Mets: Top five worst contracts in New York Mets history

What is the worst contract in New York Mets history? We take a look at five of the worst.

The New York Mets have a very tragic track record signing players that were really great (or supposed to be really great), to insane contracts, only to have them vastly underperform.

While it is hard to gauge what is really considered a bad contract, the Mets are notorious for signing big-name players who just never live up to the hype that was created around them, as well as long-forgotten players that no one really understood why they were being paid that much.

Anyone who has taken the Long Island Railroad on July 1st to a Mets game understands the spectacle that fans have made into a franchise “holiday”. We’ll get to that not-so-special day in a bit. In the meantime, let’s take a look at some of the worst contracts in Mets history including that infamous one every seems to know about.

5) Worst Mets Contracts – Guillermo Mota (2007, two years, $5 million)

It doesn’t seem terrible at first glance especially considering that Guillermo Mota had just pitched to a 1.00 ERA over 18 innings after coming to the Mets from the Cleveland Indians with a 1-3 record and 6.21 ERA. A two-year deal worth $5 million for someone with those numbers sounds reasonable, especially more than a decade later.

Unfortunately, the Mets put the offer on the table after Mota received a 50 game suspension for PEDs. While it does explain the pitcher’s complete 180-degree change in performance, it was rather ignorant of Omar Minaya to encourage the deal.

Going into 2007 Mota was 2-2 with a 5.76 ERA. He is hated by most Mets fans across the board and rightfully so. The only good thing about it is we didn’t have to see him play every day or for very many years.

Mota is one of those relievers every Mets fan remembers and enjoys forgetting about.

4) Worst Mets Contracts – Kazuo Matsui (2004, two years, $20.1 million)

The Mets were so desperate to take part in the Japanese League signings that they moved Jose Reyes to second base just to make room for Kazuo Matsui. Can you believe that? The greatest shortstop in franchise history had to move positions for this guy. It turned out to be a tragic error in judgment they were fortunate enough to escape from without too many scars.

Matsui proceeded to hit a whopping 11 home runs over two-plus seasons and had 23 errors at shortstop over 110 games in 2004. This equals out to a .956 fielding percentage. According to Fangraphs, he was worth less than 1/5th of the contract that he was paid in the two years.

Amazingly, Matsui does hold some odd distinctions when it comes to the long ball. He hit a home run in his first at-bat with the Mets. He continued to go yard in the first at-bat in each of his three seasons spent in New York.

As a guy without much home run prowess, it’s quite remarkable timing. Sadly, things often went downhill following his first trip to the plate each season.

Matsui managed to slash .256/.308/.363 in his 943 plate appearances as a member of the Mets. It’s not as terrible as some other players. What makes it so horrendous is the amount of money they spent on him while hoping to find the next Ichiro Suzuki.

Matsui was anything but Ichiro-like. He was traded to the Colorado Rockies early on in 2006 and continued on to have an okay yet unremarkable MLB career.

3) Worst Mets Contracts – Oliver Perez (2009, three years, $36 million)

Mets fans despise Oliver Perez, for good reason. Even now there is the 1% who will still say the contract wasn’t bad because we got him for a good deal compared to overpaying for Derek Lowe like the Atlanta Braves ended up doing. I will admit, at the time, the deal made sense and wasn’t the worst on the table considering how much other starting pitchers were asking for.

Sadly, yet again, the Wilpons were plagued by their frugality. While he was great against the lefty batters, he was terrible against pretty much everyone else considering that he finished his time with the Mets with a 4.72 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, and a 29-29 record.

The Mets were so desperate to get rid of Perez that they dissolved the rest of the contract in 2011 eating the last $12 million they owed him.

Perez was especially tough to watch in 2009 and 2010. During this post-collapsing era of Mets baseball, Perez was one of those frustrating players up there with Luis Castillo breaking our hearts. He made 14 starts in 2009 and gave the club a 3-4 record with a 6.82 ERA. The following year, in 7 starts and another 10 relief appearances, Ollie was 0-5 with a 6.80 ERA.

A loss of control is what really did Perez in. He walked 7.9 batters per nine in 2009 and 8.2 per nine in 2010. The free passes added up and eventually, the Mets couldn’t take it anymore.

Surprisingly, Perez has reinvented himself as a relief pitcher since his days with the Mets. He enjoyed success with several ball clubs from 2012-2019 working mostly as a left-handed specialist out of the bullpen. With the three-batter minimum now in place though, his ability to retire lefties isn’t nearly as valuable moving forward.

1) Worst Mets Contracts – Bobby Bonilla (1991, five years, $29 million)

You all knew this was coming, yet here you are anyways. At first, Bonilla’s stats were not his biggest issue. He wasn’t great, he also wasn’t terrible, but definitely was not worth that much money.

Most of his issues being off the field, having complained about a charged error, as well as threatening journalists, etc. Even with saying this his first contract with the Mets was atrocious, making the second straight-up inept.

When Bonilla was re-signed in 1999 fans weren’t thrilled, to say the least. He went on to hit a .160 batting average in 1999 while causing issue after issue being a grossly overpaid bench warmer. Leading up to the infamous card game with Rickey Henderson during the 1999 NLCS both Mets fans and personnel were fed up, to say the least.

This led the Mets to cut their losses on the field and decided to waive his salary paying him about $1.1 million a year until 2035 giving us Mets fans another 15 years to celebrate Bobby Bonilla Day.

While I am painfully aware that there are many, many more awful contracts the New York Mets have signed, I tried to keep it limited to contracts that were predictably bad.

This team has been plagued with unpredictability in terms of injuries and players that came to the team great and never lived up to the hype despite their previous performance. Now all I’m hoping for is Yoenis Cespedes to maybe become a little less likely to make this list when his contract ends in 2021.

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Which bad Mets contract haunts you the most?