MLB Free Agency: The 25 Worst Free Agent Signings of the Last 25 Years
Boy, what a task this was! There have been so many dollars and little sense thrown around in baseball in the last 25 years, it was difficult to narrow it all down to just 25!
But after numerous hours of research and head-scratching, I present to you all the 25 Worst Free Agent Signings in the Last 25 Years.
Disclaimer: This list is based on a combination of money spent for the player, the production that ensued (or didn't), and whether the entire contract was picked up by the team (some players that were traded had their contracts forwarded to another team, thus taking a little sting out of the burden the original team had to carry).
In short, how much the player hurt the organization was the main determinant.
You may realize Alex Rodriguez and Kevin Brown aren't on this list, despite their giant contracts. This is because they were largely dominant during the extent of their contracts (Brown had some injury problems, but in four of the five years he was with LA he had a 3.00 ERA or lower-his last two years were picked up by the Yankees when he was traded).
25. Juan Gonzalez: 2 Years, $24 Million
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When Juan Gonzalez signed his two-year, $24 million contract with the Texas Rangers before the 2002 season, the Rangers were hoping he would be the same player he was when he earned the nickname "Juan Gone" when he first started in the big leagues with the team.
But Juan Gone was older and more frail, and he played in a combined 152 games in the two seasons with the team, including hitting only eight home runs in the first year.
By the end of it all, the Rangers were hoping Juan would simply be gone.
24. Alfonso Soriano: 8 Years, $136 Million
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Alfonso Soriano just finished his fourth year of his $136-million contract. Despite two solid years to start off in 2007 and 2008, Soriano clearly isn't the same player as he once was.
This year Soriano batted .258. Last season he batted .241. He no longer hits the 30-plus home runs he used to, and he's lost the speed that once made him a greater threat.
The Cubs finished fifth in the NL Central this year, and it's not getting any better.
Plus, no one's going to want to trade for a 34-year-old aging outfielder.
Soriano still has four years left and about $76 million left on his contract.
23. Carlos Beltran: 7 Years, $119 Million
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Carlos Beltran started off this whopper of a contract hitting .266 with 16 home runs in his first year. He had three solid seasons after, but the last two years have been far from solid.
He followed his 81-game, 10 home run campaign in 2009 with a 64-game, seven home run season this year in which he hit .255. Like Soriano, his speed has rapidly diminished.
The Mets have placed fourth in the NL East the last two years.
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22. Julio Lugo: 4 Years, $36 Million
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Granted, in Julio Lugo's first season with the Red Sox under the contract, the Red Sox won the World Series.
But it wasn't because of Lugo. Lugo was originally expected to be Boston's leadoff hitter when he signed this contract. Instead, midway through the season, he was dropped to the bottom of the order. He batted .237 with eight home runs and a .294 OBP for the Red Sox.
The second year he hit .268 and committed 16 errors in just 82 games before he fell to injury. The third year he hit .284 before being traded at the deadline to the St. Louis Cardinals. The next year the Cardinals sent him to Baltimore, where he belonged.
21. Aramis Ramirez: 5 Years, $75 Million
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Hmm...another failed contract from the Cubs...I wonder why they lose so much.
Aramis Ramirez started his contract off on a good note in 2007 and 2008. His next two years...not so much.
Ramirez played in just 82 games in 2009. In 2010, he hit .241.
Well, at least he has another year to make it up...for $15 million.
20. Vince Coleman: 4 Years, $11 Million
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Getting almost $3 million a season back in 1991 wasn't too bad. But Vince Coleman wouldn't even be worth that today, or the league minimum, the way he played-or didn't- from 1991 to 1994.
Despite never hitting higher than .279, having absolutely no power, and playing in about 70 games in each of his first two seasons, those weren't even the worst parts of Coleman's tenure with the New York Mets.
In a 1993 season Mets fans will probably never forget, Coleman was the epitome of a walking disaster. First, he injured star pitcher Dwight Gooden's throwing arm by recklessly swinging a golf club in the team clubhouse.
Just three months later, Coleman thought it a good idea to throw a lit firecracker into a crowd of fans waiting for an autograph in an LA Dodgers parking lot. He injured three children, including a 2-year-old, and was suspended for the rest of the season.
Coleman was traded-with cash- to Kansas City the following year.
19. Juan Pierre: 5 Years, $44 Million
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I've always liked this scrappy little dude, but for a guy with virtually no power, five years and $44 million is a lot to take in all at once for me.
Dodgers manager Joe Torre must have agreed, because he made Pierre a bench player and proceeded to go after Andruw Jones (more on him later) and Manny Ramirez (more on him later) before he would ever make Pierre his Bona fide starter.
Pierre was traded to the Chicago White Sox before the 2010 season for two minor leaguers.
18. Roger Clemens: 1 Year, $22 Million
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Sure, the contract in 2006 with the Houston Astros was prorated, so Clemens only got $12.5 million, but the fact is he pitched for half a season-starting in June- and only had 19 starts. Nineteen starts for $12.5 million? That's just bonkers.
Clemens did come out with a 2.30 ERA, but he averaged under six innings per game, and he never pitched into the eighth.
His ERA didn't seem to matter, either, as he garnered only seven wins, and the Astros didn't make the playoffs, 1.5 games behind the NL Central-leading St. Louis Cardinals.
17. Carl Pavano: 4 Years, $40 Million
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Whenever the Yankees spend a lot of money on a player that fails miserably, I just start cackling and grinning like a ghost. Usually when someone's around me when I do this, they look at me with a scared expression on their face and start backing away slowly.
But this was exactly my reaction when the whole Carl Pavano experiment went awry for the Yankees back in 2005. Coming off an 18-win season with Florida, the Yankees believed Pavano would be one of their aces on the back of a four-year, $40 million contract.
Wrong. Pavano had only 17 starts for the Yankees in 2005 due to shoulder injury, and got blasted with a 4.77 ERA and a 4-6 record.
The injury ended up costing him the entire 2006 season, and he had only nine starts in his final two years of the contract.
Talk about your all-time backfires.
16. Kevin Millwood: 5 Years, $60 Million
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When the Texas Rangers signed Kevin Millwood to be their ace back in 2006, they were a desperate bunch. They had no pitching and their offense had to score basically 10 runs a game to win.
Despite pitching to a 4.52 ERA his first season under the contract, the Rangers were happy with that, evidenced by his 16 wins. His next two seasons the Rangers weren't happy with: a 5.16 ERA and a 5.07 ERA.
Millwood was traded the following year, in 2009, to Baltimore—where he belonged.
15. Mike Hampton: 8 Years, $121 Million
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When Mike Hampton signed his eight-year, $121 million contract with the Colorado Rockies in 2001, it was the largest contract in sports history at the time. The fact that the Rockies had to pay for only two years of it is his only saving grace.
In Hampton's first year, he had a 5.41 ERA. In his second, he had a 6.15 ERA.
He was traded to the Marlins, and then to the Braves after the 2002 season, and his contract was inexplicably picked up off the hands of Colorado.
For the lack of a better word, "Why?"
14. Aaron Rowand: 5 Years, $60 Million
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It would be easy to look at Aaron Rowand's 2007 season with Philadelphia-in which he hit .309 with 27 home runs- and deem him fit for a big free agent contract.
Those who knew him better, however, saw that Rowand had hit more than 20 homers only twice in his career, including 2007, and wasn't the power bat the San Francisco Giants needed. Not only that, he was getting older, his best years were probably behind him, and he would start losing speed in center field as well.
Unfortunately for Giants fans, GM Brian Sabean apparently didn't see any of this, inking Rowand to a five-year, $60 million contract and penciling Rowand in as his starting center fielder.
In the first year of the contract, Rowand hit .271 with 13 home runs. In his next season, his average dipped to .261.
It wasn't until 2010, when Rowand was hitting in the low .200s, that manager Bruce Bochy decided to pull the plug. He installed a 32-year-old center fielder named Andres Torres who hadn't had a full season in the Bigs yet for the former All-Star- the rest is history. It's safe to say Rowand will be relegated to the bench the last two years of his contract or be traded.
13. Richie Sexson: 4 Years, $50 Million
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Richie Sexson had some monster years in the Majors, with two seasons of 45 homers and 120-plus RBI.
The problem is, after two big seasons under the lucrative contract with the Seattle Mariners, Richie Sexson all of a sudden was done.
His next two seasons he hit .205 and .218 respectively. By the trade deadline in 2008, the Mariners had lost all hope and released him with still a year left on his contract. The Yankees signed him for 28 at-bats, released him and we never heard from Richie Sexson again.
12. Gary Matthews Jr: 5 Years, $50 Million
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When searching for their next center fielder for the 2007 season, the Los Angeles Angels didn't look at Gary Matthews Jr.'s career record of hitting in the .250s or the fact that he wasn't a true power hitter or the fact that he was getting older.
They looked at one thing and one thing only: his career year in 2006 with Texas, hitting .316 with 19 bombs.
For being stupid enough to believe Gary Matthews would live up to this contract, the Angels organization deserved what came next.
For the first three years, Matthews hit in the .250s (shocking!) and hit eight and four home runs in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
Despite Matthews being traded to the Mets after the 2009 season with two years left on his contract, the Angels had to pay all but $2 million of his entire contract. Ouch.
11. Manny Ramirez: 2 Years, $45 Million
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Manny Ramirez was signed to a two-year, $45 million contract by the Dodgers after being picked up in 2008 from the Boston Red Sox.
In his first season with the Dodgers, Manny Ramirez didn't even play the first 50 games. Why? Because he was suspended by Major League Baseball for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Talk about making an entrance.
But when he came back from suspension, Ramirez led the Dodgers to the NL West title. Despite playing only 66 games for the Dodgers the next year, what Ramirez did in 2009 cannot be ignored, as he batted .290 with 19 home runs in just 352 at-bats.
I feel like in every scenario Manny Ramirez gets off the hook because of his raw talent. Sure enough, he escaped my Top 10 because of what he did in 2009. But at $22.5 million a year, having a lost season in 2010 puts him at No. 11.
10. Ken Griffey Jr: 9 Years, $116.5 Million
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As much as I loved Ken Griffey Jr. as a player, and admired the fact that he was never discussed in steroids talks, his contract with Cincinnati in 2000 was doomed from the start and was for many a sad thing to see unravel. His time in Cincinnati was essentially his fall from superstar status.
He did have four strong seasons under the contract (2001, 2005, 2006 and 2007), but the other five were mediocre at best.
After a big season in his first year, Griffey began to have injury problems after that. In his next three seasons, he never played more than 83 games in a season.
His last season in 2008 before he was traded to the Chicago White Sox at the deadline was hard to watch, as Griffey-clearly on his last legs- batted .245 in 102 games. He was blasted in media outlets and hometown newspapers for his apparent lack of effort on the field, probably best demonstrated by CBS Sports' Gregg Doyel comparison of the 2010 team to the team Griffey was a part of:
"It's a different Reds team than the older, beer-bellied softball teams of recent years. Those Reds were Ken Griffey and Adam Dunn lounging on the clubhouse's leather couches, hitting home runs, misplaying balls in the outfield and thinking they had it all figured out, when all they knew how to do was lose."
In all nine seasons Griffey was with the Reds, they never once made the playoffs.
9. Albert Belle: 5 Years, $65 Million
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Before the 1999 season, slugger Albert Belle signed a five-year, $65 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles, becoming baseball's highest paid player at the time. Two years later, he retired at age 34 as a result of degenerative osteoarthritis in his hip. Baltimore had to make a spot for him on the 40-man roster for the next three years in order to keep most of what Belle would have made.
Sportswriters didn't do him any favors upon his exit.
"Sorry, there'll be no words of sympathy here for Albert Belle," wrote the New York Daily News' Bill Madden in 2001. "He was a surly jerk before he got hurt and now he's a hurt surly jerk....He was no credit to the game. Belle's boorish behavior should be remembered by every member of the Baseball Writers' Association when it comes time to consider him for the Hall of Fame."
When you're not appreciated in talent-deprived Baltimore, you know you've done something wrong.
8. Denny Neagle: 5 Years, $51 Million
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Denny Neagle's years with Colorado from 2001 on made you wonder what were the Rockies thinking signing this guy and was that extra $1 million really necessary?
In 2001 and 2002, Neagle had an ERA over 5.00. In 2003, he started only seven games due to injury (with a 7.90 ERA), and he missed the entire 2004 season due to ligament and elbow surgeries.
Neagle's contract with Colorado came to a dramatic close in late 2004 when a Denver policeman ticketed him for soliciting a woman for oral sex. The Rockies canceled the final year of his contract citing a morals clause.
The Rockies finished fourth or worst in the NL West all four years he was with the team.
7. Darren Dreifort: 5 Years, $55 Million
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Despite never having an ERA under 4.00 as a starter, the Los Angeles Dodgers found it wise before the 2001 season to offer Darren Dreifort a five-year, $55 million contract.
Just 16 starts into his shiny new contract, Dreifort had to be shut down for the season and have elbow reconstruction surgery. It wasn't like he was pitching that well either, with a 5.13 ERA. The surgery kept him out until the 2003 season.
After 10 starts in 2003, Dreifort's arm complications arose, and he was shut down again. He had a 4.03 ERA at the time.
Dreifort was made a reliever in 2004. That didn't help him either, posting a 4.44 ERA in 60 games.
In 2005, Dreifort was shut down for good.
Dreifort only pitched for three of the five seasons of the contract. He retired after it.
6. Chan Ho Park: 5 Years, $65 Million
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The Texas Rangers weren't necessarily wrong to ink Chan Ho Park to a long-term deal in 2002 given their history of bad starting pitching and the fact that Park had two solid seasons pitching prior to the contract.
But what followed was an absolute nightmare.
In his 3-and-one-half seasons with Texas, Park's best ERA was 5.46. And in 2003, in which he had only seven starts due to injury, he gave up 25 earned runs in nearly 30 innings pitched.
He was traded to San Diego in 2005, thus ending the Chan Ho Park experiment.
His contract with Texas was one of the biggest ever given to a pitcher at the time.
5. Bobby Bonilla: 1 Year, $30 Million
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You may think of Bobby Bonilla's five-year, $29 million contract with the Mets as a horrible contract, which it was. He hit .249 in the first year of it and helped inspire sportswriter Bob Klapisch's book, The Worst Team Money Could Buy: The Collapse of the 1992 New York Mets.
But you ain't seen nothin' yet.
In 2000, the New York Mets agreed to buy out the final year of Bonilla's $5.9 million contract. What they did next will go down in history.
The Mets, in efforts to save money for the time being and bring in new talent, agreed to pay Bonilla in 11 years time: with interest, of course.
Well, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, that time has almost come. The total damage? $30 million. The Mets will have to pay Bonilla $1.2 million a year for the next 25 years.
Good luck getting fresh talent now, New York.
4. Jason Schmidt: 3 Years, $47 Million
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After being a workhorse for the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates throughout his career, Jason Schmidt was rewarded by the Los Angeles Dodgers after the 2006 season, with a three-year, $47 million contract despite getting older.
Bad idea.
This is how his career with LA went:
2007. Three starts. Trip to DL. Three more starts. Trip to DL, out for 2007 and 2008 season.
2009. Began season on the DL. First start: June 20. August 7: placed on DL.
Shortly after: retirement.
Jason Schmidt only had 10 starts in his entire three years with the Dodgers. That's $4.7 million a start.
3. Roger Clemens: 1 Year, $28 Million
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Roger Clemens' pro-rated contract with the New York Yankees in 2007 was officially worth $18.7 million, as he started the season on June 9.
He made 17 starts, with a 4.18 ERA and only six wins.
In Game 3 of the ALDS, when the Yankees needed him most, Clemens lasted 2-and-one-third innings—giving up three runs- before reaggravating a hamstring injury.
The Yankees eventually lost in the ALDS, four games to one, to the Cleveland Indians. The CLEVELAND INDIANS.
2. Andruw Jones: 2 Years, $36.2 Million
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Three months into his two-year, $36.2 million contract, Andruw Jones was benched by manager Joe Torre to be a spot starter the rest of the way in 2008. He batted .158 in 75 games.
Before the 2009 season, he was outright released.
Need I say any more?
1. Barry Zito: 7 Years, $126 Million
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The fact that the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2010 makes this contract a little easier to bear for Giants fans. But not much easier, given that Barry Zito wasn't even included on the Giants roster for the entire postseason.
This contract was the greatest example in baseball history of what not to do when it comes to signing a free agent.
The numbers stick out instantly, but what really made this a horrible signing from day one in 2007 was it was done in complete desperation, with the organization grasping for a star to lead the Giants to the postseason in what turned out to be Barry Bonds' last season.
Barry Zito was a good pitcher who the Giants were hoping would be miraculously spectacular once he donned the orange and black. He was neither good nor spectacular...he was dreadful.
In Barry Zito's first four seasons with the Giants, he has never had an ERA under 4.00. In 2008, he had an ERA of 5.15. His win-loss records the past four seasons are as follows: 11-13, 10-17, 10-13 and, in 2010, 9-14.
What's more, it would be a shock if anybody took this contract off the Giants' hands in the next three years—not when there's still $54 million left on it.
Well, there you have it, the 25 Worst Free Agent Signings of the Last 25 Years. Let the controversy begin.
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