Baseball Off-Season: Spending Money like Its Monopoly Money

This baseball off-season has witnessed some purely outrageous contracts in baseball. Believe me, as a Yankee fan I have seen my fare share of outrageous contract signings such as Carl Pavano who got paid ten million dollars to miss an entire regular season of 182 games because of injury. However, this past off-season has had some purely ridiculous trades.

First let's start off with the most mind boggling free agent signing and that dubious award goes to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim who signing Gary Mathews Jr. to a five year $50 million contract which averages out to ten million dollars per year. What on earth were the angels thinking? Mathews is a career .250 hitter and last year he had one big year that wasn't even that great. He had an average of slightly more than .300 and had 22 homers which is about the league average for homers. He did have 112 runs scored but that was more of a product of the big bats in that Texas lineup behind him and how easy it is to get a hit in Arlington Ballpark. His RBI production wasn't that great as he only had around 80 RBIs. One thing I will give Mathews credit for is he is a very good fielder and the catch he had in which he caught a ball heading over the fence and robbed a homerun off of a hitter was amazing. However, he is not in the same class as Tori Hunter or Jim Edmonds who routinely make one great catch after another and are always on Sports Center. This deal will come back to haunt the Angels I will guarantee that much. The Angles needed to get better in the off-season after missing the playoffs and by throwing money around carelessly, it is a huge mistake.

Another mind boggling free agent signing was Juan Pierre who was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers. He signed a five year deal worth 44 million. For those of you are home who are doing the math, that comes to roughly 9 million per year. Pierre is a lifetime .300 hitter and yes he has speed as he stole 58 bases last year. But is he worth 9 million per year? Definitely not. As he approaches his mid 30s, his speed will deteriorate as ESPN analyst Keith Law states like all aging players do. Pierre lacks power and has had very few home runs in his lifetime.

Soriano got big time money from the Chicago Cubs with a deal worth 136 million dollars over 8 years. Aramis Ramirez resigned with the Cubs worth five years for 75 million dollars for about 15 million per year. These two players in comparison with the two other deals I mentioned actually make sense because these two players are good. Ramirez hits for power and average and Soriano has continued to get better with getting high numbers in steals, and homeruns and starting to hit for above a .300 average. He was able to hit homeruns in that spacious JFK stadium so he will definitely hit more homeruns in that small Chicago Cubs stadium in Wrigley Field.

A couple of days ago Carlos Lee who is an power hitter landed a mega contract worth 100 million dollars over 6 years. That's roughly 17 million dollars per year. The Astros also signed pitcher Woody Williams to a 12.5 million dollars deal and he is average at best for a pitcher.

Free Agents still on the market include Barry Zito and Jason Schmidt who are bound to land at least multi year contracts worth at least 15 million per year. Look for the Yankees to land Zito in the coming days. The Red Sox really put pressure on the Yankees by giving out 51 million dollars just for the right to sign the Japanese pitcher named Matsuzaka. Now the Red Sox have to spend another ten million per year at least to sign the pitcher who Scott Boras will make sure gets a ton of money. At least the Red Sox will benefit from his deal. By signing a Japanese pitcher the Red Sox will open the door for themselves into Japanese baseball and sign television and advertising contracts there which they will profit from by signing a Japanese star player much like the Yankees did when they signed Hideki Matsui. Look for Jeff Weaver to also cash in somewhere with some team after his post season performance.