Mo's recent rants about Giambi raises an interesting question: In each sport, what is the worst free agent signing of all time?
It's a little early in the morning for me to be particularly brilliant, but here's my stab at it:
NBA: Penny Hardaway to Phoenix. This narrowly beats out Grant Hill to Orlando, if only because we saw hints of a Hill resurgence this season. Penny was so critically important to the Magic's meteoric rise in the mid-90s; his move to the desert was so hyped - and then THUD! Today, we remember Li'l Penny better than we do his real-life, larger counterpart.
MLB: I'm going to go with a more obscure one - Jeffrey Hammonds to the Brewers in 2001. Perhaps the quintessential bad signing by a low-market team without margin for error. After Hammonds hit .335 with 20 homers and 106 rbi in only 454 at-bats in 2000, Milwaukee rewarded him with a three-year, $21.75 million deal - hardly chump change for a team that was just moving into its new ballpark and had not yet found the extra cash lying around to spend as freely as some of its rivals. What someone failed to tell the Brewers' brass is that Hammonds collected those stats while playing in Colorado. Sure enough, he only mustered a .247 average in 2001 in only 174 ABs, and .257 in 448 ABs in 2002. He never hit more than 9 homers in Milwaukee before being cut early in the 2003 campaign. A complete waste of money and energy for a team that could afford to waste neither.
NFL: I'm coming up with blanks. Any suggestions?
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11 comments:
Hart, I would say that Kevin Mitchell and Mo Vaughn come to mind with extreme flops.
NFL - Scott Mitchell, Detroit Lions. The Lions signed Mitchell to a monster contract after he played 6 solid games for the Dolphins. Talk about a disaster! Of course, WR Andre Rison on the Browns in 1995 (the last year before Baltimore) was also pretty horrific. Rison went from a top-flight wideout to a whiny, loud-mouthed backup in just one season. At least he won a super bowl as a backup with Green Bay the next year.
Oh and of course all of the draft choices for the Cincinnati Bengals from 1993-present. Talk about horrible scouting abilities.
Here's my choice for worst free agent signing in each sport other than MLB where, in my opinion, Giambi takes the cake:
NFL: Tie between Larry Brown, Raiders and Neil O'Donnell, Jets. These guys are inexorably linked by Super Bowl XXX where Neil O'Donnell, in a career year, led the Steelers to the title game against the Dallas Cowboys. In that title game, O'Donnell tossed 3 INT's, 2 of them to Larry Brown, allowing him to become SBXXX MVP. The Raiders quickly signed Brown and saw him suck shit and the Jets, willing to look past a shoddy Super Bowl and instead focus on 17 TDs and a 60% completion rate, gave O'Donnell tons of money to become the franchise QB. The Jets went 1-15 that same season and 10-22 during O'Donnell's 2 year stay in NY.
NHL: Jaromir Jagr, Washington Capitals. The Caps signed Jagr to a MONSTROUS contract, figuring that Jagr was the missing piece. Instead, the Caps lost 6 more games than the previous season, got bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs and saw their star, the highest paid player in the sport, drop from 121 points as a member of the Penguins in 2000 to 79 in his first season in DC. Jagr is one of the biggest reasons why the NHL went on strike. I guess we should all thank Jaromir!
NBA: Shawn Kemp, Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs traded for Kemp and then signed him to a 4 year, $71M deal that not only killed the team's cap room but kept a player that had more kids than drug arrests (and that's saying something!). Shocking that the Clevelanders on this blog didn't bring this guy up.
NBA Honorable Mention: The Sonics, for signing Jim McIlvane which led to Shawn Kemp getting so jealous that he forced his way out in a trade to Cleveland. The rest is history...
I'll add Jason Kendall for Pittsburgh, Cleveland Indians signing Ricky Guetteriz, and Chan Ho Park for the Rangers.
For basketball the biggest aquisition failure of all time I say is Danny Ferry with the Cavs.
For football (not the biggest) but at least one that stands out in recent memory is Peerless Price to the Falcons.
Goldberg, I like the Scott Mitchell call. Mo, Larry Brown is also a prime candidate in the NFL category. So far, those are the leaders, I think.
Keep in mind, I'm asking about bad free agent signings - so Bengals' drafts don't count.
Also like the Jim McIlvaine and Shawn Kemp suggestions. Chan Ho Park as well - man, does he suck!
Keep 'em coming...
Again, Giambi's still my vote but I've got to add Vincent "Van Go" Coleman to the list. He was signed to a 4 year contract by the Mets in late 1990 and got a big raise so he could become the focal point of "Buddy (Harrelson) Ball" which was predicated on speed and defense.
Unfortunately, people forgot to mention to Vince that he needed to bring his speed to Shea. Average triples dropped from 9/season as a Cardinal to 4/season as a Met. Stolen bases dropped from 92/season as a Cardinal to 33/season as a Met. Worse yet, games played dropped from 146/season to only 78/season. To top it off, he shot firecrackers into the face of a toddler in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, was part of the chlorine bleach water-gun fiasco along with Bret Saberhagen and got into numerous fights with reporters when they wrote that he looked fat and slow.
My pal in Chicago, Stanny Jake, brought up another good one -- Albert "Joey" Belle. Since he's one of my least favorite players of all time, I'll just call him Hannah Storm for the rest of this posting.
Hannah Storm signed a 5yr/$70M deal with the Baltimore Orioles. Back then, the O's didn't suck, so everyone figured that a guy that averaged 42 homers/season for the last 6 seasons would surely be the greatest signing ever. For the first 2 years of that deal, Storm wasn't half bad, averaging 30-100. The bottom dropped when Hannah Storm's hip started acting up and "she" never wore a uniform again. Instead, "she" collected $37.4M in salary over 3 seasons while painting her nails and shoving dildos up her behind. Ok, I made that last part up but I'm still pissed at Joey Belle for running over little Fernando Vina back in 1997.
Can we start playing this game with worst trades ever? I need to find a way to bash Kevin Brown a little bit. Kevin Brown's performance in last years ALCS alone warrants "worst trade" consideration. Kevin is a 40 year old, no heart, piece of crap. I won't use hindsight and say that Jeff Weaver turned out to be not so bad, because he probably would've kept sucking in New York. But Yhency Brazoban looks pretty good right now as an 8th inning setup man to Rivera. All in all, we acquired a big chunk of salary, an old pitcher, and a key contributor to the biggest flop in sports history. Nice trade Cashman.
As for worst free agent signing, I'll have to throw in Derek Bell to the Pirates. The reason is similar to the main post on Jeffrey Hammonds, so there isn't much to add.
Bloody Gamebreak, your wish is my command...
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