The $125 Million Man?

The Phillies agreed to terms on a new contract with slugging first baseman Ryan Howard today. Philadelphia will pay Howard $125 million over the next 5 years - a staggering $25 million per year.

For average annual value, Howard's contract ranks third on the all-time list behind Alex Rodriguez (2008-2017 at $27.5MM) and ... Alex Rodriguez (2001-2007 at $25.2MM). The next guys on the list, Joe Mauer and C.C. Sabathia are positively paupers at $23MM annually.

What's even more remarkable about the deal is that it doesn't even take effect until 2012, which means the Phils had 2 more years to wait. Over the life of this contract Ryan Howard will go from a 32-year-old in his prime to a 37-year-old with one foot in the grave. They couldn't have held out to see if Howard would keep up his high-level performance over that time? Or even just wait and see if he blows out a knee on one of his gale-force strikeouts?

And believe me, this is a guy who knows something about strikeouts. In 2006, he was second only to Adam Dunn with 181 Ks. In 2007, Howard led all of Major League Baseball with 199 whiffs. Over 2008 and 2009, Mark Reynolds' back-to-back record-breaking strikeout campaigns relegated Ryan Howard to second place status again. Still, with 765 strikeouts over the past 4 years, I think we can all agree that Howard has something of a knack for the ole swing-and-miss.

He also knows a thing or two about home runs. He has hit 198 of them over that same 4-year span. During that time, he also averaged over 100 runs scored and over 140 RBIs.

No one can deny that he is a monster at the plate - whether he is clearing the bases with a rainmaking homer or clearing the dirt off the plate with a turbine-force wind. I'm sure when they ran the cost-benefit analysis on this deal, the Phillies were a little more focused on the $500,000 per home run than they were the $130,000 per strikeout.

A quick tour around the baseball interwebs reveals some similar sentiments:

• Fan Graphs think we should, "Say hello to the new worst contract in baseball."
• Duk at Yahoo! Sports thinks, "The Phillies would have been much better off waiting."
• Ken Rosenthal at Fox Sports believes the Phillies, "Bid against themselves."
• Keith Law of ESPN (sorry, ESPN Insiders only) says this deal is "one of the worst extensions of its kind - it's an overpay of both years and dollars."

So, congratulations, Philadelphia! In just a few years' time, you will have a whole new reason to throw up at the old ballgame.