I was skimming baseball news recently, when I came across this article about how the Mets’ third baseman, and the Face of Major League Baseball™, David Wright has suffered some physical setbacks, and has been shut down for eight weeks, thus missing out on Opening Day and likely all of April.
For the record, David Wright has had a laundry list of physical ailments throughout the last few years, such as spinal cord stenosis, a hernia in his neck, rotator cuff surgery, and another undisclosed back injury. Over the span of the last three seasons, Wright has played in a grand total of 75 games, with a big fat zero in 2017. Needless to say, it’s been particularly challenging for Wright to stay healthy, and I can only imagine the frustration of a guy who makes his living playing baseball, being so physically incapable of actually playing it.
Here’s the thing though: baseball contracts are guaranteed, unlike in the NFL. If your contract states you make X over Y number of years, you get exactly that much money, regardless of if you play or not. David Wright signed an eight-year contract back in 2012 that dictated that between the years of 2013-2020, he would be paid $138 million dollars.
Considering the fact that he’s played in 15% of games over the last three years, you might be able to see why this is a problem for the Mets, and a legitimate question to whether or not his contract just might be the worst contract in baseball history.
Among baseball nerds, the debate is endless on who really is the worst contract in baseball history. But for the sake of ease, and the fact that I dislike the Phillies, we’re just going to go with one of the more popular options, as the de facto current worst contract in MLB history: Ryan Howard’s five-year, $125 million dollar contract he signed with the Phillies in 2010.
How does David Wright’s current, and still active deal stack up to The Big Piece’s albatross that hamstrung the Phillies for five years? Let us compare.
As stated, Ryan Howard’s deal was five years, $125 million dollars, and spanned across 2012-2016. What makes this easy is that this is a fulfilled contract, and the numbers involved are no longer variable, compared to David Wright’s still active deal. Regardless, now is as good of a time to compare the two considering Wright has completed five years of his eight-year deal.
Here are the highlights of Ryan Howard’s career while he was getting paid $25 million dollars a year:
- 545 total games played
- Average of 109 games played a season
- Average salary per game: $229,000
- -4.5 bWAR*
- 636 strikeouts (led the league in 2013 with 190)
- .226 batting average, .719 OPS96 home runs
*all-encompassing statistic measuring general worth; + good, – bad
And here are the highlights of David Wright’s career over the first five years of his own eight-year, $138 million dollar contract, spanning between 2013-2017:
- 321 total games played
- Average of 64 games played a season (0 games in 2017)
- Average salary per game: $283,000
- Average salary per game, 2015-2017: $800,000
- 9 bWAR
- 283 strikeouts
- .280 batting average, .793 OPS
- 38 home runs
So at first blush, the things that stand out are the fact that Ryan Howard was a way inferior hitter than David Wright was, but David Wright played in over 200 fewer games than Ryan Howard did. There’s an argument over Ryan Howard’s value playing in games versus David Wright’s value not playing in games, but ultimately when the day is over, considering employers would rather have employees performing badly at their jobs over their employees being absent (yes, even in baseball), it really boils down to the the fact that Ryan Howard actually played in games, whereas David Wright did not.
I felt the need to include the average salary per game, because I think it gives a little bit of perspective of how much money David Wright is being paid to not play at all versus how much Ryan Howard is making, while suiting up, taking the field and striking out twice a game.
Ultimately, Ryan Howard murdered the Phillies’ payroll for the life of his five-year deal, but at least the Phillies could take solace in the fact that he earned his paycheck by showing up to work and getting on the field. And in spite of the strikeouts, chicks still the long ball, and at least once every five games or so, he was bound to get lucky and clobber the shit out of a baseball and excite/deflate the home/away fans.
But David Wright has been hamstringing the Mets’ payroll by sucking in an average of $17.5 million a year, but not actually playing. As the numbers indicate, when he’s actually playing, he’s still a respectable hitter, but when his bat is absent from the lineup, it’s definitely a detriment to the team.
I think what really is going to be the deciding factor on whose contract is worse really depends on what happens between now and the end of the 2020 season. If David Wright continues down the path of the average player and his skills deteriorate with age, combined with his penchant for injury, there’s a very good chance that when the dust settles, he’ll most certainly have had a worse contract than Ryan Howard.
But if Wright can get healthy, find something of a career renaissance and finish out the last 2+ seasons of his contract and contribute like 4-6 bWAR of value, then it will definitely keep his head above the water. However, given the fact that without the aid of some blatant performance-enhancing drugs, things don’t often go in that direction, and in about three years, David Wright just might be considered the worst contract in MLB history.
Ryan Howard, Josh Hamilton, and Jacoby Ellsbury will be really hoping for it.
