Overpaid Baseball Players
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=Baseball Notebook=
by Niteowl049
Baseball Players Who Should Have Worn Masks To Pick Up Their 2007 Season Paychecks
When making lists like these it is easy to miss someone that deserves to be on the list so readers are welcome to add other names to the list. The salaries were found at espn.com and baseball-reference.com.
Kris Benson: $7.1 million for not throwing a pitch in 2007
Randy Johnson: $9.1 million for a 4-3 record.
Mike Hampton: $15.4 million for not throwing a pitch in 2007 and also didn't pitch in 2006 and pitched only 69 innings in 2005.
J.D. Drew: $14.4 million for 11 home runs and 64 RBI's and 45 extra base hits.
Mark Prior: Salary unavailable but was overpaid for not pitching in 2007.
Jose Contreras: $9 million for 10-17 and 5.57 ERA.
Jake Westbrook: $6.1 million for 6-9 record and 4.32 ERA.
Dontrelle Willis: $6.4 million for 10-15 record and 5.17 ERA. A unique stat for Willis is that he allowed righthanded hitters to hit .320 against him and hit 29 home runs against him while lefthanded hitters hit .123 against him and hit no home runs against him. He could have used a designated pitcher to pitch to righthanders for him.
Woody Williams: $6 million for 8-15 record and 5.27 ERA.
Gil Meche: $7.4 million for 9-13 record and 3.67 ERA.
Jon Garland: $10 million for 10-13 record and 4.23 ERA.
Bartolo Colon: $16 million for 6-8 record and 6.34 ERA.
Jason Schmidt: $15.7 million for 1-4 record and 6.31 ERA.
Esteban Loaiza: $7.5 million for 2-4 record and 5.79 ERA
Jason Kendall: $13.4 million for 3 HR's, 41 RBI's, .242 batting average and 24 base hits. He is known for his game managing skills but he was still overpaid in 2007.
Ben Sheets: $11.1 million for 12-5 record and 3.82 ERA which is not bad but he still is yet to win more than 12 games in a season and in the last three months of the 2007 season was only 2-2 and pitched in only seven games for a total of 31 innings. If Sheets had been healthy the Brewers would almost certainly have been in playoffs instead of Cubs.
Jeff Suppan: $6.2 million for 12-12 record and 4.62 ERA.
Carlos Delgado: $14.5 million for 24 HR's, 87 RBI's and .258 average.
Pedro Martinez: $14 million for 3-1 record and 2.57. Those three wins cost over $4 million each.
Jason Giambi: $23.4 million for 14 HR's, 39 RBI's and .236 batting average and only 22 extra base hits. Giambi was by far the most overpaid position player with his huge salary. Giambi will be 37 in January and has 364 lifetime home runs. In the last two seasons he has made over $43.8 million.
Mike Mussina: $11 million for 11-10 record and 5.15 ERA. Mussina was no bargain for the Yankees costing them $1 million a win. Mussina will be 39 next week and is not likely to win 300 games since he has 250 now.
Carl Pavano: $10 million for pitching 11 innings in 2007. In three years with Yankees he has a 5-6 record and didn't throw a pitch in 2005 so has only thrown 11 innings in the last two years. This will go down as one of the worst free agent signings ever. Pavano's five wins have cost the Yankees $27 million or over $5 million a win.
Eric Chavez: $9.5 million for playing in only 90 games with 15 HR's, 46 RBI's and .240 batting average. Chavez didn't play after July 26th. Chavez has had three surgeries the last I read this offseason so hopefully he will be ready to play in 2008.
Mark Kotsay: $8 million for playing in 56 games with 1 HR, 20 RBI's and .214 batting average.
Adam Eaton: $7.2 million for 10-10 record and 6.29 ERA. After the All Star game he was 2-5 with a 7.38 ERA and gave up 13 home runs in only 57 innings and hitters hit .343 against him. So he was more or less useless in the second half of the season.
Matt Morris: $10 million for 10-11 record and 4.89 ERA.
Brian Giles: $9.6 million for 13 HR's, 51 RBI's and .271 batting average.
Barry Zito: $10 million for 11-13 record and 4.53 ERA. In a surprising stat hitters only hit .244 against Zito which was 13 points lower than the .257 hitters hit against him in 2006 when he won 16 games with Oakland.
Richie Sexson: $15.5 million for 21 HR's, 63 RBI's and a .205 batting average. Sexson missed 41 games in 2007 but even when he was healthy he didn't come close to earning his salary. His .399 slugging percentage was the first time he didn't have a .500 plus slugging percentage since 2000.
Scott Rolen: $12.3 million for 8 HR's, 58 RBI's and .265 batting average and played in only 112 games. He only hit a home run every 49 times at bat in 2007.
Jim Edmonds: $9.5 million for 12 HR's, 53 RBI's and .252 batting average in 117 games. So Edmonds and Rolen combined to miss 95 games last season.
Chris Carpenter: $8 million for pitching 6 innings in 2007.
Tampa Bay had no overpaid players but did have a player that wasn't paid close to what he was worth in Carlos Pena who made $800,000 for 46 HR's, 121 RBI's and .282 batting average, slugged .627 and hit a home run every 10.7 at bats.
Kevin Millwood: $9.8 million for 10-14 record and 5.16 ERA.
Vicente Padilla: $9 million for 6-10 record and 5.76 ERA.
A.J. Burnett: $13.2 million for 10-8 record and 3.75 ERA.
Troy Glaus: $11.5 million for 20 HR's, 62 RBI's and .262 batting average. Glaus only played in 115 games in 2007.
B.J. Ryan: $7 million for pitching 4 innings.
Team Payrolls
The Boston Red Sox were only team of the top 22 teams in payroll that made it to their league championship series. The Indians were 23rd on the list with a payroll of $61 milllion. Rockies were 25th with a $54 million payroll. Diamondbacks were 26th in payrolls with a $52 million payroll.
Five of the last place teams in majors in 2007 were ranked 21st and lower in team payrolls. The Texas Rangers were 21st with $68 million payroll, the Kansas City Royals were 22nd with $67 million payroll, the Pittsburgh Pirates were 27th with $38 million payroll, the Florida Marlins were 29th with 30 million payroll and Rays were 30th with $24 million payroll. Jason Giambi made only $1 million less than the entire Rays' team payroll.
The other last place team the Giants were 11th on team payroll list with payroll of $90 million but about $15 million of that went to Barry Bonds. White Sox and Orioles were the only teams in top 10 teams in payroll to post losing records. Indians, Padres, Rockies and Diamondbacks were all in the bottom ten teams in payroll yet posted winning records.
White Sox got the least return for their money having spent $109 million to finish next to last in the AL Central. The Rockies parlayed their $54 million payroll into a World Series appearance so got the most return for their 25th ranked payroll.
The Red Sox spent a lot of money on their payroll but they won the World Series so it was worth every penny.
