Every year agents like Scott Boras sucker Major League Baseball owners
and general managers into overpaying for talent. For all the free agents
that hit the market, most usually do not live up to the deals they
sign. The new breed of thieves consists of Boston Red Sox pitcher John
Lackey, New York Met outfielder Jason Bay, and Washington National
outfielder Jayson Werth. All three fed off of helping their prior teams
to reach the playoffs before hitting the open market.
Lackey signed a 5-year $82.5 million deal with The Red Sox after the
2009 season. Lackey was brought in to give The BoSox that one-two punch
at the top of the rotation with fellow Texan Josh Beckett. Instead of
leading the league in strikeouts or wins, Lackey is only leading in the
category of getting flipped the bird by fans at Fenway Park. The only
thing higher than Lackey’s earned run average of 7.36 is Charlie Sheen.
Lackey’s ERA continues to increase at a rapid pace just like our
national debt.
Lackey never wowed anyone while he pitched for The Anaheim Angels.
Lackey has always appeared as one of those pitchers who was on the
pinnacle of greatness only to shy away from it. In spite of Lackey’s
ineptness, The Red Sox are in the thick of things in The American League
East heading into The All-Star break.
For Jason Bay he has gotten a rude awakening as to how fans in The Big
Apple will treat you when you are not producing. Bay helped The Red Sox
make The American League Championship Series in 2008. Following 2009,
Bay abruptly left and signed a 4-year $66 million deal with The Mets. In
2009 Bay hit 36 homers for The Red Sox. So far for The Mets Bay doesn’t
have a third of that production thorugh one and a half seasons for The
Mets. Citi Field isn’t a park that caters to home run hitters, but Bay’s
drop-off in production is surprising. Bay has the look of a man that
has simply lost his confidence. Bay has always been a guy that could
produce 30 home runs to go along with 100 runs batted in and 20 doubles.
Now Bay seems to be lost at the plate. It seems so astonishing because
the drop in production has been so steep. Bay hasn’t been able to get
his batting average above .250 all season and he is missing room service
fastballs right down the plate. Prior to coming to New York, Bay had
the ability to hit to all fields and now he is trying to pull the ball
too much. Even with burners Jose Reyes and Angel Pagan getting on base,
Bay hasn’t been able to get it done. Bay’s contract has only hindered
The Mets who are cash strapped due to majority owner Fred Wilpon’s
dealings with ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. The Mets would love to dump
Bay, but no team will take that contract for another two seasons. The
one thing Bay has done is add fuel to the fire of “buyer beware” when it
comes to putting up the bread for free agents.
The Washington Nationals gave Jayson Werth 162 million reasons to come
to The Nation’s Capitol. For giving Werth this deal The Nationals have
nobody to blame but themselves. I don’t know what Nationals general
manager Mike Rizzo saw in Werth during his time with The Philadelphia
Phillies, but Werth can’t live up to this contract. Werth mostly batted
sixth while in Philly and had the protection of Ryan Howard and Chase
Utley. In D.C. Werth is looked at as the guy. Werth has never been a
clean-up guy during his career and he started the season off in that
position. Former Nationals manager Jim Riggleman moved Werth to the
lead-off position and Werth has still struggled with his batting average
matching his weight of 220 for most of the season.
While with The Phillies, Werth had the luxury of playing in Citizens
Bank Park which is hitter friendly. Before becoming a household name
Werth was a first round pick of The Baltimore Orioles in 1997. Werth
never latched on with Baltimore and bounced around with The Toronto Blue
Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers before finding a home in Philadelphia.
Werth is 32 in year one of this deal and will staring 40 in the face
once this deal is done. The Nationals were turned down in 2009 by free
agents Mark Teixeira and Manny Ramirez and felt that they needed to make
a splash. The only splash Rizzo made with this deal was inflating the
market and handcuffing his team with a bad deal going forward. For his
deal Werth should be putting up numbers like Miguel Cabrera of The
Detroit Tigers who has made himself a perrenial triple crown candidate.
At this point of the season Werth’s number resemble former Met Butch
Huskey.
Going forward the only team that can recover from their bad deal is The
Red Sox. The Sox constantly sell out at Fenway and have one of the most
loyal fan bases in all of sports. With a general manager in Theo Epstein
who knows how to develop talent and blend it with veterans, they will
be alright. As previously stated, we don’t know what the outcome will be
with The Mets due to the cloud that is Bernie Madoff, even though
Wilpon took on a partner in David Einhorn. Bay is scheduled to make $16
million next season and that number seems larger when the player isn’t
performing. The Nats maybe will look to add another big contract, but
they have to be wary after opening up the vault for Werth. The Nationals
are in the process of building the farm system with players such as
phenom Bryce Harper. For now they should jut be patient and develop
Harper to go along with current big leaguers Ryan Zimmerman and Michael
Morse.
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