The Chicago Cubs are searching for ways to get back into World Series contention.
Since they won the title in 2016, they have progressively gotten further and further away from that point, losing in the NLCS the year after, being eliminated in the Wild Card round after that, and not making the playoffs in a full season since.
It’s been frustrating for Cubs fans.
When the organization decided to pull the plug on the championship core by trading those players away, the hope was they would get enough young prospects back who would develop into Major Leaguers at the same time so they could repeat what happened in the past.
While that’s seemingly happening right now, the refusal by ownership to spend money has caused this team to miss the playoffs the past four years in a row.
Some in the fan base might have even preferred for Chicago to hold onto the World Series heroes for a bit longer despite the clear struggles that were starting to take place from a few of them.
Fast forwarding to now, there are two players from that Cubs roster, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez, who Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report lists as having the worst contracts in Major League Baseball, something this franchise is likely very happy they avoided.
On Reuter’s list of 10, Bryant comes in at No. 2.
“Bryant ultimately signed a seven-year, $182 million deal with the Colorado Rockies, who were seemingly bidding against themselves at that asking price and were by no means one splashy signing away from being contenders. That contract now looks like a legitimate contender to go down as the least productive $100 million deal ever handed out, as injuries have limited him to 159 games and minus-1.3 WAR over his first three years in Colorado,” he writes.
It’s an unfortunate reality to what started out as one of the greatest careers of all time with an NL Rookie of the Year and NL MVP award won in back-to-back years while also helping this storied franchise break their World Series drought.
But, with $108 million left over four years for a player who has slashed .250/.332/.381 and produced an OPS+ of 89 while missing 327 out of the 486 possible games, that contract has been a disaster.
Baez wasn’t too far off on Reuter’s list, though.
The slugging shortstop comes in at No. 3 after he has had similar issues since he left Chicago.
“… he signed a six-year, $140 million contract with the Detroit Tigers in free agency and was expected to be a cornerstone of their rebuilding efforts. Instead, the 31-year-old has hit an unsightly .221/.262/.347 for a 71 OPS+ in 1,426 plate appearances over the first three years of that deal, and his already diminished production cratered in 2024 when he hit .184 with a 46 OPS+ in 289 plate appearances before undergoing season-ending hip surgery,” he wrote.
It’s been bad for Baez as well, and likely the only reason he isn’t higher on the list than Bryant is because he has actually been on the field.
The Cubs are looking for ways to achieve the same level of success they had when these two players were key parts of their roster, but they certainly are happy they aren’t the ones paying this money and getting these results.
