Worst Contracts Ever?

I don't think the annual payments was on top of that total. I think they're considered deferred payments as part of that. Not saying he didn't do well, but it wasn't a ridiculous contract. Especially since he performed quite well on the field.

 

It definitely wasn't a worst contract ever. He was a Pro Bowler for a few years, but it was definitely a case where a creative contract got him a lot more money that he probably should have gotten.

 

I think the ABA might have been the first league to popularize this - It's described in Loose Balls by Terry Pluto, and I think they're called Doloff Plans, after their creator. Instead of giving them, saying, $500k a year for three years, they'd pay a base salary of around $100k or so, and the rest of the money (say, $1.2M) would be paid off in $20k installments X years into the future.

A lot of players didn't understand how their deals worked, and as a result, they didn't understand they wouldn't be getting the money right away. As a result, they'd sometimes hold out and demand to be paid more of the cash upfront. Some guys - I think Dan Issel was one of them - had especially long plans and are still collecting on them. Also, humorously, the NBA didn't realize what the ABA was doing at first, and thought they were actually paying these guys straight cash. This caused a rapid wage escalation for both leagues, as the ABA then had to try and match the NBA.

Speaking of league-wide bad contract decisions - How about the deal the NBA/ABA made with the Silnas brothers? That 1/7th of national TV revenue of four teams in 1976 wasn't much, but according to most reports, they got $300M over about 40 years. The NBA finally bought them out for a lump sum of $500M in 2014: Report: NBA finally reaches buyout deal with former ABA owners still getting TV revenues | ProBasketballTalk

 

When it comes to individual player contracts, I think the worst ones 1) seem like a horrible idea at the time and 2) then have the production to match. Chan Ho Park with the Rangers springs to mind. About $14M per year from the Rangers for four years. His lowest ERA with Texas was 5.46, so it might be a good thing his inning total high was about 155. He was an all-star the year before in L.A., which pretty much everyone attributed to being able to pitch there. (2.36 era at home, 4.86 away.)

 

The Silnas deal was the greatest deal of all time, for them.

As for the Doloff Plans, one other thing that Pluto pointed out was the deferred payments weren't worth as much because of inflation. Someone may be getting $1 million over 20 years in $50K installments, but by the end of 20 years, that $50K might have a value of half that.

 

Pluto isn't the first to point that out. At the time, the term often used by agents and GMs in talking about deferred payments was "present value." As in, I might be paying out, say, $6 million over 20 years, but because of expected inflation, that's only $2 million in present value (those are not actual numbers, just thrown out there to illustrate the point). Agents would try to maximize present value by either getting more of the money paid in the present or increasing the amount of the deferred payments without reducing the here and now money.

Fralic (encouraged by his father, as I recall), went the other route, opting to put more money down the road than in the present.

 

Good responses here, gang. I appreciate the feedback.
One thing about the Haynesworth contract- it came at a time when owners were deliberately trying to flatten the cap, pre-lockout.
They hitched their wagon to Fat Albert and McNabb, and it blew up in their face as things so often do.

 

The coach award is named in honor of Kirk Ferentz

 

I think that there's a rule that anytime anyone mentions Park, you also have to add Darren Dreifort.

 

Dodgers ineptitude of the era summed up in this, and one other awful transaction: Trading Piazza.

 

The $44 million is kind of modest, but the Bucks' contract with Larry Sanders was an especially bad one.

 

Players who don't perform because of injury, like Matt Harrison, shouldn't count as bad contracts because their salaries are insured. Injuries happen and are just bad luck.

Of course, backing up the Brinks truck for a player with an extensive injury history is a different animal.