"long term" is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

A-Rod's first deal wasn't that bad, although it was probably bigger than it needed to be.

For the purposes of the list, it does not count when a guy is just coming into the league, they would have to sign a contract afterwards, so Prince Fielder’s rookie contract can’t be on here even though it’s about as good of a deal as you can have. The same goes for fliers taken on a guy - Chris Carpenter’s deal with the Cardinals would top that list.

This is a very weird set of criteria that produces a very weird list. As BLB notes, he's got at least one 3-year deal, which isn't really long-term. He also mixes pre-FA (Pujols, Buerhle) and FA (Manny, Vlad) contracts. And when your #5 contract is one that the team tried (and failed) to get out from under midway through, that seems to at the very least imply that long-term contracts are always a bad idea.

Oh, and any list that doesn't include the contract that Barry Bonds played under from 2001 - 2004 can't really be taken seriously.

Bonds' first deal with the Giants (6 years, $44 million) was a lot better than most of these.

Yeah, I was just about to mention Bonds first one.

Isn't it 1> Barry Bonds 1993
2> Greg Maddux 1993

Speaking of Joey Belle, shouldn't his Baltimore contract be on the worst list?

I don't know, A-Rod's first contract is the reason why people shouldn't put opt-out clauses like that. According to Boras, it was intended as a 7-year deal, and the rest was only to be taken if he was hurt, or unable to perform to $ 25 M of ability.

Isn't it 1> Barry Bonds 1993
2> Greg Maddux 1993

Yea, its kinda amazing he has Pedro, but not Maddux. Or Bonds.

He should put aside any notion that these are the "best long-term contracts ever signed", when they are really the best long-term contracts signed within the last 15 years. I'm sure there were several great long-term contracts in the 70s and 80s that produced much better value at a lower price than Mark Buerhle.

The contract Jeff Kent signed in 1999 was pretty great: 3 years for $18M plus a fourth year at $6M. Kent was easily the best 2B in baseball, putting up a 142 OPS+ in 2650 PA over those four years.

Mike Mussina's original 6 year deal with the Yankees was pretty good, since Mussina had ERA+s of
142, 109, 129, 98, 96 and 129, while averaging just a hair under 200 innings a year.

That was less than he was being paid to do, however. $19 million for a 96 ERA+ isn't a particularly good proposition, and the beginning of the contract wasn't good enough to justify the end.

Edit: Well, he's not at the end of that contract anymore. This is one of those cases where if the years were put in the "logical" order of 142, 129, 129, 109, 98, 96, it would look like a good contract. Still, he was signed to provide at least 5 years of 110 or higher. He's still only what, 38? Top starting pitchers are supposed to still be good at that age nowadays, if they stay relatively healthy, which Mussina has.

Mussina had 3 ace years (2001, 2003 and 2006), an above average year (2002) and two years which were a hair under average (2004 and 2005).

That seems like a good deal for the Yankees to me, though clearly he earned much more of his money in 2001 than in 2005.

How about Randy Johnson? 4 years might not be that long, but 4 years $53 million and he won the Cy Young every year.

Chipper Jones : 6yrs / 90 mil in 2000 with options for 2007 and 2008

I thought Dave Winfield's deal with the Yankees was good.

Aren't George Brett and Willie Wilson still under contract with the Royals? And their current salary is less than 80% of the players now.

Mussina also played in front of some bad defenses with the Yankees those years. His FIP ERAs were 3.07, 3.88, 3.26, 4.10, 4.19 & 3.51. His FIP+ were 146, 114, 135, 110, 101, 129. He had 1037 K and just 252 BB...not bad.

That's a good point.

I don't know how someone could include Helton's contract, even last on the list. He has to be one of the worst values right now in terms of VORP.

Speaking of which, why not at least try to quantify the value using some basic ROI model? This article reads more like "the first 7 long-term contracts that I could think of that didn't totally blow" rather than any type of rigorous analysis of what free agent signings actually provided positive value over the life of the contract.

How about Randy Johnson? 4 years might not be that long, but 4 years $53 million and he won the Cy Young every year.

Its the best contract ever. It was exactly 4 years, and he was the best pitcher in the NL 4 times. How is this even a competition?

I don't know how someone could include Helton's contract, even last on the list. He has to be one of the worst values right now in terms of VORP.

Helton's contract: 9 years/$141.5M (2003-11), plus $23M 2012 club option

Manny's contract: 8 years/$168M (2001-08), plus 2009-10 club options ($20M each)

Let's compare that to Manny's performance during his contract



Helton's considered to be one of the best defensive 1B in baseball. UZR has him at +8 per 150 games from 2003 to mid-2007. Manny's considered to be one of the worst defensive LF in baseball. UZR has him at -29 per 150, but let's say he's just -10 per year.

Helton's first 5 years of his 9 year contract have averaged (66 VORP + 10 fielding = 76 runs).

Manny's first 5 years were (66 VORP - 10 fielding = 56 runs), and his first 7 years are (61 VORP - 10 fielding = 51 runs). Manny's fielding was likely better back in 2001-2002 then it is now, but I think it's probably been worse than -10 for the past few years.

I think it's near impossible to say that Manny's deal has been good but Helton's has been bad. One might project Helton to tank, but he's provided very good value thus far.

A-Rod's first deal wasn't that bad, although it was probably bigger than it needed to be.

This. Although he got paid a fortune, he was incredibly durable and put together 5 MVP quality seasons and 2 all-star worthy years. I guess it depends on how much you weigh the "long term" vs. the dollars.

Danny -

I was just putting together a similar accounting. One thing - I think you've got a typo for Helton's 2006 - his VORP was 31, not 57. Overall point holds, but Helton hasn't been quite that much better than Manny.

And both have been pretty great.

Whoops, I grabbed Holliday's number instead of Helton's. That drops Helton's average to 61 VORP/season.

Speaking of Joey Belle, shouldn't his Baltimore contract be on the worst list?

Not really. He produced the two years he was healthy (although less so the second year), and insurance covered most of the contract after he was injured.

All told, the Orioles ended up paying ~$30MM total for OPS+ seasons of 142 and 109. That's no bargain, but there are dozens of contracts that have been worse than that.

What about Tejada? He signed for 6 years/$72 million in 2004. From 2004-2006, he never missed a game and put up OPS+ seasons of 131, 128, and 126. Last year he missed 30 games and had an OPS+ of 109, but he was still a pretty decent player, and he's been playing well so far this year.

My list would be something like:
1. R. Johnson
2. B. Bonds (1993)
3. G. Maddux
4. B. Bonds (2001)
5. P. Martinez (Red Sox)
6. V. Guerrero
7. M. Tejada
8. A. Pujols

The worst contract list isn't much better. Zito's already on there -- granted, it didn't look good at the time and it's looking bleak, but it's too early to put it on the worst of all-time list.

He suggests Kevin Brown's almost made the worst list -- which is ridiculous. Brown was certainly another lesson in why you don't give 7-year contracts to pitchers (or anybody except arb/FA-buyouts in your favor), especially when they take them through age 40, but he did give the Dodgers over 800 innings (over 3.5 seasons) of CYA quality pitching and he gave the Yanks another half-season of above-average pitching. All told, that contract delivered about 1,000 innings of (guessing) 145 ERA+ ... I'll take that. And, of course, at least he had been one of the best starting pitchers for the last 4+ seasons when they signed him.

For "worst" lists, I think you really want to look for the ones where everybody at the time was saying "that guy?" ... and it turned out horribly. So Hampton, Dreifort, probably Zito, maybe Neagle, maybe Carlos Lee (though he's produced as expected so far), Park ... OK, I'm forgetting some older ones I'm sure. And small deals like Eric Milton.

On Manny vs. Helton ... I'm not sure it's fair to ding Manny for his fielding. It's not his (or the contract's) fault that his team didn't have enough sense to move him to DH when his fielding cratered ... nor his fault that Ortiz turned into a monster and (apparently) is an even bigger liability in the field. He was paid to hit and he hit. And he takes too much heat for being put on waivers -- that's not so much a reflection on the contract or his performance as it is that, in the middle of the contract, there was a massive "market correction" such that guys like Manny (Sosa, Delgado, etc.) went from getting $18 M a year FA contracts to $13-14 M a year ones (Thome, Vlad). Again, a risk inherent in any long-term contract but I don't think we'd ever seen such a "correction" in the FA era before. (Man, the Mets were morons for not signing Vlad.)

Which isn't to say it's clearly better than Helton's ... though Helton's still has a long way to run I think and its future is not bright.

Ahh, Randy Johnson ... I remember the debate around whether he should get a 4th year or not. I'm pretty sure I was on the "probably not" side. This may explain why I'm not a GM. Well, that and the whole no baseball experience thing.

Hey, I still kick ass at Baseball Mogul and OOTP! :-)

i couldn't believe albert is that low, but then i saw what the angels are getting for vlad. that is a deal. as for the top two, aren't those deals finished? seems like this should just be about contracts that are still running ... or not. whatever. its friday.

Re: Helton versus Ramirez

First, I never said that I agreed with Ramirez being considered as a good long-term contract--just that Helton's was a truly terrible one. Both are bad values, but I'd still say that Helton's is worse.

First, as Walt said, Helton still has quite a few years left (he's owed ~$57M for 2009-11, including a $4.6M buyout for 2012). Ramirez's contract expires after this season (no buyout for either his 2009 or 2010 options).

Second, Ramirez pretty much maintained his offensive productivity throughout the life of his contract. As an Indian, Ramirez hit .313/.407/.592 and averaged a HR every 14.7 at bats. With Boston, he hit .314/.412/.596 and averaged a HR every 14.1 at bats (run environments were historically similar in both Cleveland and Boston). His decline was purely manifest in his defense.

Helton signed his big contract extension in April of 2001 (even though it didn't start until 2003). Looking at his pre-extension numbers (1997-2000), he hit .334/.411/.600 with a homer every 16.6 at bats. During his current extension (2003-present), he has hit .328/.440/.548 with a homer every 23.8 at bats. That's a 43% drop in his homer run rate!

Now, he has still been one of the most productive hitters in the league (his 30 point increase in OBP offsets the 50 point decrease in SLG), but his loss of power does not bode well for his future production. As you can see from the above statistics, the increase in his OBP has been entirely driven by his walk rate (batting average has decreased a little). There's a direct relationship between home run and walk rates, albeit often a time lag of a season or two. His 2007 walk rate is most likely an anomaly and 2008 and future years will see a return to a steady decline from his 2004 high. I don't see how he can possibly maintain his value if his home run and walk rates continue to decline.

It's strange to me that you'd call Helton's contract "truly terrible" when you admit he's been one of the best hitters in the league over the course of it. And his walk rate from 2007 isn't anomalous at all; it's exactly in line with his walk rates from 2005 and 2004. The 2006 walk rate, the year he got sick, is the anomaly, and even then it didn't drop all that much.

I do think he's overpaid at this point, but he's still someone you want to have on the team. I'd much rather pay $20 million for a $12 million ballplayer than pay $8 million for someone with no value.

This is quite possibly the stupidest article I've seen linked on this site, including BASN pieces. A few of these would actually be in the running for the worst list.

It's strange to me that you'd call Helton's contract "truly terrible" when you admit he's been one of the best hitters in the league over the course of it.

Not at all. Reread what I wrote: it's been fair value for the first five seasons (2003-07), but there are still four seasons to go (2008-11). The drop off in Helton's power over the past several years does not bode well for the value that the Rockies will get in 2008-11 (age 34-37 seasons).

Ramirez's value has been fair throughout the life of the contract, and it will expire at the end of this season (also his age 37 season).


I'd much rather pay $20 million for a $12 million ballplayer than pay $8 million for someone with no value.

I agree with this point, which is why I don't have a problem with the Ramirez contract. My concern is that Helton will be worth far less than $12M in 2008-11. So while I agree that paying $20M for a $12M is preferable to $8M for a worthless player, I'm not sure that I'd prefer spending $20M for a $4M, especially for a player on the wrong end of the defensive spectrum. And that's where I see Helton by the end of the contract.

i couldn't believe albert is that low,

The Pujols deal isn't that "cheap." It's hard to compare to others because it was partly an arb buyout. The 4 FA years cost $16 M per (plus what was possibly a $5 M buyout) which was well above what guys like Vlad and Thome were getting at the time. Heck, they paid $14 M for his last arb year which is huge.

It was a good deal, I've never had much doubt he'd deliver on it. But it was very, very much a market-rate (or above) deal and it wasn't until Lee/Soriano last year before anyone was getting $16 M contracts again. If Pujols had been an FA after the 2005 season, he likely would have signed a contract very similar to what he's being paid.

How this list doesn't include Wakefield's current deal eludes me. It is exactly as long as the Red Sox want it to be, for well under market.

re. Helton's deal:

Shouldn't a deal also be evaluated within the context of the team's resources matter?

It may be hindsight to look at Helton's deal in this way, but the team tied up a lot of money in the deal, then decided it was a mid-market club at best in terms of budget. Then, in the next few years they ended up with several prospects who played the same position (Atkins, Hawpe, Sheely). They aren't as good as Helton, but they would have been far cheaper.

OTOH, maybe the Rockies would have just pocketed the saved money in those "proto GenR" years.