theoretically a major leaguer, so he makes this list. Given the insurance the Mets have, this is more a loss for the insurance company, so long as they don't try to get Wright onto the field. By all indications, Wright is still determined to make a comeback at some point, but the forecast is bleak.
10. Robinson Cano (minus-6.2 wins)
Future paydays: $24 million per year, 2018-2023.
Unlike a lot of players on this list, Cano is still a high-level player, likely to be worth 3-4 WAR for the Mariners in 2018 (and off to a terrific start). The problem with the deal is how long it will run, with five full seasons remaining after this one. The Mariners won't be too upset given that they will have received as many good years as they could have reasonably expected, but the last years still figure to be unimpressive from a value standpoint. Signing a 30-year-old for a decade is dangerous no matter who the player is.
9. Shin-Soo Choo (minus-6.3 wins)
Future paydays: $20 million in 2018, $21 million in 2019 and 2020.
Choo managed to stay healthy in 2017, but a .261/.357/.432 line with a 103 OPS+ isn't remotely good enough for a poor corner outfielder or a designated hitter. Now that he's primarily a DH, the projections improve enough to put him at ninth on this list instead of sixth, which is ... something, I guess.
8. Jacoby Ellsbury (minus-6.4 wins)
Future paydays: $21.1 million in 2018, 2019 and 2020, $5 million buyout of a $21 million club option for 2021.
If someone in baseball did not think Ellsbury's remaining deal was a net negative, he'd likely be on that team right now. Or at least that team's disabled list; Ellsbury's plantar fasciitis has prevented his return to the Yankees, but when that day comes, he returns to uncertain playing time, mainly dependent on the injuries of others.
7. Eric Hosmer (minus-6.9 wins)
Future paydays: $20 million per year in 2018-2022, $13 million annually in 2023-2025.
One of the most maddening errors some people made was concluding that Hosmer's eight-year contract wasn't a problem for the franchise because it may be only a five-year deal. But it's actually worse because of the player opt-out after 2022. In essence, when it's a five-year deal, the Padres would do better with it being eight years, and when it's an eight-year deal, the Padres would usually wish it had been only five. Taking this risk makes this deal have the same surplus value as an eight-year, $166 million contract does, locking the Padres into a worst-of-both-worlds situation. While Hosmer has value as a player, it's too much money for too long for a player who has never had two good seasons in a row.
6. Jordan Zimmermann (minus-7.0 wins)
Future paydays: $24 million in 2018, $25 million in 2019 and 2020.
You may notice a lack of pitchers, and Zimmermann is the last of just three pitchers on this list. The hypothesis I have is that the significant and obvious risk that comes with pitchers has scared general managers far deeper and longer than the prospect of underperforming veteran hitters. That seems to be starting to change this offseason, given how teams ran from players such as Mike Moustakas, Todd Frazier and -- to a degree -- even J.D. Martinez.
As for Zimmermann, he's actually striking out batters again in 2018 after dropping below 6.0 K/9 in his first two years in Detroit. But "Hey, that 7.71 ERA is a little higher than it should be!" is a difficult argument to make that he'll once again become a No. 2 starter that the Tigers can actually trade for a prospect. They'll try, though.
5. Jason Heyward (minus-7.5 wins)
Future paydays: $21.5 million in 2018, $20 million in 2019, $21 million in 2020 and 2021, $22 million in 2022 and 2023.
I think we have to accept at this point that Heyward's offensive rebound just isn't coming, at least to the extent that it makes this contract look like a good value the rest of the way. Heyward has a .673 OPS and a 77 OPS+ with the Cubs, and while he's a legitimate elite defensive player in right field, there's only so much value you can squeeze out of any corner outfielder who hits like a below-average shortstop. Heyward will probably continue to eke out 1-2 WAR years as long as he's a top-ranked defender, but that's not enough considering how much is remaining on the contract.
4. Ian Desmond (minus-7.9 wins)
Future paydays: $22 million in 2018, $15 million in 2019 and 2020, $8 million in 2021, $2 million buyout on a $15 million club option for 2022.
The first strike of the Desmond deal was the Rockies signing Desmond to play first base, a position that he'd have trouble being a plus at in most of his good seasons. The second strike was a miserable, injury-filled 2017 in which he hit .274/.326/.375 and finished more than a win under replacement level. His miserable 2018 start, struggling to keep his OPS above .500, is starting to look a lot like strike three.
3. Chris Davis (minus-11.9 wins)
Future paydays: $23 million annually, 2018-2022.
After Davis hit 47 home runs in 2015, the Orioles retained his services with a seven-year, $161 million contract. So far, Davis has contributed one above-average season, one replacement-level season and one wretched start of the season in 2018. Davis' response to his struggles has been to become more passive than he has ever been, and his career-best number when it comes to swinging at out-of-zone pitches (26.7 percent) has been matched by his career-worst number at swinging at pitches in the strike zone (58.3 percent -- he was at 72.2 percent in 2015). Even with some of the money deferred at a low interest rate, this is looking like a nearly unmitigated disaster for the Orioles.
2. Albert Pujols (minus-14.8 wins)
Future paydays: $27 million in 2018, $28 million in 2019, $29 million in 2020 and $30 million in 2021, plus $3 million for his 3,000th career hit in the next week or so.
Pujols drops to second on this list this year. That's only because one player had a worse year than he did when determining his future projections. ZiPS projects Pujols to be replacement level for the rest of his career, and the best outcome (for anything beyond Pujols' bottom line) is that Albert gets his 3,000th hit and agrees with the Angels on a settlement offer so that he can retire before the 2001-2010 Pujols fades completely from our memories.
1. Miguel Cabrera (minus-15.0 wins)
Future paydays: $30 million annually in 2018-2021, $32 million in 2022 and 2023, $8 million buyout on a $30 million club option for 2024 plus a $30 million club option for 2025.
The end of this contract was never going to turn out happily because he was signed for too many years too long in advance of his previous contract expiring. The question was: How many superstar seasons will Cabrera have before gravity wins? If he has a gentle David Ortiz-like aging curve, maybe it doesn't wind up too badly. But injuries brought Cabrera down in the second year of the new contract, and while there's still a chance of a real bounce-back, the recovery rate for superstars who collapse in their mid-30s is not promising.
Would Cabrera have gotten a six-year, $192 million contract this past winter? I'm not sure he would have even gotten an offer for half that this past offseason. At the time the deal was struck, I thought the Tigers would have been far better off being happy that Cabrera's previous eight-year, $152.3 million deal worked out so well and let him play out 2014 and 2015 and test the market. I'm not feeling, at least so far, that my judgment was wrong.