Worst Contract Revisited

I asked you who had the worst contract between Barry Zito, Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, and Vernon Wells and the results are in! 100% of you (2 people) said Barry Zito. Is that the correct choice?

Alex Rodriguez is paid significantly more money, but he's also significantly better than those other three. There is a case to be made that his is the worst contract of them all, but for now it isn't (when he's 40 years old and cashing in near $30m I think we'll have a different opinion on this). Throwing Arod out of the discussion who's is the worst now?

Barry Zito: 7 years/$126m. Since signing the contract: 26-38, 478.1 ip, 330 k's, 4.74 ERA, 1.447 WHIP, 93 ERA+. According to Fangraphs he has a 4.3 WAR.

Vernon Wells: 7 years/$126m. His was signed before, but it kicked in in 2008 so since then: .283/.329/.458, 107 OPS+ with .3 WAR.

Alfonso Soriano: 8 years/$136m. Since signing the contract: .276/.329/.515, 113 OPS+ with 8.2 WAR.

From those numbers it may seem that Barry Zito who has the worst contract. But right now Barry Zito supports a non laughable 4.4 FIP and has been worth 1.1 WAR this year while Vernon Wells and Alfonso Soriano are both in the negatives in 2009, with -0.9 and -0.4 respectively. Also, Vernon Wells' contract didn't kick in until 2008, so he has the most left on his contract.

Vernon Wells' hitting stats look respectable making it seem as though he has been a positive for the Jays, but his defense has absolutely left him completely. Vernon Wells used to lead the league in UZR for center fielders, and now he is at the bottom, literally the worst CF this year.

Alfonso Soriano has also looked quite good so far, posting all-star caliber numbers in his first two years on the Cubs. That has changed this year though as he's hit rock bottom with a 81 OPS+. He hasn't been Mr. Durable either playing in 135 games in 2007 and only 109 in 2008. His speed has abandoned him as a result of those injuries. In 2007 his speed score was 6.3, in 2008 it was 4.8, and this year it's 4.2. Soriano used to be a 40/40 guy, now he'll be lucky to steal 20 bases in a year and those steals may come with league average hitting at best.

From the start of their contracts until now Barry Zito has to be considered the worst, he's yet to have an actual good season. But if you think of it from this point forward I would rather have Barry Zito over Soriano or Wells. Zito has been bad, there is no doubt about that, but he has been consistently bad, not consistently miserable. He's shown he can give the Giants 1-2 WAR and there is no reason he can't keep that up. Sure you will be paying him $18m to give you $8m of production, but he's at least putting up a positive WAR. Wells and Soriano on the other hand may not even give you that. Of course they can turn it around and blow Zito out of the water, but if I'm going to be wasting millions of dollars I think I'd like to know what I'm getting and in Zito you are getting a ridiculously overpaid 4th or 5th starter, definitely not good but usable. In 2 years it's likely that Vernon Wells and/or Soriano shouldn't be starting on a 4th place team.

If I had to choose, and I kind of do considering I asked you to, I would say Wells has the worst contract. He has the most years left, he can't play CF at all and likely would be below average at either corner spot, historically he hasn't had the seasons that Soriano has had, and over the last 3 seasons he's been basically as good as any AAA CF Toronto could call up. Now the question is, do the Mets acquire Wells to replace Beltran?