ATH $20M Club

ATH Player Rankings

I recently came across an article published by MLB.com that details a methodology that they used to rank the best free agent deals in history, and looking at their results I think it would be a good way to look at a variety of groups in HBD such as $20 Million IFA's, Top 10 Draft Picks and Max Contract Free Agents. The methodology is as follows:

  • Baseline score is WAR per Year (so a player that had 9 WAR in 3 years would have a baseline score of 3.0)

  • 1 point per season with 4+ WAR

  • 2 points per MVP Award

  • 2 points per Cy Young Award

  • 2 points per World Series Ring

  • 1 point per World Series loss

  • Bonus points are awarded to players who were traded and the return included players who continued to contribute or who left as Free Agents and netted their team Compensation Picks.

  • Only years that the player was on the signing/drafting team counted, with the exception of the bonus points

Using this scoring method, I have taken a look at all of the $20M+ signing bonuses given out in Around The Horn history so far to see which of the fifteen such contracts from the first ten seasons was the most effective.