MLB Contracts: Ranking the 25 Highest Paid MLB Players by Present Value
In the back-loaded world of baseball mega contracts, every day is opposite day.
Up is down. Black is white. Carlos Lee is Twiggy.
It is a land where the old and ailing make more than the young and virile, where value is tethered to the realities of 2005 and in direct conflict with those of 2011.
Wading through these depths is like entering some intergalactic wormhole of perpetual incompetence.
Nothing in this place makes sense.
History, science, and logic tell us that a player’s most productive years should fall somewhere between the ages of 25 and 30.
But this world has no need for logic.
Of the 25 highest-paid players entering the 2011 season, only six—CC Sabathia, Joe Mauer, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Zambrano, Josh Beckett, and Jake Peavy—are aged 30 or under.
Now it’s easy to blame the front office bigwigs for this model of malfunction, but it’s not that simple. In reality, baseball’s general managers are more gullible than they are criminal, victims of the deceitful steroid era.
From roughly 2002 to 2007 the scale for player decline went haywire. Suddenly, 35-year-old players performed better than their 27-year-old counterparts. Players got better as they aged, accruing experience without losing any of their physical gifts.
Bewildered GMs went overboard trying to obtain these ageless titans. And oh what fun it was.
Then BALCO struck, then the Mitchell Report, then the 50-game suspensions. In scandal's wake it became quickly apparent that this history-bending shift owed itself to the rampant use of steroids in Major League Baseball.
By the time of that revelation, though, the salary train had already run well off the tracks. Citing precedent, players in the post-steroid era continue to demand similarly styled deals. Because free agency revolves around relativity, the residual cash still flowing to players like Todd Helton, Vernon Wells, and Alfonso Soriano no doubt drives Albert Pujols’ demands: “I’m better than that dude. Don’t I deserve more?”
Generally, baseball pundits and fans fall into line. They want their favorite player to get the contract he deserves in relation to whatever someone else makes.
It’s hard to stop the momentum of money.
All of that helps explain the puzzling assortment of has-beens and never-weres on the following list of the 25 highest-paid players in baseball rated according to their present value.* And although this list contains a few peak performers, the omissions are startling.
Players you won’t find on this list: Albert Pujols, Joey Votto, Carlos Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez, Ryan Braun, Felix Hernandez, Josh Hamilton, and, well, most of baseball’s premier talent.
Because in the bizarro-world of baseball contracts, talent isn’t ripe until it rots.
*Based on USA Today's list of 2011 salaries, not the average yearly value of the current contract.
25. Carlos Lee
1 of 25
2011 Salary: $19,000,000
2010 Stats: .246/.291/.417 24 HR, 89 RBI
In their exhaustive search for America’s biggest turd, the Houston Astros didn’t need to go far. A few hundred miles north, in the sprawling megalopolis of Dallas, lay the rotund object of their desire—a man so large they simply called him “the horse.”
Five years later Carlos Lee is the absolute worst premium-paid player in the major leagues. He’s always been a defensive liability, so when his bat went limp last year the Astros lost any semblance of value. Even if he manages to match last year’s home run and RBI totals, his impossibly low OBP makes him an offensive black hole.
24. A.J. Burnett
2 of 25
2011 Salary: $16,500,000
2010 Stats: 10-15, 5.26, ERA 145 SO
Scouts have been drinking the A.J. Burnett Kool-Aid for a long time because “the boy throws hard.” And no one drank more deeply than New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman. Burnett never had an era under 3.30 and in his much-lauded first year in New York the tempestuous hurler walked more batters than any other pitcher in the American League.
And that was success.
At his worst Burnett is the pitcher who limped to a 5.26 ERA and 1.511 WHIP in 2010, and when your scale runs from average to wretched, it's hard to justify $16.5 million.
What puzzles me about Burnett is that he’s the only player on this list who was never truly elite. Good, sure, but never elite. And while he’s capable of uniquely convincing dominance, he loses just as many games for his team with his implosions.
I think you could argue, based on his repeated use, that A.J. Burnett might have pitched his team out of more games than any other pitcher in the last decade. Could we make statistic out of that? I’m looking at you, numbers.
23. Barry Zito
3 of 25
2011 Salary: $18,500,000
2010 Stats: 9-14, 4.15 ERA, 150 SO
It’s bad news when your bounce-back year isn’t good enough to earn you a spot in the team’s postseason rotation. Though Zito pitched to the league average last year, he couldn’t hold off rookie Madison Bumgardner down the stretch, and the former AL Cy Young didn’t log a single postseason inning for the Giants in 2010.
It’s been a steep, unceremonious fall for Zito since he signed a 7-year, $126 million with the Giants in 2007. General consensus held that the Giants overpaid for Zito back then, but no one could have predicted this level of under-performance.
Perhaps most surprising is that Zito went from the AL to the NL—at a time when the former was markedly better than the latter—and regressed. Pitchers can usually expect an ERA dip anyway because of the NL’s lack of DH.
Normally one might figure that a pitcher leaving the spacious Oakland Coliseum could blame the ballpark for the spike, but not Zito, since the confines across the bay in San Francisco are almost as cavernous.
All of that gives me at least some sympathy for Giants GM Brian Sabean. Zito may never have been worth $126 million, but few could have predicted he’d be this bad.
.png?w=256)
22. Todd Helton
4 of 25
2011 Salary: $20,275,000
2010 Stats: .256/.362/.367 8 HR, 37 RBI
The only thing keeping Todd Helton even this high on the list are injuries, which were partly to blame for his horrendous 2010. He did hit .325 as recently as 2009, and if he can creep somewhere around .300 for most of 2011 he’s probably a bit more valuable than Zito, Burnett, and Lee.
If he doesnt...
Well, the outlook isn’t rosy. He’s declined defensively and his once-prodigious power seems long gone (he hasn’t hit 20 HR since 2005). Best case scenario, the Rockies get a good contact hitter at a power hitting position, giving them, oh, about $18 million less than the value of the contract.
21. Jason Bay
5 of 25
2011 Salary: $18,125,000
2010 Stats: .259/.347/.402 6 HR, 47 RBI
The pride of Trail, BC might become a poster boy for the “ballpark effect” if he doesn’t bounce back this year. After abusing the Green Monster in 2009 to the tune of 36 HR, Bay didn’t even crack double digits last year, his first season in the Mets' cavernous new digs.
Injury was partially to blame, though Bay still played a full 95 games. Bottom line: If you’re a corner outfielder making over $18 million a year, you’ve got to hit home runs.
If Bay can bounce back from his most recent injury and creep back around the 20-25 HR mark I actually like the Mets offense this year. Between Reyes, Wright, and the emerging Ike Davis the Mets have some real firepower.
And then maybe if the pitching can...wait...nevermind. Expect this for the rest of the year Met fans...and pray for new ownership.
20. Vernon Wells
6 of 25
2011 Salary: $26,187,500
2010 Stats: .273/.331/.515 31 HR, 88 RBI
Wrap your head around this: Only one player in major league baseball will make more money than Vernon Wells this season. Based on the merits of Wells’ performance last season, that would be embarrassing, but not overwhelmingly embarrassing.
I have feeling we’re trending toward overwhelming embarrassment this year though, because everything about Wells’ resurgent 2010 feels very Milli Vanilli. After a hot start to last season Wells faded down the stretch, and that lull seems to have carried over into this year.
If Angels weren’t already concerned about his .178 start, Wells has a track history of performing poorly in pressure situations. He followed up his 2006 contract signing with career worsts across the board 2007.
His trade to Los Angels this off-season was supposed to finally remove those franchise-player shackles, but seems only to have replaced them with the new stress of playing for a contender.
A related story: I went to a Sixers game with a buddy and he was selected to shoot two shots on the court at half time. The first was a half-court heave and he hit the rim. The crowd gasped. The second was a three-point shot and he airballed. The crowd groaned.
I asked him afterwards what happened, and he said he couldn’t handle the expectations of the three-pointer. The heave was fun but the shot was torture—his body revolted.
All of which makes him like Vernon Wells, except that my buddy almost certainly won’t make $100 million in his lifetime for choking.
19. Alfonso Soriano
7 of 25
2011 Salary: $19,00,000
2010 Stats: .258/.322/.496 24 HR, 79 RBI
That I’m only now getting to Alfonso Soriano should help illustrate the remarkable depth of terribleness on this list. Soriano is basically Carlos Lee with slightly better offensive statistics and at least a modicum of self-respect on the base-paths.
Because he’s never really had a natural position, Soriano’s value has always been in his bat and his speed. Both have taken a hit in the last few years and it’s hard to see the Cubs making a serious run at the pennant with his albatross of a contract.
Soriano has shown some pop early in the 2011 season, but his putrid OBP and K:BB rate indicate further decline as a complete hitter. At least he gets to experience Chicago in the summer, which I’ve heard is quite lovely.
18. Carlos Beltran
8 of 25
2011 Salary: $19,325,436
2010 Stats: .255/.341/.427 7 HR, 27 RBI
I could write “see Jason Bay” here and have most of it covered, but there’s a bit more to the Beltran story.
For starters, Beltran played well for the first few years of his megadeal. He earned at least some of that money. Second, Beltran’s perceived value has always been bound to the fact that he’s an excellent defensive center-fielder.
Except now he’s not, and as a right fielder he’s not quite earning his coin.
The optimist will argue that Beltran still hit 27 HRs with 112 RBI in his last healthy major league season. With early returns looking fairly promising, there is some hope that Beltran could at least remain a contributor for the next couple of seasons.
The pessimist points out that Beltran’s last full season came in 2008.
In the words of Archie Bunker, “Those were the days...”
17. John Lackey
9 of 25
2011 Salary: $15,595,000
2010 Stats: 14-11, 4.40 ERA, 156 SO
I’m still not sure what Theo and Co. saw in John Lackey when they inked him to a deal in 2009. Maybe it's the "East Coast Bias" talking here, but I never saw Lackey as a truly dominant number one. His track record says he should be somewhere in the mid-to-high 3s with his ERA, which is good but not great. Outside of 2007, his one truly dominating season, he was never really in the conversation for best pitcher in the AL.
Yeah he was down last year but it wasn’t anything catastrophic. In the next few years I imagine the reality will be paying a bunch of money for a guy who will continue to hold right around or right above league average (his ERA+ was 99 in 2010) for the next handful of seasons. No, he’s not a disaster in the way of A.J. Burnett or Barry Zito, but John Lackey appears destined for a late-career role as the dependable Jed Clampett of the Red Sox rotation.*
*Not entirely sure if this reference makes sense.
16. Michael Young
10 of 25
2011 Salary: $16,174,974
2010 Stats: .284/.330/.444 21 HR, 91 RBI
I really expected to put Michael Young at lot further down on this list. In fact, when I first assembled the names without looking at the statistics I put his at the bottom. With the Rangers seeking so desperately to move him, I envisioned a piss poor defender clinging to an expired notion of offensive capability.
After examining the numbers—and finally grasping how truly mediocre some of the other players on this list have become—I concluded that Young was actually a pretty damn good hitter. Last year’s slash line was no fluke.
Young may not contend for another batting title, but he hit 20 HR in each of the last two seasons and posted an impressive .374 OBP in 2009. He’s never really had a bad year at the plate, and seems determined to hold the retirement reaper at bay. Barring injury or trade, he should continue to help the Rangers contend in the AL West...while continuing to defend poorly.
15. Josh Beckett
11 of 25
2011 Salary: $17,000,000
2010 Stats: 6-6, 5.78 ERA, 116 SO
He’s good, he’s bad, he’s Josh Beckett—an incredible talent who can’t seem to string a couple of good seasons together. The disparities are remarkable: In the last 5 years we’ve twice seen Beckett swing from an ERA under 4.00 to an ERA over 5.00 in back-to-back seasons. Just as you begin to think he’s lost it forever, the nastiness resurfaces.
Early returns from this year indicate the return of good Beckett. Yes, it’s early, but his ERA+ is up 83 points from his disastrous 2010 campaign, and he’s dramatically improved his K:BB ratio. He’s only 29 and still has all his pitches. By the end of the year he could be even higher on this list, but for right now I think he’s best suited for the median.
14. Torii Hunter
12 of 25
2011 Salary: $18,500,000
2010 Stats: .281/.354/.464 23 HR, 90 RBI
Like I did to Carlos Beltran, I could—and maybe I should—demerit Hunter because of his recent move to right field. I’ll refrain because he’s probably among the fastest right-fielders in baseball, and were it not for the scorched-grass speed of Peter Bourjos he could probably play center for a couple more seasons.
Hunter isn’t the kneeless Beltran hobbling toward decline. He’s stayed on the field for most of his career and posted fairly consistent offensive numbers. No, he’s not the player who memorably robbed Barry Bonds of a home run during an All-Star Game, but he hasn’t plummeted as far as you might think.
13. Carlos Zambrano
13 of 25
2011 Salary: $18,875,000
2010 Stats: 11-6, 3.33 ERA, 117 SO
Considering the instability of the man’s mind, I half expected to see some peaks and valleys in Carlos Zambrano’s statistical closet.
When he’s not puncturing water coolers with a garden rake, he’s pretty reliably retiring hitters. Zambrano has never had an ERA over 4.00 in any of his nine full major league seasons and only once held an ERA under 3.00. Every year you know you’re getting an ERA between 3.30 and 3.80 with 10-15 wins. Maybe he didn’t deserve to get paid like a true ace, but there’s little doubting Zambrano’s steady hand.
I’ve heard some grumbling about his early season performance, both from a statistical and eye-witness perspective. I can’t speak to the eye-witness business, but I wouldn’t worry too much about Big Z’s high ERA. The rest of his metrics check in right around career level.
12. Jake Peavy
14 of 25
2011 Salary: $16,000,000
2010 Stats: 7-6, 4.63 ERA, 93 SO
Depending on your faith in western medicine, you could put Peavy a lot higher or a lot lower on this list. Over a five year period he had the best WHIP in the major leagues, and his best years are light years better than the best years of any pitchers below him on this list.
Put simply, Jake Peavy can be one of the top five pitchers in baseball. Or he might be out of baseball by the end of the year. Those are both extremes, but realistic extremes considering Peavy recently underwent a completely unprecedented form of muscle-repair surgery.
After a solid rehab start, Peavy looks like he’s about ready to rejoin the big league club. These next few months will likely determine if Peavy becomes the Tommy John of his generation or the Booby Miles of baseball.
11. Johan Santana
15 of 25
2011 Salary: $21,644,707
2010 Stats: 11-9, 2.98 ERA, 144 SO
When he’s healthy, Johan Santana could be the very best pitcher in all of baseball. That alone distinguishes him from all of the other broken players on this list. The rest of them used to be great, but only Santana used to be singularly great. Although I’d stack the odds against him ever regaining that title, Santana still has value in his remarkable ceiling.
Without knowing how he’ll respond to shoulder surgery, I also think its worth noting that Santana’s fastball-change combination makes him a good candidate to prosper late into his career. Even without the full benefit of a 95 MPH fastball, Santana proved last year that he can sit around 90-91 and still get big league hitters out.
As long as he maintains the velocity differential on his change-up, Santana will remain a tough opponent. Naturally this is all speculative, and so it must remain until whenever yo-yo-Johan returns.
10. Ichiro Suzuki
16 of 25
2011 Salary: $18,000,000
2010 Stats: .315/.359/.394 6 HR, 43 RBI
Ten is a nice round number, and a convenient place for this list to take a serious change in tone. Until now we’ve seen players who either grossly under-preformed or have such serious injury concerns that one can reasonably doubt if they’ll ever achieve their past levels of performance.
Starting with Ichiro, every player from here on out is a player we can still consider elite. And Ichiro isn’t just elite, he’s actually unique.
He’s probably the most consistent offensive performer of the past decade despite the fact that he’s entering what should be rapid physical decline. He’s almost never been injured and his slash line from year to year looks like a carbon copy. Through the era of the long ball, Ichiro was the only player who truly prospered as a high-contact threat. Despite advanced age, he continues to steal bases at a high clip and play some of the best defensive right field ever seen.
At some point he’ll stop doing these things, but I won’t hazard a guess as to when.
9. Roy Oswalt
17 of 25
2011 Salary: $16,000,000
2010 Stats: 13-13, 2.76 ERA, 193 SO
Like Ichiro, Oswalt is one of those aging players overdue for a drop-off year. Except that it hasn’t happened. Not yet at least.
Oswalt continues to pitch well above the league average in every meaningful statistical category. Given his stated priorities, I’d reason that Oswalt retires before he loses his stuff. Folks in Philadelphia seem to have the impression that Lil’ Roy simply wants a little hardware for what I can only assume is his wood-paneled, deer-carcass-covered man-cave in Mississippi.
Once he gets ringed, Oswalt can finally return to what he loves best: Farmin’, fatherin’, and fightin’ global terrorism.
8. Mark Teixeira
18 of 25
2011 Salary: $23,125,000
2010 Stats: .256/.356/.481 33 HR, 108 RBI
In the past couple of years, with his average and OBP in decline, Tex has quietly slid back into the second tier of big league hitters. That said, he continues to rank among the better defensive one-sackers in the game and dispatches his share of Bronx bombs. And even during his notoriously prolonged slumps, Teixeira draws enough walks to keep the offense moving.
What’s more, Teixeira manages to do all of this with a swing that makes him look like a pinstriped sea cow.
Note: Manatees have notoriously bad hitting mechanics. They make gibbons look like saltwater otters!
7. Alex Rodriguez
19 of 25
2011 Salary: $32,000,000
2010 Stats: .270/.341/.506 30 HR, 125 RBI
You could flip flop A-Rod with Teixeira and I’d understand, Teixera is younger, more durable, and arguably more valuable defensively. But, in a world without injury, Rodriguez is the better hitter. He’s only one season removed from a .402 OBP and the 30 home runs he hit last year represent the lower limit of his range. Teixera’s a 40 HR guy at best, but A-Rod averages around 40 per year.
If last year’s output represents the new norm for the latter part of Rodriguez’s career then Teixera might be the Yankees best offensive threat. But as the ancient Cretan saying goes, “Never bet against a centaur...and if you do bet against one, always avoid placing your money with Giorgios. Girorgios is a notorious cheat.”
6. Matt Holliday
20 of 25
2011 Salary: $16,317,774
2010 Stats: .312/.390/.532 28 HR, 103 RBI
The guy had one bad year, and it wasn’t even a whole year. It was half a year played in probably the worst hitter’s ballpark in the league. He still hit 11 home runs and posted a .378 OBP. But Matt Holliday still can’t seem to sidestep his lukewarm spring in Oaktown. Since then, baseball people seem to see him as a second fiddle, unfit to carry a team like he did for years in Colorado.
Now that he’s pulverizing baseballs for the Cardinals some of the reverence has returned. Not enough I say, but it’s a start. He’s a .320 lifetime hitter with power to all fields—one of baseball’s toughest outs. I don’t think he’s quite Albert Pujols, but I think it’s fair to say he’s Miguel Cabrera lite—with much better personal discipline (holding tasteless joke inside).
5. Joe Mauer
21 of 25
2011 Salary: $23,000,000
2010 Stats: .327/.402/.469 9 HR, 75 RBI
Despite recent injury concerns Mauer still gets the top-five nod because he is the only player on the list still playing a premium defensive position. By that I mean he is the only one who plays somewhere in the middle of the diamond; there are no other catchers, shortstops, second basemen, or center fielders on this list. Of the 25 highest-paid players in major league baseball, Mauer is the only one.
That alone should convince you of baseball’s moronic salary system. Because of the way GMs structure contracts, most players have moved positions by the time they start making the really big bucks (see Wells, Hunter, and Beltran).
Anyways...
It’s hard to calculate Mauer’s value at his position -- though people never fail to try. So let’s put it like this: Mauer plays the most physically demanding position in baseball and, when he’s healthy, he’s by far the best hitter of anyone playing that position. Even if he never regains the home run stroke, his gap-to-gap power makes him one of the game’s most complete hitters.
In five years, if Mauer has moved to first base or DH, we may need to reevaluate his worth, but as of now he’s an easy top five choice.
4. Ryan Howard
22 of 25
2011 Salary: $20,000,000
2010 Stats: .276/.353/.505 31 HR, 108 RBI
If you watch Ryan Howard play a lot you’re probably thinking he’s too high on this list. He doesn’t look like a hitter in the same way Holliday, A-Rod, and Mauer look like he hitters. When he swings and misses—which happens plenty—the bat and the ball never appear to enter the same zip code.
He guesses, he flails, he takes a seat. And plenty of pitchers will tell you they don’t mind facing Howard because his swing has so many holes.
So don’t look at the tape. Just consider the numbers. No one in the history of this game has done what Ryan Howard has done over the first five-and-a-half years of his career. From the moment he arrived in Philadelphia he became the best pure power hitter in baseball, and in the interim no one has really challenged him for that title.
His pace is truly historic. In terms of games played he is the fastest player to 100, 150, 200, and 250 home runs in major league history. No, he’s not a better hitter than King Albert, but in terms of sheer power he’s been singularly amazing.
3. C.C. Sabathia
23 of 25
2011 Salary: $24,285,714
2010 Stats: 21-7, 3.18 ERA, 197 SO
My girlfriend calls her cat CC because it’s a calico cat. Get it?
My girlfriend’s cat cannot throw 95 mph.
CC Sabathia can throw 95 mph.
Therefore, CC Sabathia is not a calico cat.
With that pointless illustration out of the way, we can proceed to the fairly obvious explanation for CC Sabathia’s lofty ranking. For five years running he’s been one of the top pitchers in baseball, a truly elite left-handed power pitcher.
I know it’s kind of corny and arbitrary, but CC is one of those guys who just feels like an ace. He’s a durable, dominating strikeout machine. He is 100% man and, as stated earlier, still 0% cat.
2. Miguel Cabrera
24 of 25
2011 Salary: $20,000,000
2010 Stats: .328/.420/.622 38 HR, 126 RBI
Miguel Cabrera practices Santeria. Bradley Noel does not.
And yet Miggy’s game is...sublime!
That was terrible. I apologize. Please keep reading...
In my mind Miguel Cabrera is the only right-handed hitter in baseball that even compares to Albert Pujols. He hits for average, he draws walks, he drops bombs, and he does it all with the kind of jiggly, misshapen body that lets you know he really doesn’t care what you think. Though his base-running and defensive value are basically nil, he’s developed such a dominating hitting presence that those deficiencies matter little.
Here’s what you need to know: Last year Cabrera had the best OPS+ in all of baseball, and drew more intentional walks than anyone else in the American League. Managers fear him, baseballs loathe him, and club owners love him (damn...thought I wouldn’t go there). Barring any personal breakdowns or massive injuries, he’s one of only a few players you can pencil in for 30+ HRs and a .300+ batting average.
His swing is flawless, his body is not, and I can relate to at least part of that.
1. Roy Halladay
25 of 25
2011 Salary: $20,000,000
2010 Stats: 21-10, 2.44 ERA, 231 SO
I hate when people say that I should be able to relate to Roy Halladay because he’s a hardworking everyman. Because I can’t. Because I’ve never done anything as flawlessly as Roy Halladay throws a baseball.
I’m proficient at a few things—math, grammar, table top football. But, proficiency isn’t artistry.
Furthermore, only one player on this list can rightfully claim that he is the very best player at his position in all of baseball. Roy Halladay is that player. End of argument. Not Felix Hernandez, not CC Sabthia, not Josh Johnson, not Ubaldo Jimenez, not Henry Rowengartner. Roy Halladay.
And my perspective needed a kick in the ass to realize it.
Until I saw Halladay pitching alongside three other legitimate superstars I couldn’t recognize the true talent gap between Doc and the rest of baseball. Against the backdrop of Lee, Hamels, and Oswalt, Halladay’s star shines even brighter—the others dominate, but he suffocates. Halladay is without vulnerability, and the runs scored against him almost look accidental—a couple of ground balls through the hole or the rare fly ball that lands safely, but hardly a barrage.
So I implore you, watch Roy Halladay and then watch the other guys. I guarantee you’ll find that they break down as such.
.png?w=480)
