Saturday, January 07, 2006

Who Is the Most Overpaid Yankee?

Time for another new poll. Now that Kevin Brown's contract has run its course, the answer to the above question is not so simple. Sure, A-Schmuck makes the most dough on the team. But with those gaudy numbers he puts up, maybe he's actually worth $25 million a year. So maybe Derek "Intangibles" Jeter deserves to be picked. Or how about the Moose's huge contract? Or how about our two favorite Mazzone reclamation projects - Jaret Wright and Kyle Farnsworth?

- One slight caveat: I wasn't able to find '06 salary numbers out there, so the numbers used may be a bit inaccurate, give or take about $1 million. I used the '05 numbers for everyone except Shemp and the newcomers.

- And again, if your pick for "most overpaid Yankee" is not one of the choices, just leave your write-in pick in the "comments" section to this piece.

---------- And, by the way, you can now catch the Yankee Despiser Podcast on iTunes!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think they're pretty much ALL overpaid, just some more than others.

After careful consideration, I had to pick Mussina, because he is paid Cy Young #1 Ace money when he is (at best) a #2 starter. He made more in annual salary in '05 than even sure HoF pitchers like Roger Clemens and his own teammate Randy Johnson. If that's not the definition of "ludicrously overpaid" than I don't know what is.

Anonymous said...

right now moose is the most overpaid. i havent checked the figures, but im guessing that his huge salary is partly due to his contract being backloaded?

you cant vote farnsworth simply because he hasnt thrown a pitch for the yankees yet. it wouldnt be fair.

Manny Ortiz said...

Alex you make a fair point. But again, Farnsworth has a 4.45 lifetime ERA, and just one or two good years on his resume, and you're telling me he may be worth $6 million a year, over 3 years?

Hey, for all I know, Farnsworth will be lights-out all year and turn Yankee games into 7-inning contests. But I wouldn't bet on it.

There are some contracts where, even before the guy throws a pitch, you wonder, "what the hell were they thinking?" Jaret Wright's deal was one of those. And so is Farnsworth's.

Manny Ortiz said...

And as for the Mussina deal, it sure is a backloaded deal. But first off, I'm looking at the here and now. Is Mussina worth $19 million in 2006? No way.

And even if you want to look at the contract as a whole -- it was a 6 year, $88.5 million deal. That averages out to about $14-15 million a year. Still a lot of money.

The only year that Mussina was worth that much was maybe '01, where had a great regular season and pitched his greatest game as a Junkee, game 3 of the ALDS. The Derek Jeter/ Jeremy Giambi play has taken away the credit that Moose deserves for his performance.

But since then, especially the last few years (4.59 ERA in '04, and 4.41 in '05), Moose sure has hell has not been worth the cost.

Unknown said...

The answer is RhoidBoy.

Anonymous said...

"AL MVP Alex Rodriguez was the highest-paid player at $21.8 million, which doesn't include $4 million in money paid by Texas, which was converted to an "assignment bonus" under the 2004 restructuring of his $252 million, 10-year contract. The changes were made as part of his trade from the Rangers to the Yankees."
-AP, Friday, Jan 6, 2006 8:49 pm EST

You can have another judgment for this.

But for me, Moose is still the overpaid one. Moose had $19 M for 2005 and he is the fifth highest paid player (AP).