When it comes to big free agent signings in the MLB, it is becoming increasingly popular for teams to lock down their star players for over ten years for a whopping 300 million dollars. One of these contracts includes Robinson Cano’s, when the Mariners signed him for 240 million dollars for ten years. Every couple of years since then, a new player has broken that with Stanton getting 325 million dollars for 13 years. Then the most recent with Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and Mike Trout all earning well over 330 million dollars.
The question I have to ask about all this is… are these players really worth it? A lot players who sign these mega-deals are at the peak of their performance when they sign them. This means that they quickly decline after they sign these deals. A study was done on the effectiveness of players after their contract was signed. The results were that half of the players stats actually decreased after they inked their deal. So why would you sign a player to a deal with only a 50% chance that player is going to produce the same numbers for your team? Long term deal effectiveness
Most of these deals also lock these players in for ten or more years. At the end of these contracts would be over when the players are almost forty, an age where no player performs at a level that’s worth that amount of money. A study was done to find the 25 most over paid and underpaid players in the MLB from 2002-2013. It was found that 24 of the 25 most over paid were well into their thirties and were not producing the same numbers as they did in their twenties. The same number of the most underpaid players were in their twenties, and were producing far better numbers than the old guys who were making millions of dollars. Long term Contract Players . So even if the players stats increased after they sign their deal, there’s no way they continue these stats well into their late thirties. It is way better to go for young, effective, and cheap guys to fill your roster before they lose their worth.
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