Whenever a huge contract is signed in baseball – and we just had the biggest ever with Shohei Ohtani agreeing to a 10-year, $700 million deal – there are always accompanying cautionary tales about the big ones that failed spectacularly.
We remember those more vividly than the ones that pay for themselves.
It got us thinking: What are the biggest MLB free-agent busts in the past, say, 10 years? There are plenty to choose from, but usually the most momentous dud of each offseason stands out. By using each of the last 10 years, we’ve selected some that were signed recently and maybe will be viewed as solid once they are completed (but that’s doubtful).
It also means this list stops at the 2013-14 offseason, so the Los Angeles Angels’ dual nightmare contracts with Josh Hamilton (2013) and Albert Pujols (2012) in consecutive years don’t make the cut. A shame.
But there are plenty of doozies in this timeline. Here’s one clunker for each of the last 10 offseasons (the year listed is the player’s first season under a new free-agent deal).
2023: Jacob deGrom, Texas Rangers, 5 years, $185 million
Reason: deGrom is one of the best pitchers of this generation, but heading into free agency last year, he had only made 26 total starts in two seasons and was entering his age-35 season. The Rangers gambled on deGrom’s health, and he lasted six starts and 30 1/3 innings in 2023 before being shut down, ultimately undergoing a second elbow reconstruction (Tommy John) surgery in June.
He hopes to be back by August 2024, but by the time deGrom is ready for a full season it will be his third year into this contract, and he’ll be in his age-37 season.
2022: Kris Bryant, Colorado Rockies, 7 years, $182 million
Reason: This was a headscratcher when it happened for two reasons. One, the Rockies were certainly not one player away from competing for the National League West crown heading into 2022. And Bryant’s performance had been declining as injuries mounted.
It’s been more of the same the past two years with Bryant playing only 122 games total for the Rockies and posting a .740 OPS. He’s still young enough – he’ll turn 32 in January – that if he can sidestep injuries, he could avoid making this a financial calamity. But it’s not off to a promising start.
2021: Trevor Bauer, Los Angeles Dodgers, 3 years, $102 million
Reason: Bauer was coming off an NL Cy Young winning season in Cincinnati and he had just turned 30 when he signed a short but exceptionally lucrative deal with the Dodgers. It seemed to make sense for both sides, especially for Bauer, who had opt-outs after the first two years.
Bauer made 17 starts in 2021, pitching to an excellent 2.59 ERA. That July, however, Major League Baseball placed Bauer on administrative leave amid sexual assault allegations, and he never played for them again. The Dodgers released Bauer in January 2023. He pitched well in Japan last year, has been reinstated to play in the majors and is a free agent again at 32.
2020: Stephen Strasburg, Washington Nationals, and Anthony Rendon, Los Angeles Angels, both seven years, $245 million
Reason: It just seemed wrong to choose between these two. Both cashed in on the Nationals’ 2019 World Series championship with humongous deals. Both contracts have been awful for their respective clubs. Rendon had a strong first year with the Angels during the pandemic-shortened season in 2020. He hasn’t stayed healthy since, playing in 148 games in three seasons, and didn’t post an OPS above .712 in any of those three years. He’s 33 and there are three seasons remaining on the deal.
Then there is Strasburg, who, due to myriad maladies including thoracic outlet syndrome, has pitched only 31 1/3 innings in the first four seasons of the contract, including only one start since the beginning of 2022. He didn’t pitch at all last year and has basically retired, though not officially. He’s reportedly owed more than $100 million, with deferrals through 2029. Objectively speaking, this is probably the largest contract failure, results and money-wise, in the history of the game.
2019: Patrick Corbin, Washington Nationals, 6 years, $140 million
Reason: If there hadn’t been such little return from the Strasburg deal, this might be the worst contract in Nationals history. But at least Corbin takes the ball every fifth day and pitches. In his first year in Washington, he threw well, posting a 3.25 ERA in 33 starts and helping the Nats win the World Series. He’s been utterly hittable since.
Corbin has led the league in earned runs allowed in two of the past three seasons and has yielded 602 total hits in 504 1/3 innings. It’s hard to believe with statistics like that that Corbin is owed $35 million for the 2024 season, with $10 million of it deferred into 2026.
2018: Eric Hosmer, San Diego Padres, 8 years, $144 million
Reason: Hosmer was coming off the best season of his career in 2017: A Gold Glove first baseman in his prime with pop and contact skills. It wasn’t surprising he received a huge free-agent deal; what was surprising is that the Padres ponied up that money – a harbinger of their future – and that Hosmer landed the biggest pact of that free-agent class, more than J.D. Martinez and Yu Darvish.
Hosmer’s contract did not age well, ending up as a weight around the free-spending Padres’ necks. Hosmer wasn’t terrible, but his production dipped, and he ultimately was dealt to the Boston Red Sox in 2022 with the Padres eating the final $44 million on his contract.
2017: Yoenis Céspedes, New York Mets, 4 years, $110 million
Reason: After an impressive season in 2015, part of which was with the Mets, Céspedes became a free agent and signed a three-year $75 million contract to stay in New York. He had another outstanding year, finishing eighth in the NL MVP race, and exercised the first opt-out in his original deal. The Mets signed him again after the 2016 season for four years and $110 million.
He played 127 games during the duration of that new contract, including eight in the final two years. He dealt with surgeries to both feet in 2018 and then suffered a fractured ankle apparently attempting to sidestep a boar on his ranch, missing all of 2019. He then opted out of the 2020 season due to the global pandemic, ending his big-league career. I’m not making up any of that.
2016: Chris Davis, Baltimore Orioles, 7 years, $161 million
Reason: This was an ill-fated decision from the start, but the Orioles allowed Nick Markakis and Nelson Cruz to walk after their division-winning 2014 campaign and pressure was on owner Peter Angelos to keep his stars the following offseason. General manager Dan Duquette had already moved on from Davis, the AL homer champ in 2015, by acquiring Mark Trumbo to play first base. Angelos, however, negotiated directly with Davis’ agent, Scott Boras, finalizing a deal that appeared to be tens of millions more than anyone else had offered for the aging slugger.
Unlike others on this list, Davis’ production dropped off a cliff almost instantaneously. One season after signing it, Davis had arguably the worst performance by a regular in baseball history in 2018, batting .168 with a .539 OPS in 128 games. His career ended in 2021 due to a hip injury, but thanks to a heavily deferred contract, Davis receives $3.5 million annually until 2032 and then $1.4 million annually from 2033-2037.
2015: Pablo Sandoval, Boston Red Sox, 5 years, $95 million
Reason: What could go wrong with the decision to give a 5-foot-10, 270-pound infielder nearly $100 million in guaranteed money over five years? Who could have seen that misadventure coming? Following another World Series title with the San Francisco Giants, the Red Sox signed the massive deal with Sandoval, aka Kung Fu Panda, who rewarded them with a subpar 2016.
That would be the only full season in his Red Sox career. Due to a shoulder injury that required surgery, Sandoval had seven hitless plate appearances in all of 2016 and lasted 32 games in 2017 before the Red Sox released him and swallowed more than $43 million of that deal.
2014: Jacoby Ellsbury, New York Yankees, 7 years, $153 million
Reason: The Yankees couldn’t beat the Red Sox in 2013, so they had Boston’s sparkplug join them the following offseason. Ellsbury was coming off a walk year in which he led the league in stolen bases, batted nearly .300 and performed admirably in the playoffs, which ended in a Red Sox championship. The Yankees showed him the money and, for a season and a half, Ellsbury showed them he was worth it.
Injuries, including hip, foot and shoulder, surfaced, ultimately ending his career three seasons short of the full contract. The Yankees, after an arbiter’s ruling, paid Ellsbury $26 million after he was out of the game.
Dan Connolly is an MLB Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.