The way the Major League’s is set up players that get drafted by their respective teams come up through their program and into the Bigs with their rookie contracts. These rookie contracts are much cheaper than that of the free agent contracts. Once these players finish their rookie contracts they are usually between the age of 26-30 and they are expecting long term contracts. If I’m a GM I’m not giving it to them. These players give way too much of a risk to your organization in the back end of their career, way too much of a risk to give them a lot of cash. I have yet to see a long term contract with a boat load of cash included that I like. Alex Rodriguez is currently the highest paid player, making 32 million annually, and ARod isn’t even in my top 5 third basemen in the AL.
Josh Hamilton, slugger for the Texas Rangers is in his final year of his contract. Hamilton is having an amazing season, leading the league in nearly every category. The centerfielder is batting .402, has 18 homers (5 more than the next highest player) and 45 RBI (12 higher than the next highest player). I was recently asked if I would give Josh Hamilton a long term contract with a lot of money involved and my answer was “no”. Why risk giving Josh Hamilton a long term contract when he poses a serious injury threat and has also shown some serious off field troubles, even though it looks like those times are behind him, you never know.
There are too many things that have to happen for long term contracts to work, I would rather spend money elsewhere. Much wiser, and sign guys to shorter contracts. The longest I would sign a player is to a four year deal, maybe an exception to one or two players a five year deal. Teams in this league can survive without spending their money like crazy. The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series last season with a low payroll and the San Francisco Giants won it the year prior with an even lower payroll. The Cardinals took a shot on a low risk high reward signing with Lance Berkman, Berkman was awarded comeback player of the year. I’m taking my chances elsewhere on multiple players with short term low risk high reward players rather than putting all of my eggs in one basket. Here are some of the worst contract in Major League Baseball today:
Barry Zito: 7 years $126,000,000
Vernon Wells: 7 years $126,000,000
Alfonso Soriano: 8 years $136,000,000
Carl Crawford: 7 years $142,000,000
Alex Rodriguez: 10 years $275,000,000
Albert Pujols: 10 years $250,000,000
John Lackey: 5 years $82,500,000
Ryan Howard: 5 years $125,000,000
Jayson Werth: 7 years $126,000,000
Conner “Country Breakfast” Patch @connerpatch68
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