Philadelphia Phillies Mess Up Royaly

What were the Phillies thinking? I will be very forward and upfront, I think they just signed one of the stupidest deals in the history of sports. Ryan Howard just signed a contract extension worth $125 million over 5 years. Allow me to make sure that you heard me correctly, this was a contract extension. Howard is already under contract for this season and the next to the tune of $19 million per. From 2012 until 2016 he will be making $25 million per. So let us investigate why this was one of the stupidest deals of all time.

Ryan Howard is an incredible ball player. There is no doubt about that. He has hit 45 homeruns or more in the last four seasons to go along with no less than 136 RBI's. His Slugging and OPS numbers are nice and his OBP is not to bad either. Despite these impressive statistics I cannot get over the fact that in the last three years he has not hit higher than .279 and his career postseason batting average in 32 games is .271. In 2 of the past 3 years alone he has struck out 199 times and he turns 31 in November.

I will never understand a contract of this magnitude for any player, especially Ryan Howard. I think the thing that throws me with Ryan Howard is his age. I could have come closer to understanding this deal if he was in his mid-20's but not in his early 30's. I have written about this in past blogs but it seems more and more that the majority of professional athletes experience a downward trend in their stats and abilities after the age of 30. It seems more prevalent now than it did even 5 years ago. The Phillies have put Howard in an impossible situation. Unless he hits 50 homeruns each year for the next 7 seasons to go along with 150 RBI's and at least 1 World Series ring he will be a failure, no lets make that 2 World Series rings. There is no way he can live up to this contract and we all know the reputation surrounding Philadelphia sports fans when individuals do not live up to expectations. On the television show 'The Office,' Kevin states that if anybody ever offers you 10,000 to 1 odds on anything you take it. I will offer you 10,000 to 1 odds that Ryan Howard does not back up his end of the bargain (if you can call it that) in this contract.