I was skimming baseball news recently, when I came across this article about how the Mets’ third baseman, and the Face of Major League Baseball™, David Wright has suffered some physical setbacks, and has been shut down for eight weeks, thus missing out on Opening Day and likely all of April.

For the record, David Wright has had a laundry list of physical ailments throughout the last few years, such as spinal cord stenosis, a hernia in his neck, rotator cuff surgery, and another undisclosed back injury.  Over the span of the last three seasons, Wright has played in a grand total of 75 games, with a big fat zero in 2017.  Needless to say, it’s been particularly challenging for Wright to stay healthy, and I can only imagine the frustration of a guy who makes his living playing baseball, being so physically incapable of actually playing it.

Here’s the thing though: baseball contracts are guaranteed, unlike in the NFL.  If your contract states you make X over Y number of years, you get exactly that much money, regardless of if you play or not.  David Wright signed an eight-year contract back in 2012 that dictated that between the years of 2013-2020, he would be paid $138 million dollars.

Considering the fact that he’s played in 15% of games over the last three years, you might be able to see why this is a problem for the Mets, and a legitimate question to whether or not his contract just might be the worst contract in baseball history.

Among baseball nerds, the debate is endless on who really is the worst contract in baseball history.  But for the sake of ease, and the fact that I dislike the Phillies, we’re just going to go with one of the more popular options, as the de facto current worst contract in MLB history: Ryan Howard’s five-year, $125 million dollar contract he signed with the Phillies in 2010.

How does David Wright’s current, and still active deal stack up to The Big Piece’s albatross that hamstrung the Phillies for five years?  Let us compare.

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