The Detroit Tigers have certainly made their fair share of questionable decisions for the better part of the last decade.
Even as recently as this offseason, the club gave $15 million contracts to Gleyber Torres and Alex Cobb, while there were still superstar names available who would have been much better additions.
The bad decisions did not stop the club from making the playoffs in 2024, though it did take one player on their roster sitting out the majority of the second half of the year to make it happen.
In a recent article for Bleacher Report, David Kenyon broke down the 10 worst contracts in all of sports, with that particular player being the only representative from MLB; Javier Baez.
“Javier Baez rose to prominence as a slick-fielding shortstop with the Chicago Cubs,” writes Kenyon, “playing a key role on the World Series-winning team in 2016 and finishing as the National League MVP runner-up in 2018. The problem is Baez has never seen a breaking ball he believed was untouchable. Pretty easy to strike out that way … Prior to the 2022 season, Baez inked a six-year, $140 million contract with the Detroit Tigers. Through the 2024 campaign, though, he’s trudged to a .221 average and .262 on-base percentage while striking out 114 times per season compared to just 21 walks … Baez is simply an expensive mistake.”
While he served as a defensive wizard during his time with the Chicago Cubs and provided the club with slightly above-average offense, the veteran has fallen well short of that during his time with the Tigers.
For the Cubs, Baez batted to a line of .262/.303/.474 with 140 home runs, 443 RBI, and a 102 OPS+ across 3,069 plate appearances in 815 games.
With Detroit, he has batted only .221/.262/.347 with 32 home runs, 163 RBI, and a 71 OPS+ across 1,426 plate appearances in 360 games.
It has gotten so bad, that the club has opted to let Baez ride the bench when healthy because his defense does not even make up for his horrendous showing on offense anymore.
It is an expensive mistake the Tigers have to live with, but the good news is it will only last for three more years.
