Fangraphs: Estimating the Cost of Undoing Mistakes.

[Aristotelian]

Have there been any high profile FA multi year deals where the player was worth the entire contract? Perhaps the Tejada deal we signed..? And MCab....

A-Rod's deal appears to be only a slight overpay. Pujols has a good chance to be worth his contract. Adrian Gonzalez is looking good so far. Posey has already almost been worth his contract, and Votto is not far behind. Those are going to turn out to be very good investments.

[NCRaven]

Another question that is difficult to put a dollar figure on is whether the player actually helped to achieve team goals like making it to and/or winning a World Series. If you win it all in year 3 of a seven year contract, does that make the overpay in the out years worth it?

[Frobby]

Have there been any high profile FA multi year deals where the player was worth the entire contract? Perhaps the Tejada deal we signed..? And MCab....

Here's a list I updated earlier this offseason of $100 mm+ contracts:

Good: ARod I ($252 mm, 71.4 WAR), Jeter ($189 mm, 41.2 WAR), Ramirez ($160 mm, 36.6 WAR), Cabrera I ($152 mm, 41.2 WAR with 1 year remaining), Holliday ($120 mm, 20.2 WAR with 2 years remaining), Beltran ($119 mm, 32.2 WAR), Helton ($142 mm, 32.9 WAR)

There are some others that could turn out OK, that are ongoing now. There are a lot of busts, however.

[Fan4Life]

Here's a list I updated earlier this offseason of $100 mm+ contracts:

There are some others that could turn out OK, that are ongoing now. There are a lot of busts, however.

Thanks! From that pool of data I wanted to speculate what the success rate is for these types of deals going back 15 years of so... it has to be less than 10% doesn't it?

[Frobby]

Thanks! From that pool of data I wanted to speculate what the success rate is for these types of deals going back 15 years of so... it has to be less than 10% doesn't it?

I don't think it's that bad. You can find a good discussion in this thread:

http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/150752-Boon-Busts-Large-Free-Agent-Contracts?highlight=boon

It depends on how one defines "bust," however. Remember, the available methodologies for determining what a free agent is "worth" are based on looking at what the larger group of all free agents got paid, and how much total WAR they produced, and coming up with an average $/WAR. Therefore, your are always "grading on a curve" when looking at individual players.