On April 26, 2010, the Philadelphia Phillies and Ryan Howard agreed to a contract extension worth a minimum of five years and one hundred twenty five million dollars. 2012 will be the first year of that extension and it is very possible that Howard starts the season on the 15-day disabled list. On the day the extension was signed it took only a couple of hours before MLBTR reported that not-so pleasant reactions to the signing.

• Rob Neyer of ESPN: “[This contract] is a testament to old-school ignorance.” He also went on to refer to this contract as “a big bowl of wrong.”
• Keith Law of ESPN: “[This deal] is an overpayment in both years and dollars.”
• Matthew Carruth of Fangraphs.com: “Say hello to baseball’s newest worst contract.”
• Keith Kaduk of Yahoo.com and Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports both expressed the idea that the Phillies were better off waiting, but Rosenthal understood the Phillies thought process.

So needless to say, most reports went on to say that this was not the best move for the Phillies. Amazingly, Jon Heyman did say that the contract was just about right for Howard, so take that for what it is worth. This was the offseason that potentially could have been even deeper at first base as Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, and Adrian Gonzalez all would have been coming into free agency.

Since then Gonzalez was traded to, and extended by, the Boston Red Sox. Pujols signed a ridiculously rich contract with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and, as of the time of this post, Prince Fielder has remained a free agent. We all think we know how much worse Howard is offensively than the rest of the first baseman in the league, but let’s take a look into some next level stats. Be prepared, this is a very in depth piece. (more…)

Tags: Adrian Gonzalez, Albert Pujols, Mark Teixiera, prince fielder, Ryan Howard