9
2011
Five Worst Mets Free Agents Contracts
An article by Craig Lerner
Darren Pare of Yahoo Sports posted his choices for the five worst Mets free agent signings of all time. Here they are:
5. Kaz Matsui: A star shortstop in the Japan, Kaz Matsui signed with the Mets for 3 years at $20 million in 2003. In his last season in Japan, Matsui had 33 home runs. Somewhere, during the trip to New York, he lost his power. In two and a half seasons with the Mets he hit just 11 home runs. Worst yet his on base percentage hovered around .300. In 2006 the Mets realized their mistake and traded Matsui to the Colorado Rockies for Eli Marrero.
4. Luis Castillo: Castillo was at one time a speedster, but by the time the Mets dished out $25 million over 4 years, those days were long gone. Castillo has managed a .270 batting average over the first three years of the contract, with a total of four home runs and 85 runs batted in. Yes, that was a total of three years work. He stole an average of 15 bases per season as well. Castillo was just a bad signing from the start and the Mets still have one year to go on the deal.
3. Vince Coleman: Throughout most of the 1980′s the Mets were battling with the Cardinals for supremacy in the National League East. What better way to deal the Cards a blow, than to sign away one of their best players, Vince Coleman. That is what the Mets did in 1990 when they signed Coleman to a 4 year deal worth $12 million. Coleman just couldn’t stay in the lineup for the Mets. In three years in New York he stole just 99 bases. Coleman recorded 100 stolen bases in three different seasons while with the Cardinals. Coleman’s attitude also became a problem when he injured Dwight Gooden in the clubhouse and threw a firecracker a fans in the parking lot. He eventually was traded away to the Kansas City Royals for Kevin McReynolds.
2. Bobby Bonilla: For a long time Bonilla was the poster boy for bad free agent contracts. In 1991 he signed a 5 year/$21 million deal with the Mets. In his three plus years in New York Bonilla never matched the RBI numbers he had put up with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He missed more than twenty games each season with the Mets, after only missing 10 games in the four previous seasons combined. In his three full seasons with the team he averaged just 24 home runs a year. The Mets shipped Bonilla to the Baltimore Orioles in 1995.
1. Oliver Perez: This was a signing that baffled people right from the start. A pitcher that was five games under .500 for his career, is given a 3 year deal for $36 million. As bad as that was it got worse for the Mets. In the first two years of this contract Perez has a record of 3-9, with an earned run average of 6.80. Perez had 100 walks and 123 hits allowed in 112 innings pitched. In 2010 the Mets asked Perez to go on a rehab assignment to work things out, and he refused. That is why Oliver Perez is the Mets worst free agent signing ever.
No surprise who number one was going to be.
I know this was more of a trade, but considering the Mets gave him that huge contract soon after, George Foster turned out to be a pretty bad deal for the Mets.
They made Foster the highest paid player in the National League (just like Bobby Bonilla), and got far less than the MVP production they were banking on and eventually released him for Lee Mazzilli in 1986.
I wonder if he got voted a World Series share that season?
Also, I know this might ruffle a few feathers, but I always thought we got a raw deal for what we paid future Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez.
Basically, Pedro gave us one good season in return for that 4-year, $53 million dollar contract. That’s more than twice what we paid Luis Castillo who may also end up giving us just one good season in four.
About the Author: Craig Lerner
I'm a data analyst and researcher for a leading news agency who loves life and is hooked on the Mets. I love following the Amateur Draft and have a particular fondness for the Mets Minor Leagues who I follow each day. Give me a cold beer, a summer day, and a Mets game, and I'm good to go.
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Castillo should be nowhere near that list, especially since Mo Vaughn isn’t on it.
Vaughn was acquired in a trade with the Angels for RHP Kevin Appier. So Vaughn doesn’t count for this list.
For what it’s worth, I think Perez should count as ALL 5 of the top 5 worst free agent contracts of all time! LOL!
One interesting side note to the list: 4 of the 5 players are/were switch hitters. Hmmmmm……Carlos Beltran in 2005 aside, maybe the Mets should leave the switch hitters in free agency alone!
Should’ve mentioned Bobby Bo’s deferred money restructure, icing on the cake. Starting this year, the Mets will be paying Bonilla $30m over the next 25 years. All to defer the $6m owed him upon release. His agent should be in the HOF.
You’re right, he didnt even mention it and it makes the contract even worse.
Assassin?
And all of it Madoff money that has to be reimbursed and still pay him.
The degree of difficulty in narrowing this down to just five is completely off the charts. Schowenweiss, Alou, El-Duque, and Mota cost this team big time in 2007 and was completely predictable based on their age and health.
Appier somehow got turned into Mo Vaughn, Foster was bad, Saberhagen, Bernytz, Bay has the potential to be here, UFC-Rod at 54 M to pitch 240 innings over 4 years. Harnish, Cedeno, Hildago, Derek Bell, Brandon Looper, David Weathers, Ellis Valentine, Jeff D’Amico, Sean Estes, Mel Rojas, Randy Jones.
The better question would be which of the numerous FA signings the Mets have made turned out to be good? Answer Olerud, Ventura, Piazza and possibly Zeile. Lance Johnson and Gilkey were OK, Santana, K-Rod, Beltran and Bay TBD. The rest of them? Ugh.
Another good question to ask, with these horrendous results, why do we continue to sign so many guys rather than putting the money into scouting developing and the draft so we can get out of the free agent trap?
Beltran is already one of the most productive position player the Mets have ever had. No question it was a good signing.
I agree. I think Beltran’s pay check makes him the target of a lot of misplaced anger.
Due to injuries, you have to look at the VALUE obtained for the high dollars spent for Santana, Beltran, Bay and Martinez.
Despite the fact that Pedro was a shell of his former self by the time we got him he did bring badly needed energy to the team and his signing helped us get other players to join the Mets.
When judging how bad a signing was, you have to look at the stats AND the impact on the team. Pedro had a positive impact.
On the other hand, players like Bonilla and Coleman brought bad karma.
Yeah, I agree. Pedro helped usher in a new era. Entertain with his brilliant pitching and hopefully contribute when we were ready to win. Didn’t turn out that way but I enjoyed watching Pedro pitch for the Mets very much and he certainly didn’t do the team any harm either financially or in any other way.
Seems like such a long time ago.
Are you different commenters? Or am I seeing double?
No – both fans of Tommie
Still kind of new and getting used to the crowd here. Thanks for clearing that up. No doubt a great Met. I wonder whatever happened with that Agee homerun marker that was painted at Shea in the upper deck?
I don’t know but I made sure to get a picture of it on my last visit to Shea. I’m sure TL Agee did too.
I remember when he hit it. It was a shot off his bat and was still rising when it hit the upper right field corner. It was hit so hard that it hit the stands and when right back onto the field.
I live in Sydney Australia now and haven’t gotten to see Citifield yet – but I did take my daughter to Shea during their last season there.
I’ve only seen the replay but there was very little room to sneak one in into the upper deck fair and he was the only one who did in 46 years.
I have a friend in Sydney who was telling everyone when he retires he’s moving a little north where it’s warmer and we’re all thinking 50 degrees would be just fine with us.
Add Randy Jones to that list too, he won the CY Young in San Diego then signed a deal with the Mets and made Pete Falcone look like Koosman.
y’all bitch and moan about ollie’s contract, when it was about a fifth as bad as barry zito’s contract, and the giants won a world series regardless.
ok, ollie sucked, but if freddy could have afforded to eat the 8 million a year that he was overpaid ( yes, 4 million a year is a low estimate of his worth at the time, no sense in using hindsight to say he was worth nothing ), then it would have been forgotten already.
3yrs / 36 million is not that bad of a bust. if that’s the worst ever, then I’d be happy.
Now, Bonilla’s was the worst … and Coleman was probably second.
No, Perez’s contract is not as bad as Zito’s. And the Hindenberg was not as bad as the Titanic.
And Zito was not on the Giants’ playoff roster. They won in spite of him. The Giants farm system produced some monster pitchers and a couple hitters who got hot and the exactly right time. They were able to eat the Zito mistake because they weren’t weighed down by other bad contracts.
And they still needed the rest of the division to fall apart to make the playoffs.
When your farm system produces Tim Lincecum, Mark Cain, Jonathon Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey and Brian Wilson you can overcome those sorts of contracts.
When you have so many injured or under performing players on big contracts year after year after year eventually you can no longer over come the bad contracts. They just sink you.
that’s my point.
everyone points to the ollie contract as the worst, but in reality, it’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
ollie this and ollie that, but teams overcome much worse to do much better all of the time.
Ollie is just the poster child for the bad deals of the Minaya era. It’s not so much Ollie himself, its a combination of a lot of things. Ollie’s attitude just makes it easier to go after him.
look at what the red sox pay julio lugo, the angels paid gary matthews and kelvim escobar ( and now vernon wells ), what the phillies are paying brad lidge. and those are just the good teams. i don’t even want to look at magglio ordonez, and forget the yankees …
ollie’s contract is only run of the mill bad, not colossal bad, and frankly so is castillo’s.
it took alot for this team to do so bad the last 2 years. saying ollie and castillo is a cop out.
Who says it’s just Ollie and Castillo?
George Foster should have made thast list!
I think we calculated once that he was being paid 1K per Ground out DP!
Jason Bay might end up on this list. KRod maybe too if we have to pay him next year. Beltran wasn’t the worst, but we didnt get max value. I also think we should let someone else pay Reyes $100 million. Now that steroids are (mostly) gone, ballplayers are again most productive and cheapest the first 5-7 years of their big league careers. As long as we continue the team that pays players the big money for guys after their best years, we will continue to be also-rans. Hopefully, Alderson can change this culture without the ownership issue stopping him before he even starts.