I'm hearing that both Bay Area teams thought it would be funny to make my sections on their teams outdated. I don't find this as funny. (congratulations, Giants fans)
tried too hard to look unbiased putting Lindor in B tier. Shouldve been Who Knows? or A if you were going to actually grade it. Probably Who Knows? but definitely not B
You shouldn't be allowed to watch the incredible career of Francisco Lindor anymore after putting him in fucking B tier. He's been even better than advertised and just had his best year yet. Looks to be aging very well. This was an awesome deal for the Mets. He's your best player and probably the best position player in the history of your franchise, why the fuck are you so down on him?
It needs to be said, the José deal is so elite because of José. Him taking the discount is the soul reason he is in Cleveland and it shouldn’t be understated. It was his decision to stay, if he would have asked for what he’s worth (which is reasonable) he wouldn’t be on the team the ownership wouldn’t have ponied up. The ownership/organization deserves little credit for it. It’s why Jose is so loved in Cleveland and will forever be a legend here.
@georgecabany4373 ohtani is getting paid like 45 trillion for his contract. He got the absolute most that he could possibly get. He's a great player don't get me wrong, but the return on investment for Jose is light-years beyond anything that any human being could return given the size of the Ohtani contract, unless LA 3-peats twice during his contract
@@aKulex I disagree because the Dodgers have already won a World Series BECAUSE OF SHOHEIS CONTRACT and the Guardians more than likely won’t win a World Series during Ramirez’ tenure with the team. If they do my opinion will change but until then Shoehei’s contract is better man. All that deferred money (as much as i fucking hate it) opened them up to sign more superstars and it’s already paid off.
I kinda wish he'd just skipped over Franco and just talked about whatever the next highest contract for the Rays is (I believe it's still Longoria's extension).
Im not at all a guardians fan, but who tf wouldn't have jrams deal at top tier. A consistent top 5 in mvp for a home discount. You can't ask for more than that
With Ohtani, the other thing to mention, the team will likely make a direct profit on the deal. He brought in over $100M of new sponsorship deals in his first year alone
@@UnfairEnforceryea by then they would’ve made a billion dollars off his contract alone. It’s the most profitable contract ever. His deferral also frees up immediate cash flow to build now and his endorsements are literally paying for the contracts of Snell, Yamamoto.
I can't speak for how the Nationals organization bosses feel about Strasburg but as a fan who paid to go see his first game, and then of course followed him afterwards, I can safely say that Stephen Strasburg is my second-favorite all-time National (behind only Ryan Zimmerman and just ahead of Mad Max). It is a true tragedy what happened to our guy. I hope he finds nothing but happiness in retirement. You deserve the money Stras. You were a real one.
As a mariners fan I would have Cano more in the B tier, but the funniest thing about it is our organization sees this as a F tier contract. They have mentioned multiple times that this contract “set us back” Which I feel like speaks volume to how much our ownership doesn’t want to spend any money
This ownership is horrible. We apparently only have $16 million to work with this offseason despite being 10th in revenue in 2024. Total joke of an owner.
BRUH the "scars of the robinson cano contract" whining by ownership was the death knell of the Ms organization. "We have all the tools we need" to provide another 25 years of 54% championshipless seasons of mediocrity.
And the reason why Ohtani can be the Unicorn is because he makes approximately 70 million a year from sponsorships here and in Japan. A one-of-a-kind player and situation for the Dodgers.
@9:40. To be fair to the Rays, MLB teams don’t really foresee a player having problems in the minors once he signs his first big contract post arbitration.
Oh man, I've been updating all my contract analysis for recently ended contracts and arbitration extensions the last couple weeks so this is up my ally. A few notes... Strasburg and Cabrera are easy F tier and grade out as the two worst contracts for the money in baseball history. Goldschmidt and Votto's contracts actually grade out slightly better than Altuve's on my sheet... however I'm just going off of production so I can understand how the 2022 World Series ring could put Altuve up higher. The biggest disagreement for me, and this is going to be a hot take, is Posey's contract. Would be B tier at the highest for me... but only because a majority of the productive years for the contract were his pre eligible for free agency years. Without the contract they still would've had him for the three World Series years and ~75% of his career bWAR. What the contract bought was a good 2017, decent 2018, not great 2019, lost 2020, and a good 2021. For the Giants as a team, it was 4 losing seasons and a quick playoff exit in 2021. Still a good contract, and definitely a positive, but I think it falls short of A tier considering the team control before the contract.
When you grade out an extension like Yelich’s, do you typically factor in only the years played underneath the extension (23-29) or the years since the extension was signed (20-29) as Jolly did?
you tried too hard to make sure you weren’t being a Mets homer. Lindor has played at the same level as he was when he earned the contract in Cleveland and is still an elite shortstop. that’s an A contract easily
I’m a Phillies fan and I’d put Lindor as an A as well. Excellent player and clubhouse leader. He’s not making that much either with how much salaries are going up.
@@rich7787 I'm a Met fan and I'd honestly put both Lindor and Harper in S. What more do you want these guys to do? They've both been even better with the bat since signing their contracts and they're leaders on those teams. I don't know what more you can ask from them. It's not their fault the rest of the team isn't good enough to win the World Series.
I think the only reason he didn't is because the 4 of the 5 guys in A won MVPs during their contracts (all except Seager), 3 won a world series (Altuve, Seager, and Posey) and 2 made the world series but lost (Harper and Judge).
Minor clarification, but Christian Yelich’s contract extension is actually from 2023-2029 and not 2020-2026. And while health/playing time is still a concern, the two years he’s played under the actual 7 year extension his averages are: 3.4 WAR, 109 G, 15 HR, 132 OPS+ While still obviously not his MVP numbers, 2024 was the 3rd best season of his career (by OPS+) and I don’t think I’ve seen a Brewer fan who wants to try and rid his contract these past two seasons.
Willy Adames just got 7/182 from the Giants. Posey being President of Baseball Operations for the Giants at the time of the signing makes it interesting.
Idk how Lindor is B tier. He's been exactly as advertised and he's outperformed his price by fWAR by a substantial margin. He just had the best year of his career and would have been the NL MVP if not for Shohei becoming the founding member of the 50/50 club. "He has to win a world series" is a stupid argument. The dude can only control his performance and his leadership, which have been awesome. I'd put him in S tier at this point in the deal. Pretty surprised that a Met fan would undervalue their best player like this. Altuve and Harper also belong in S tier. Jolly please let 2025 be the year you stop using rWAR man.
agreed that team awards should not be used in any way as a measure for individual players. also agree with the guys you think should be promoted to S tier or at least A+ tier. If there's an argument saying that in order to be in S tier, they need to outperform their pre-contract statistics, then I can accept them stay in the highest portion of A tier.
fr this dude doesn't know shit about Baseball and he put Lindor at B should be A, Judge at A should be S, Stanton at C should be top of B or A, Bobby, Rafeal, and machado at who knows is also wild they should at least be like b
Saying the Red Sox could've used that money to resign Betts is disingenuous at best. Henry absolutely wasn't going to pay anyone. He refused to pay Betts and Xander. He got pressured into the Devers deal by angry fans. And the move for Devers going to 1B makes that deal look better in total.
After you broke my heart with Phillies tier rankings in other videos, you said all the correct things about the Harper contract. It will forever be an A contract that can only reach S tier with a ring
Harper is really the perfect case for an A+ tier imo. It can't reach the insane heights of S tier, just by virtue of it not being insanely cheap for the team, but saying A tier still feels like a disservice to how Harper has done everything asked of him and more. Not only has he performed to the same high standard, but he's also matured and become a clubhouse leader that he wasn't previously
I know Adames just signed with the Giants but Buster Posey should be in S tier. Signed a future hall of famer to a deal that took uo the rest of his career when he was consistently one of if not the best catcher in the league
I look at the Chris Davis contract as a blessing in disguise in hindsight for the Orioles. It was the last dominoe to fall for them to make organizational changes and all of it led to a new owner willing to spend.
I think your placement of Cano's is pretty spot on. I think with the benefit of hindsight most M's fans agree that Cano was a very good player during his time here (especially in comparison to some other big contracts highlighted on this list), but his PED suspension in 2018 -- when he had gotten off to a blazing start and whose suspension was probably the single biggest reason they didn't break the playoff drought that year -- left a very bitter taste in fans' mouths. Hopefully we'll be talking about just how great Julio's contract was (or still is) when you update this list a decade from now.
Great video. As a Brewers fan, I agree with you on Yelich. That contract is also one of the reasons why the Brewers are so reluctant to sign big contracts going forward, it just makes team owner Attanasio even more stringent with his gigantic purse. And before Yelich, their other biggest contract the Brewers had was Ryan Braun, and his legacy is going to be forever marred with the P.E.D. controversy.
The main reason I remember the Zack Greinke Arizona era is because of the statistical oddity it caused in the year he was traded. He won the NL Gold Glove at the pitcher position, despite finishing the year in the AL. Meanwhile, the AL Gold Glove winner that year, Mike Leake, was traded to Arizona to take over Greinke's innings after he was traded. That means that both gold glove pitchers finished the season in the "wrong" league. Addition after watching more of the video: Cano should absolutely be in "B" tier. The Mariners wouldn't have done better things with that money. They're the Mariners.
Manny Machado was playing injured in the first two years of the extension. His defensive numbers will bounce back now that he is fully recovered. He has always been a very durable player, and is still able to be productive while coming off injury
the sox at the time did not have the $$ to pay mookie (or at least relative to their payroll now) the devers extension and mookie situation are essentially 2 GMs apart, dombrowski left bloom w that mess to clean up
I don’t understand why MLB wouldn’t let Chris Davis take his adderal. I am diagnosed with ADHD and I can’t function nearly as efficiently and productively without it. It’s like you’re in a cloud mentally without being able to focus. Maybe you can do it for a couple days, but years on end will thank your production. I’ll still never forget his glory days and what could have been. In hindsight it wasn’t a bad contract and I think he would be playing today if not for the bureaucracy of the MLB and their wack drug policies.
For those wondering about the mariners deal, Julio is only guaranteed 209 million dollars. However, Cano is a high B to low A imo. Our ownership doesn't know what it's talking about when they view it as a failure. It made us competitive and helped lure Cruz. A good era, no playoffs, but a fun time.
@@jamesknapp64 that's true, but Trout already had a lot of mileage when he signed. Bobby Witt is 24 and only going into season number 4, so i think it's at least a B tier deal until proven otherwise
Mariner fan here: I agree the Cano contract was a low C grade contract. His production dropped as soon as he got to Seattle which is pretty par for the course for the Mariners. The contract as a whole I think just leave a sour taste. He put up DECENT numbers but we were paying him for the GREAT numbers he put before. And when you pair that with the steroids scandal it definitely isn't higher than a B. I was at a Mariners game a shortly after the news broke and overheard someone say in the most disappointing tone, "He just lost himself the Hall of Fame" I think that somehow perfectly sums up the contract.
The Franco deal was horrible but at least the Rays can avoid paying most of it. It is difficult to uphold your end of the deal while sitting in prison. I think the Witt deal will be going into the A tier one day. As for Ohtani, his deal is unheard of. Most players would do the opposite, take as much money as they can even if it means the team won't be competitive. He was a big part of their championship season and now they will be perennial contenders for the next decade.
Ohtani is for now has the highest contract and is still probably underpaid. Just the extra eyes and merch that is being consumed in Japan and Korea is worth hundreds of millions.
Hey Jolly, great video and I agree with most of your picks. My one gripe is not accounting for the shorterned 2020 season for some stats, e.g. at 13:34 where you highlight that Greinke only averaged 100 IP. He was traded at the deadline to Houston in 2019, so he was only there for 2.5 years, and with 2020 that skews his averages. He had 171IP in 2021 in his only full season in Houston.
Great video - I waver on Votto and Trout - I think Votto is on the cusp of A just due to how much he added to the overall game of baseball through the COVID years with his humor and professionalism. I wish I could say Trout was C, but I think he is driving the Angels downward and will end up a D or lower; but this may just be a projection as he represents some pretty awful management decisions from the Angels with signing Rendon and losing Ohtani. The Dodgers showed us what good management could do with similarly profiled players who are game-changing teammates in Betts and Freeman among so many others along side the Sho. Would love to see an analysis of collective signings/decisions by GMs.
And Judge since signing the contract has put up 2 unanimous MVP seasons, broken the AL single season home run record, had 2 of the highest War season since 50+years, made a World Series And so much more
He has a point with judge underperforming in the playoffs to offset his incredible seasons, but Harper really shows up in the playoffs so not having a ring is so far out of his control
hes going to be a 5 war+ player the next 6-7 years if he stays healthy. his eye and power should age well and when hes old he should basically be david ortiz.
Bro, you can't say Harper isn't S-tier until he wins a World Series. J-Ram hasn't even done that. Shohei should be the only one there, along with Buster, Seager and Altuve. Great list overall but these top picks should all be in the top S-tier.
I'm from Cleveland, born and raised. Jose has put his blood sweat and tears into this city and we need to get him some more money. He's deserved to be a little selfish if he wants to stay with us and ask for more money.
The Votto deal came at a weird time, as one of the members of the ownership group had died just at the time that one of his companies spiked in value due to the fracking boom, and then just a week after the Votto and Brandon Phillips contracts were made, a bunch of restrictions on fracking in the areas that that company operated were passed by the New York and Pennsylvania state legislatures, so the Reds didn't get the continued financial windfall that they were expecting to get.
Surprised you didn’t put Lindor in A. He’s playing up to that contract at an MVP caliber level and the only reason he isn’t in S would be the lack of a World Series win or appearance in his Mets career so far
Appreciate you giving a balanced outlook on robbie cano’s contract a lot of baseball fans (and ESPECIALLY mariners fans for some reason) really exaggerate how bad this contract is
as a brewrs fan yelich this year and last year showed signs of great hitting and this year he got surgery so no more back problems in 2025 hes getting a fully healthy version with 30 hrs and 95rbis im calling it
As a tigers fan I know I can’t speak for everyone but the miggy contract was worth it for the fact that we weren’t gonna do shit anyways and I’m glad he didn’t play anywhere else at the end of his career. He earned the payday by like you said having an S tier first contract
I remember people were writing articles and blogs about Hayward’s deal needing to be 200m+ because his defense and someone said it was an underpay, I thought $125-150 made sense at the time
For pitchers I think FIP should be included in the analysis. A pitcher that goes from a team with a good defense to a team without one might look worse than they really were.
in defense of Benny on the White Sox.. he’s the only guy that played hard everyday. even when dealing with achilles issues, he decided to honor his contract and play through it when everyone else sat
As a tigers fan myself, it was a bad contract but in hindsight I wouldn’t have changed anything just because when we payed him he deserved every penny he got.
Mariners fan here and yes the Cano contract rating is accurate. You could argue "Who Knows?" Tier but if he has helped us get the playoffs I would have considered it easily a B tier contract.
Red sox fan here, devers is an A. Mookie was traded by chaim bloom to save money and then the next offseason after bogaerts was nabbed from us it forced ownership to lock up devers, they didn’t wanna pay any of that great trio core we had and raffy is basically the next big papi dh for the next 10 years
It's hilarious to me that people associated with the Mariners cite Canó's deal as a cautionary tale in big spending, when it honestly couldn't have gone better for the M's. They got one of the best players in the majors , and he continued to play like it. Then they flipped him right before he got bad and sent almost all of the money left owed to him to another team for one of the top prospects in all of baseball. Really hard to ask for more than that.
You are correct. Once Wander was charged in the DR he was officially placed on the MLB restricted list. Players on the restricted list are not allowed to collect their salaries. Given what we know about the case I would be very surprised if he ever makes it off the restricted list. And thus he will never be owed any of his contract salary. On top of this his contract was extremely back loaded. He only got like $2mil a year for his first three years. His salary was then supposed to ramp up to like $26mil a year. So in total the Ray's will never have to pay him about $175mil of his $182mil contract.
As a padres fan the machado contract will end up being just like the Miggy contract. Machado will be a 40 mil blockage at a power position. Not to mention in the same offseason we signed Bogarts…..
As a Tigers fan, the Miguel Cabrera contract never really upset me too much. It wasn't ideal but it felt right to see the big man get paid and play out the rest of his career with the team that saw his best years.
I think the only time its ok to sign a guy to a mega-deal is when the guy came up through your system and was a productive player in his pre-arbitration years and/or was a major contributor to making the playoffs during arbitration period. In that case the team is retroactively paying for past production. Signing a FA player from another team to a mega-deal is essentially overpaying for contributions made to another team. And in most instances the player ends up playing most if not all of the contract in decline. The only acceptable instances of signing a FA to a mega deal is the Corey Seager deal where the player leads your team to a World Series championship.
The Austin Riley deal is an absolute steal. Teams are paying guys hitting .250 with 20 HR a year close to 30 mil a year and the Braves get Riley and his around 40 HR and .280 average for 21a year! I do think anyone still questioning his defense hasn't been watching him all that much. He was a gold glove finalist in 2023's full season. I don't think i'll ever understand why players sign those back loaded deals. It's basically guaranteeing to create a scenario where they become not worth it to the team (unless the contract is mostly guaranteed) it's basically saying you'll pay me less than I'm worth during my prime and more than ill be worth on the tail end of my career.
Fun fact about Eric Chavez: points for effort in trying to pronounce his last name correctly ... but he was born & raised in a family that's been English-speaking for generations, and he his name has the Americanized pronunciation "shuh-VEZZ."
Even without that speech, I think Heyward's contract was better than F tier. It's not like he put up negative WAR. He still was an amazing clubhouse leader and teammate. That's more than you can say for Chris Davis and Wander Franco.
You really need to bump Bryan Reynolds up this list. That he's a 3 WAR player that Pittsburg is only paying $13m per season for is a much, much better value than the other players in this tier - especially Stanton & Cano.
Idk Bryce’s contract should be S Tier. Any contract and production that makes other fan bases wish their team (Yankees) would’ve signed him instead should be S tier
The thing about Ohtani is he brings in a huge market from Asia for whatever team he plays in. I imagine the $ that Japanese fans bring in is astronomically larger than say Dominican or S.Korean fans.
I'm hearing that both Bay Area teams thought it would be funny to make my sections on their teams outdated.
I don't find this as funny. (congratulations, Giants fans)
tried too hard to look unbiased putting Lindor in B tier. Shouldve been Who Knows? or A if you were going to actually grade it. Probably Who Knows? but definitely not B
honestly a top-tier starter and a bat or two and the giants could be serious playoff contenders
@iplaygames11exactly, I’m excited, we also have to bring Eldridge up!
You shouldn't be allowed to watch the incredible career of Francisco Lindor anymore after putting him in fucking B tier. He's been even better than advertised and just had his best year yet. Looks to be aging very well. This was an awesome deal for the Mets. He's your best player and probably the best position player in the history of your franchise, why the fuck are you so down on him?
Those won’t be the only teams to pull a prank on you
It needs to be said, the José deal is so elite because of José. Him taking the discount is the soul reason he is in Cleveland and it shouldn’t be understated. It was his decision to stay, if he would have asked for what he’s worth (which is reasonable) he wouldn’t be on the team the ownership wouldn’t have ponied up. The ownership/organization deserves little credit for it. It’s why Jose is so loved in Cleveland and will forever be a legend here.
Yeah I heard about the discount ... JRAM is awesome in every way!
Similar to Dustin Pedro's
FMannyMachado
ohtani deal is better but jram is absolutely far and away a close second
@georgecabany4373 ohtani is getting paid like 45 trillion for his contract. He got the absolute most that he could possibly get. He's a great player don't get me wrong, but the return on investment for Jose is light-years beyond anything that any human being could return given the size of the Ohtani contract, unless LA 3-peats twice during his contract
@@aKulex I disagree because the Dodgers have already won a World Series BECAUSE OF SHOHEIS CONTRACT and the Guardians more than likely won’t win a World Series during Ramirez’ tenure with the team. If they do my opinion will change but until then Shoehei’s contract is better man. All that deferred money (as much as i fucking hate it) opened them up to sign more superstars and it’s already paid off.
I like how Wander Franco just appears in F tier with zero acknowledgement. Perfection
I kinda wish he'd just skipped over Franco and just talked about whatever the next highest contract for the Rays is (I believe it's still Longoria's extension).
as someone who was only a casual MLB fan now I totally forgot everything about this. Wish he would have given a quick summery of it.
As soon as he said F would be a special tier, I thought Franco would be the only member of it. Which might have been even better.
@@jamesknapp64I prefer to just forget about that garage bag.
He needs a special Z tier
Just started this vid. If JRam's deal with the Guards isn't at top tier, i'm furious. Best deal in the league.
Salute to Jolly Olive for putting it S tier 🫡
I think Shohei’s the best but if I were going to say a contract that isn’t that one it would be JRam.
Im not at all a guardians fan, but who tf wouldn't have jrams deal at top tier. A consistent top 5 in mvp for a home discount. You can't ask for more than that
Best deal in the league is shohei. World champ, buddy.
It's not only the best deal but it's a straight up steal for the team
Right before the severino signing is a bad beat, gotta give Fischer a little more hate.
Should’ve waited for Soto to sign to publish this video lol 😂
It’s better he released it before he would of just went in Who Knows
He’ll need his own video
You beat me to saying this 😂
With Ohtani, the other thing to mention, the team will likely make a direct profit on the deal. He brought in over $100M of new sponsorship deals in his first year alone
But he won’t do so in a decade (most likely, at the very least), and that is exactly when the Dodgers will actually feel the weight of his contract
@@UnfairEnforceryea by then they would’ve made a billion dollars off his contract alone. It’s the most profitable contract ever. His deferral also frees up immediate cash flow to build now and his endorsements are literally paying for the contracts of Snell, Yamamoto.
@@UnfairEnforcerI mean assuming he’s dosent disastrously drop off he’s gonna keep raking in money
@@LuckyNeuron-ys8sythey’ll make money off him even if he falls off. His brand alone is worth the contract
@@LuckyNeuron-ys8syyo me and my buddy were saying this the other day. In a year or 2 he gonna try and steal a base and destroy his ACL
I can't speak for how the Nationals organization bosses feel about Strasburg but as a fan who paid to go see his first game, and then of course followed him afterwards, I can safely say that Stephen Strasburg is my second-favorite all-time National (behind only Ryan Zimmerman and just ahead of Mad Max). It is a true tragedy what happened to our guy. I hope he finds nothing but happiness in retirement. You deserve the money Stras. You were a real one.
As a mariners fan I would have Cano more in the B tier, but the funniest thing about it is our organization sees this as a F tier contract. They have mentioned multiple times that this contract “set us back” Which I feel like speaks volume to how much our ownership doesn’t want to spend any money
This ownership is horrible. We apparently only have $16 million to work with this offseason despite being 10th in revenue in 2024. Total joke of an owner.
BRUH the "scars of the robinson cano contract" whining by ownership was the death knell of the Ms organization. "We have all the tools we need" to provide another 25 years of 54% championshipless seasons of mediocrity.
You would think the Mariners ownership would do whatever it takes to even make a world series considering they are 1 of 2 teams to never make one
@@kylebittner1327 They are the only one now
@@mascwalt the Brewers haven't made one
And the reason why Ohtani can be the Unicorn is because he makes approximately 70 million a year from sponsorships here and in Japan. A one-of-a-kind player and situation for the Dodgers.
00:25 - A's
01:15 - White Sox
02:05 - Pirates
03:14 - Guardians
04:07 - Cardinals
04:54 - Blue Jays
06:07 - Astros
07:03 - Orioles
08:46 - Giants
09:36 - Rays
09:51 - Cubs
11:01 - Brewers
11:58 - Twins
12:42 - Diamondbacks
14:03 - Braves
14:50 - Reds
15:53 - Rockies
16:40 - Mariners
18:08 - Nationals
19:23 - Tigers
20:30 - Royals
21:19 - Rangers
22:23 - Marlins
23:38 - Phillies
24:27 - Red Sox
25:24 - Mets
26:17 - Padres
27:16 - Yankees
27:58 - Angels
29:02 - Dodgers
@9:40. To be fair to the Rays, MLB teams don’t really foresee a player having problems in the minors once he signs his first big contract post arbitration.
I agree with the entire list. It’s crazy to see Miguel Cabrera in F tier, but that was the second half of his career lol
Had and A tier contract then F tier contract for the same player.
@@jamesknapp64 first one was s tier
Similar to A-Rod with Yanqui's
Oh man, I've been updating all my contract analysis for recently ended contracts and arbitration extensions the last couple weeks so this is up my ally. A few notes...
Strasburg and Cabrera are easy F tier and grade out as the two worst contracts for the money in baseball history.
Goldschmidt and Votto's contracts actually grade out slightly better than Altuve's on my sheet... however I'm just going off of production so I can understand how the 2022 World Series ring could put Altuve up higher.
The biggest disagreement for me, and this is going to be a hot take, is Posey's contract. Would be B tier at the highest for me... but only because a majority of the productive years for the contract were his pre eligible for free agency years. Without the contract they still would've had him for the three World Series years and ~75% of his career bWAR. What the contract bought was a good 2017, decent 2018, not great 2019, lost 2020, and a good 2021. For the Giants as a team, it was 4 losing seasons and a quick playoff exit in 2021. Still a good contract, and definitely a positive, but I think it falls short of A tier considering the team control before the contract.
Love your videos @BaseballsNotDead !
Love seeing the world’s best expert on baseball contracts
I was wondering what BND was thinking of this list.
When you grade out an extension like Yelich’s, do you typically factor in only the years played underneath the extension (23-29) or the years since the extension was signed (20-29) as Jolly did?
@@adoobershe only talks about completed contracts in his contract videos
Nats fan here. Everyone knew Stras was injury prone due to his windup and delivery. No one would insure that contract. Sirens should have been blaring
you tried too hard to make sure you weren’t being a Mets homer. Lindor has played at the same level as he was when he earned the contract in Cleveland and is still an elite shortstop. that’s an A contract easily
I’m a Phillies fan and I’d put Lindor as an A as well. Excellent player and clubhouse leader. He’s not making that much either with how much salaries are going up.
Agreed show your chest jolly 😊 you got a mvp type enjoy it while he is
@@rich7787 I'm a Met fan and I'd honestly put both Lindor and Harper in S. What more do you want these guys to do? They've both been even better with the bat since signing their contracts and they're leaders on those teams. I don't know what more you can ask from them. It's not their fault the rest of the team isn't good enough to win the World Series.
@@johnspadaro5442 Mets fan here. Harper is so hilariously underpaid relative to salaries around baseball. I wish to hell he was a Met.
I think the only reason he didn't is because the 4 of the 5 guys in A won MVPs during their contracts (all except Seager), 3 won a world series (Altuve, Seager, and Posey) and 2 made the world series but lost (Harper and Judge).
Minor clarification, but Christian Yelich’s contract extension is actually from 2023-2029 and not 2020-2026.
And while health/playing time is still a concern, the two years he’s played under the actual 7 year extension his averages are: 3.4 WAR, 109 G, 15 HR, 132 OPS+
While still obviously not his MVP numbers, 2024 was the 3rd best season of his career (by OPS+) and I don’t think I’ve seen a Brewer fan who wants to try and rid his contract these past two seasons.
Willy Adames just got 7/182 from the Giants. Posey being President of Baseball Operations for the Giants at the time of the signing makes it interesting.
Idk how Lindor is B tier. He's been exactly as advertised and he's outperformed his price by fWAR by a substantial margin. He just had the best year of his career and would have been the NL MVP if not for Shohei becoming the founding member of the 50/50 club. "He has to win a world series" is a stupid argument. The dude can only control his performance and his leadership, which have been awesome. I'd put him in S tier at this point in the deal. Pretty surprised that a Met fan would undervalue their best player like this.
Altuve and Harper also belong in S tier. Jolly please let 2025 be the year you stop using rWAR man.
agreed that team awards should not be used in any way as a measure for individual players. also agree with the guys you think should be promoted to S tier or at least A+ tier. If there's an argument saying that in order to be in S tier, they need to outperform their pre-contract statistics, then I can accept them stay in the highest portion of A tier.
fr this dude doesn't know shit about Baseball and he put Lindor at B should be A, Judge at A should be S, Stanton at C should be top of B or A, Bobby, Rafeal, and machado at who knows is also wild they should at least be like b
im choosing to believe its because of that weird rat/raccoon debate thing, even though i think that was before he signed this deal
Saying the Red Sox could've used that money to resign Betts is disingenuous at best. Henry absolutely wasn't going to pay anyone. He refused to pay Betts and Xander. He got pressured into the Devers deal by angry fans. And the move for Devers going to 1B makes that deal look better in total.
And here comes Juan Soto
After you broke my heart with Phillies tier rankings in other videos, you said all the correct things about the Harper contract. It will forever be an A contract that can only reach S tier with a ring
Harper is really the perfect case for an A+ tier imo. It can't reach the insane heights of S tier, just by virtue of it not being insanely cheap for the team, but saying A tier still feels like a disservice to how Harper has done everything asked of him and more. Not only has he performed to the same high standard, but he's also matured and become a clubhouse leader that he wasn't previously
I know Adames just signed with the Giants but Buster Posey should be in S tier. Signed a future hall of famer to a deal that took uo the rest of his career when he was consistently one of if not the best catcher in the league
I definitely agree. Posey belongs in "S" tier.
I look at the Chris Davis contract as a blessing in disguise in hindsight for the Orioles. It was the last dominoe to fall for them to make organizational changes and all of it led to a new owner willing to spend.
I think your placement of Cano's is pretty spot on. I think with the benefit of hindsight most M's fans agree that Cano was a very good player during his time here (especially in comparison to some other big contracts highlighted on this list), but his PED suspension in 2018 -- when he had gotten off to a blazing start and whose suspension was probably the single biggest reason they didn't break the playoff drought that year -- left a very bitter taste in fans' mouths.
Hopefully we'll be talking about just how great Julio's contract was (or still is) when you update this list a decade from now.
this aged… fast
How is Seager not an S tier? He’s one of the best signings in Texas Rangers history and as you said is the main reason we won a chip.
Rangers fan here but, missing 80 games in the last two seasons has to knock it down some right. Other than that his production has been elite I agree.
As a Nats fan, Strasburg is an S tier in my heart. I couldn't care less about the numbers, he won us a world series
Great video. As a Brewers fan, I agree with you on Yelich. That contract is also one of the reasons why the Brewers are so reluctant to sign big contracts going forward, it just makes team owner Attanasio even more stringent with his gigantic purse. And before Yelich, their other biggest contract the Brewers had was Ryan Braun, and his legacy is going to be forever marred with the P.E.D. controversy.
The main reason I remember the Zack Greinke Arizona era is because of the statistical oddity it caused in the year he was traded. He won the NL Gold Glove at the pitcher position, despite finishing the year in the AL. Meanwhile, the AL Gold Glove winner that year, Mike Leake, was traded to Arizona to take over Greinke's innings after he was traded. That means that both gold glove pitchers finished the season in the "wrong" league.
Addition after watching more of the video: Cano should absolutely be in "B" tier. The Mariners wouldn't have done better things with that money. They're the Mariners.
Manny Machado was playing injured in the first two years of the extension. His defensive numbers will bounce back now that he is fully recovered. He has always been a very durable player, and is still able to be productive while coming off injury
Jolly: I'm gonna expose every team's bad contracts
Angels fans: Which one? 😂
the sox at the time did not have the $$ to pay mookie (or at least relative to their payroll now) the devers extension and mookie situation are essentially 2 GMs apart, dombrowski left bloom w that mess to clean up
Great video! Every argument was well-reasoned. I'm trying not to gush with how impressive this video was.
I don’t understand why MLB wouldn’t let Chris Davis take his adderal. I am diagnosed with ADHD and I can’t function nearly as efficiently and productively without it. It’s like you’re in a cloud mentally without being able to focus. Maybe you can do it for a couple days, but years on end will thank your production. I’ll still never forget his glory days and what could have been. In hindsight it wasn’t a bad contract and I think he would be playing today if not for the bureaucracy of the MLB and their wack drug policies.
For those wondering about the mariners deal, Julio is only guaranteed 209 million dollars.
However, Cano is a high B to low A imo. Our ownership doesn't know what it's talking about when they view it as a failure. It made us competitive and helped lure Cruz. A good era, no playoffs, but a fun time.
If you are gonna do contract averages, you either gotta exclude 2020 or just do it on a per 162 game basis, especially for the counting stats
Better update that Mets spot.
Bobby Witt Jr. in the who knows category is wild. you could cut his 2024 numbers in half and that's still a career year for most shortstops
that is still only 1 year of the contract, look at Trout who had an MVP first year of his extenstion and is in C tier, injuries can happen.
@@jamesknapp64 that's true, but Trout already had a lot of mileage when he signed. Bobby Witt is 24 and only going into season number 4, so i think it's at least a B tier deal until proven otherwise
Mariner fan here: I agree the Cano contract was a low C grade contract. His production dropped as soon as he got to Seattle which is pretty par for the course for the Mariners. The contract as a whole I think just leave a sour taste. He put up DECENT numbers but we were paying him for the GREAT numbers he put before. And when you pair that with the steroids scandal it definitely isn't higher than a B. I was at a Mariners game a shortly after the news broke and overheard someone say in the most disappointing tone, "He just lost himself the Hall of Fame" I think that somehow perfectly sums up the contract.
This was very well thought through and presented, good job!
Its funny how the day he starting working on it, Severino beats the A's contract
and now the Day he uploads it Adames beats the Giants contract
The Franco deal was horrible but at least the Rays can avoid paying most of it. It is difficult to uphold your end of the deal while sitting in prison. I think the Witt deal will be going into the A tier one day. As for Ohtani, his deal is unheard of. Most players would do the opposite, take as much money as they can even if it means the team won't be competitive. He was a big part of their championship season and now they will be perennial contenders for the next decade.
Bro was just a couple days early for the highest paying contract in MLB history 😭
As a jays fan I am still mad that Vlad has not been signed yet and now I have heard that he might test free agency
And if he does test free agency him and corbin burnes should be the Red Sox number 1 targets. Red Sox fan here, lol
4:56 I felt like springer was just staring into my soul
Ohtani is for now has the highest contract and is still probably underpaid. Just the extra eyes and merch that is being consumed in Japan and Korea is worth hundreds of millions.
No it isn’t…? That’s not how you judge contracts regardless …
Hey Jolly, great video and I agree with most of your picks.
My one gripe is not accounting for the shorterned 2020 season for some stats, e.g. at 13:34 where you highlight that Greinke only averaged 100 IP. He was traded at the deadline to Houston in 2019, so he was only there for 2.5 years, and with 2020 that skews his averages. He had 171IP in 2021 in his only full season in Houston.
Great video - I waver on Votto and Trout - I think Votto is on the cusp of A just due to how much he added to the overall game of baseball through the COVID years with his humor and professionalism. I wish I could say Trout was C, but I think he is driving the Angels downward and will end up a D or lower; but this may just be a projection as he represents some pretty awful management decisions from the Angels with signing Rendon and losing Ohtani. The Dodgers showed us what good management could do with similarly profiled players who are game-changing teammates in Betts and Freeman among so many others along side the Sho. Would love to see an analysis of collective signings/decisions by GMs.
I'm not a Phillies or Yankees fan, but knocking on Harper and Judge for not putting them in the S tier when Ramirez hasn't won a World Series either.
Ramirez is maybe the best bargain in baseball. That counts for something
And Judge since signing the contract has put up 2 unanimous MVP seasons, broken the AL single season home run record, had 2 of the highest War season since 50+years, made a World Series
And so much more
@@kasinocontroller Judge did not win the MVP (let alone unanimous MVP) in 2023, as it turns out.
He has a point with judge underperforming in the playoffs to offset his incredible seasons, but Harper really shows up in the playoffs so not having a ring is so far out of his control
Soto will end up on F no matter who gets him. 600-730M for 10-13 years is crazy for any team even the Dodgers with their deferral tactics.
He still beat your maximum projections in both dollars and years!
hes going to be a 5 war+ player the next 6-7 years if he stays healthy. his eye and power should age well and when hes old he should basically be david ortiz.
Bro, you can't say Harper isn't S-tier until he wins a World Series. J-Ram hasn't even done that. Shohei should be the only one there, along with Buster, Seager and Altuve. Great list overall but these top picks should all be in the top S-tier.
Right as Luis Severino signs with the A’s
To be fair, it's hard to rank a contract where the player hasn't pitched a single inning for the team yet. But it is funny timing tho
I'm from Cleveland, born and raised. Jose has put his blood sweat and tears into this city and we need to get him some more money. He's deserved to be a little selfish if he wants to stay with us and ask for more money.
The Votto deal came at a weird time, as one of the members of the ownership group had died just at the time that one of his companies spiked in value due to the fracking boom, and then just a week after the Votto and Brandon Phillips contracts were made, a bunch of restrictions on fracking in the areas that that company operated were passed by the New York and Pennsylvania state legislatures, so the Reds didn't get the continued financial windfall that they were expecting to get.
Surprised you didn’t put Lindor in A. He’s playing up to that contract at an MVP caliber level and the only reason he isn’t in S would be the lack of a World Series win or appearance in his Mets career so far
Appreciate you giving a balanced outlook on robbie cano’s contract a lot of baseball fans (and ESPECIALLY mariners fans for some reason) really exaggerate how bad this contract is
Seager worth double that contract to Rangers fans! Great vid
as a brewrs fan yelich this year and last year showed signs of great hitting and this year he got surgery so no more back problems in 2025 hes getting a fully healthy version with 30 hrs and 95rbis im calling it
As a tigers fan I know I can’t speak for everyone but the miggy contract was worth it for the fact that we weren’t gonna do shit anyways and I’m glad he didn’t play anywhere else at the end of his career. He earned the payday by like you said having an S tier first contract
I remember people were writing articles and blogs about Hayward’s deal needing to be 200m+ because his defense and someone said it was an underpay, I thought $125-150 made sense at the time
For pitchers I think FIP should be included in the analysis. A pitcher that goes from a team with a good defense to a team without one might look worse than they really were.
Should be an “I’m sorry” tier between D/F for Trout, Miggy, & Nolan Arenado
Props to this video, I pretty much agree with all the ratings.
Incredible timing on this hahaha
😂 at "weird" anything regarding Zack Greinke. But we all love him regardless.
in defense of Benny on the White Sox.. he’s the only guy that played hard everyday. even when dealing with achilles issues, he decided to honor his contract and play through it when everyone else sat
As a tigers fan myself, it was a bad contract but in hindsight I wouldn’t have changed anything just because when we payed him he deserved every penny he got.
Mariners fan here and yes the Cano contract rating is accurate. You could argue "Who Knows?" Tier but if he has helped us get the playoffs I would have considered it easily a B tier contract.
Gold gloves draft!! Good opportunity to get some new players drafted that may not have been elite hitters
Red sox fan here, devers is an A. Mookie was traded by chaim bloom to save money and then the next offseason after bogaerts was nabbed from us it forced ownership to lock up devers, they didn’t wanna pay any of that great trio core we had and raffy is basically the next big papi dh for the next 10 years
It's hilarious to me that people associated with the Mariners cite Canó's deal as a cautionary tale in big spending, when it honestly couldn't have gone better for the M's. They got one of the best players in the majors , and he continued to play like it. Then they flipped him right before he got bad and sent almost all of the money left owed to him to another team for one of the top prospects in all of baseball. Really hard to ask for more than that.
Corey Seager playing shortstop “every day” is quite a stretch. Nevertheless… “High drive. It’s tied!”
Corey Seager coming back to LA somehow would be my dream come true, but Tommy Edman's extension has officially put that dream to rest :(
An even crazier statline than 50/50 for ohtani is his 54hr and 13 rbi 😂
You can’t say enough bad things about Wander Franco, but doesn’t the contract not have to be paid out on the Rays end?
Thank you for Beating me to this Question 👌🏽👍🏽
You are correct. Once Wander was charged in the DR he was officially placed on the MLB restricted list. Players on the restricted list are not allowed to collect their salaries. Given what we know about the case I would be very surprised if he ever makes it off the restricted list. And thus he will never be owed any of his contract salary.
On top of this his contract was extremely back loaded. He only got like $2mil a year for his first three years. His salary was then supposed to ramp up to like $26mil a year. So in total the Ray's will never have to pay him about $175mil of his $182mil contract.
lindor is A tier generational output for his contract
Watching this after the Soto signing
As a padres fan the machado contract will end up being just like the Miggy contract. Machado will be a 40 mil blockage at a power position. Not to mention in the same offseason we signed Bogarts…..
DAMN JOLLY YOU"RE GONNA HAVE TO UPDATE THIS LFGM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think Wander Franco needed his own tier. Don't like the other guys being placed next to him
It’s not often a teams largest contract is so worth it, that they make them the GM after. (Posey)
As a Tigers fan, the Miguel Cabrera contract never really upset me too much. It wasn't ideal but it felt right to see the big man get paid and play out the rest of his career with the team that saw his best years.
I think the only time its ok to sign a guy to a mega-deal is when the guy came up through your system and was a productive player in his pre-arbitration years and/or was a major contributor to making the playoffs during arbitration period. In that case the team is retroactively paying for past production. Signing a FA player from another team to a mega-deal is essentially overpaying for contributions made to another team. And in most instances the player ends up playing most if not all of the contract in decline. The only acceptable instances of signing a FA to a mega deal is the Corey Seager deal where the player leads your team to a World Series championship.
I'll shout from the rooftops, the Robinson Cano contract was excellent for the Ms.
I just gotta say that I love how S tier was actually S tier. So many tier lists rankings stack the S tier slot. 😂
The Austin Riley deal is an absolute steal. Teams are paying guys hitting .250 with 20 HR a year close to 30 mil a year and the Braves get Riley and his around 40 HR and .280 average for 21a year! I do think anyone still questioning his defense hasn't been watching him all that much. He was a gold glove finalist in 2023's full season.
I don't think i'll ever understand why players sign those back loaded deals. It's basically guaranteeing to create a scenario where they become not worth it to the team (unless the contract is mostly guaranteed) it's basically saying you'll pay me less than I'm worth during my prime and more than ill be worth on the tail end of my career.
Fun fact about Eric Chavez: points for effort in trying to pronounce his last name correctly ... but he was born & raised in a family that's been English-speaking for generations, and he his name has the Americanized pronunciation "shuh-VEZZ."
thank you for blessing my saturday, jolly
I think seagar should be S tier. For clutch play atleast
High drive!!
It’s tied!!!
Shivers everytime
PIT says theyre considering playing Reynolds at 1B, lets them put Yorke in the OF, Gonzales at 2B, and maybe sign a corner OF bat.
Looking forward to Jolly’s update to this now that Soto was signed
Adames passed up Posey as the Giants biggest contract ever. Exciting times in Giants land. Especially if Burnes sets another new record!
I think the Giants also, just blew up you're list with the Adames signing.
world series should really matter tbh i like the $8/fwar metric more but awesome video regardless
Even without that speech, I think Heyward's contract was better than F tier. It's not like he put up negative WAR. He still was an amazing clubhouse leader and teammate. That's more than you can say for Chris Davis and Wander Franco.
You really need to bump Bryan Reynolds up this list. That he's a 3 WAR player that Pittsburg is only paying $13m per season for is a much, much better value than the other players in this tier - especially Stanton & Cano.
Greinke getting two hits in the 2021 WS alone made his time as an Astro worth it.
Idk Bryce’s contract should be S Tier. Any contract and production that makes other fan bases wish their team (Yankees) would’ve signed him instead should be S tier
Judge has a somewhat similar one and has been miles better, so I’m not sure I entirely agree there.
The thing about Ohtani is he brings in a huge market from Asia for whatever team he plays in. I imagine the $ that Japanese fans bring in is astronomically larger than say Dominican or S.Korean fans.
For the athletics it’s Luis severino