Ranking the 5 worst St. Louis Cardinals contracts in recent history

There have been some horrible contracts given out by the Cardinals in recent years, but who were the five that caused fans the most pain?

It’s January, and the lockout that has no end in sight. Rob Manfred just got Ken Rosenthal fired due to recent criticism and doesn’t even have a meeting scheduled with the MLBPA to negotiate the end of the work stoppage. Naturally, this makes for a great time to reflect on some of our favorite topics around the St. Louis Cardinals.

Terrible Contracts.

Yup, everyone’s favorite topic. On the more optimistic side, it was actually difficult to find more than five really bad contracts over the last five year period of Cardinal baseball. Sure, there were some that had mix results (Matt Carpenter and Carlos Martinez for example), but even both of these guys counteracted their brutal endings with All-Start level performances earlier in their deals.

But unfortunately, there are some really, really terrible contracts that president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has handed out over the last few years. Every executive makes mistakes, but some of these looked brutal the day of their signing, and aged even worse.

Let’s dive into the five of the worst contracts that Cardinals management has handed out in recent years.