How do you define a "bad" contract in sports? Is it defined by the sheer volume of years and money given to a player who is failing to produce? Does it involve looking back in hindsight at a team that should have had better foresight before offering up an expensive deal to a player who figured to decline? Does it fall into some hard-to-define but easy to know area — much like pornography did for former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who said of the hard-core stuff, "I know it when I see it?"
Grantland baseball writer Jonah Keri attempts to define a bad contract as much as he does attempt to decide which are the 10 worst in his updated rankings for the site. We'd say his conclusions run the gamut of all the definitions above. (Are we saying Keri likes porn? No we are not).
His list of the 10 worst current contracts in MLB is an eclectic mix of long-term/high-money deals gone bad, foolish moves by desperate teams and flat-out bad luck.
Nowhere will you find Joe Mauer's name, except for one place in the piece, where Keri quotes an anonymous high-ranking baseball exec:
"I think that the contracts where you're essentially getting zero production or, even worse, you're better off just dumping the guy rather than letting him hurt your team are the worst, regardless of money owed. Mauer and Votto and Cabrera are overpaid/well above their market value, but if you take the money out of the equation, at least you're not making your team worse by having them. [B.J.] Upton, Ethier, and Howard, on the other hand, are complete sinkholes."
So chin up, Twins fans. It could be worse than the final four years of Mauer's deal ($92 million left). You could be the Angels, on the hook for almost $200 million more of a fragile Albert Pujols; or the Rangers, committed to Shin-Soo Choo for another six years and (!) $116 million; or the Yankees, even with all their money, owing A-Rod another $61 million over the next three years.
