Ryan Howard Hits A Grand Slam Salary

When you think about bad baseball contracts, any number of recent deals spring to mind and they generally fall into two categories. There are the times that a club overpays for a player either in annual salary, length of contract or both and the player's performance never lives up to the pricetag. A good example is the $128 million that the San Francisco Giants handed to Barry Zito in 2006 and also pretty much anyone given a contract by the Detroit Tigers between 2006-2008. Then there are the contracts where bad luck, bad judgement (or both) conspire to turn a signing into a disaster like the $47 million the LA Dodgers gave Jason Schmidt in 2006 in a three year deal knowing he had shoulder issues; Schmidt would end up earning the equivalent of nearly $5 million for each start.

And so we had the news on Monday that the Philadelphia Phillies extended the contract of first baseman Ryan Howard starting 2012 in a 5 year $125 million deal which will cover his age 32-36 seasons with a $10 million dollar buyout and $23 million option for 2017. That would make Howard the highest paid player in baseball not named Alex Rodriguez and at first glance it looks distinctly like it should be filed in the bad contracts section. With any contract, the team would very much like it if the value of the contract is less than the monetary value of the player to the team and so the Phillies would expect at least $25 million worth of annual production from Howard. However, in Howard's first four full seasons his monetized Wins Above Replacement suggests he is worth an average of just under $20 million per year and only in one of those seasons did he produce more than $25 million worth of value which was in his breakout MVP year of 2006 – in 2009 his OPS was .154 lower.




Averaging 49 home runs and 143 RBIs might tick those fantasy baseball boxes but striking out nearly double the league average and a fielding ability that would put him in the DH spot in most American League sides hurts what he can do for the Phillies. Howard is currently in his prime years and his production can only wane as 2017 gets closer which is a worry for a player of his type where decline tends to be sudden and rapid. Although the deal can only be fully quantified seven years down the line, it's a big gamble for Philadelphia (who already sport the second oldest team in baseball) with a lot of risk and with little upside - and that's assuming he doesn't succumb to any serious injuries.


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