The 15 Most Overpaid Players In The MLB


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Athletes sign million dollar contracts every year and some are so grossly over compensated that it defies logic. Here are few players who are a good example of that:

Adam Dunn, a slugger who's best years are behind him will earn $12 million this season from the White Sox.

Barry Zito, a former marquee starter with Oakland who turned his success there to a seven-year, $126 million contract that proved to be a terrible investment for the Giants.

Signing a big-time free agent to a team is really a crapshoot. Most players don't get a crack at free agency until they are around thirty-years-old. Every now and then, a team signs a guy that performs at a high level well into his 30s. However, more often than not, the player starts his inevitable fall from grace and the team gets saddled.

We've identified the fifteen most overpaid baseball players for the first half of the 2011 baseball season. We divided half of their yearly salaries by their VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). VORP measures how much a player contributes to their team. An average player's VORP half a season of baseball is around 10. The league leader in VORP this season is Toronto's Jose Bautista with 60.1

#15 Ryan Howard

2011 Salary: $20,000,000

Value Over Replacement (VORP): 16.1

Statline: .257 BA, 18 HR, 72 RBI, .353 OBP, .828 OPS

Ryan Howard has been paid $621,118 for every point of VORP he's earned so far this season.

Numbers do not lie. Howard currently leads the National League in RBIs, but he hasn't hit a respectable batting average in two full seasons, his VORP is pretty much average, his on-base percentage is very low for someone with so much power, and he's never been a good fielder. Despite all that, Howard is the property of the Phillies until 2016, and they owe him $135 million dollars over that time.

#14 Jayson Werth

2011 Salary: $10,571,429

VORP: 7.9

Statline: .215 BA, 10 HR, 31 RBI, .319 OBP, .681 OPS

Jayson Werth has been paid $669,077 for each point of VORP he's earned so far this season.

When the Nationals signed Jayson Werth (who has never had a season with more than 100 RBI) to a seven-year, $126 million contract, practically everyone with knowledge of the situation stopped whatever it was they were working on and went outside to reflect on their life choices.

#13 Derek Jeter

2011 Salary: $14,729,365

VORP: 9.8

Statline: .270 BA, 3 HR, 24 RBI, .330 OBP, .683 OPS

Derek Jeter has been paid $751,498 for every point of VORP he's earned so far this season.

Here's a necessary reminder: Jeter doesn't go 5-for-5 with a home run every single day. The Yankee's captain makes this much money because of what he means to the team and what he has done in the past, not the present.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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