Bad Contracts That The Seattle Mariners Fortunately Avoided

Bad contracts are prevalent in every sport. But with salary caps in the NFL and NBA, as well as the lack of guaranteed money and the ability to just cut players in the NFL, it seems that Major League Baseball has more than their fair share of these ridiculous contracts.

Over at Grantland.com, Jonah Keri examines the 10 worst contracts in play for the 2015 season. Mariners fans will be happy to know that none of the current roster appears on this list.

However, there are several players that either the Mariners were engaged in trying to lure to Seattle at one point, or Mariners fans were chomping at the bit to have the M’s go out and acquire.

Let’s take a look at those players and all take a minute to enjoy the fact that we dodged these bullets.

No. 8: Josh Hamilton

After the 2012 season, the Seattle Mariners were in heavy pursuit of slugger Josh Hamilton. He signed a 6-year $83M deal with the Los Angeles Angels (South of Fullerton) and has had some injury problems.

Not only did he miss 73 games in 2014, he may now not be ready for Opening Day after having surgery Feb. 4 on a joint in his right shoulder.

Who’s to say if he would have had the same problems had he come to Seattle, but I’m glad the M’s missed out on him.

No. 5 and No. 4: Prince Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo

After the 2011 season, the Mariners took a long look at Prince Fielder before he eventually signed with the Detroit Tigers. After two seasons, Fielder was traded to Texas, so there is another “bad contract” in the American League West.

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If he is in fact healthy and ends up producing this year, he could be off this list next year. But for now, he’s another close call the Mariners got the better end of.

On the same team is Choo. The former Mariner, many fans wanted the team to bring him back to Seattle after the 2013 season. The Mariners didn’t really seem all that interested.

At 6-years and $116 million, you expect better than a slash of .242/.340/.374. But he missed 39 games in 2014 and hurt his ankle in April, so maybe he played hurt most of the year. Maybe not.

Whatever the reason the Mariners didn’t pursue him, they were right.

No. 1: Alex Rodriguez

Everyone’s poster child for what’s wrong with baseball. The man Seattle fans love to hate, even to this day. The Mariners dodged a HUGE bullet back in 2000 when he signed a 10-year $252M contract with the Texas Rangers.

Of course, we all know what happened next. His current contract has him being paid for another three seasons (age 39, 40 & 41) and for another $64M – and he hasn’t played a game in over a year and a half.

I wrote an April Fool’s joke post last year saying that Alex was being traded back to Seattle. Then, there were rumors this past year that he actually wanted to come back. I think he just wants out of New York.

If any of that is actually true, Jack Zduriencik did the smart thing in saying no.

In all, out of the Top-10 (seriously give it a look) there are five players that reside with AL West teams and there are seven that have either played in Seattle, were rumored to be potential trade options for Seattle, or were actually being pursued at some point.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but in these cases, perhaps the foresight wasn’t too bad either.