Angels five worst signings of the past decade

Every Angels fan knows the team has made some bad signings over the past decade, but which ones are the worst?

Before we get into which Angels signings have been the worst over the past ten years, let’s baseline this conversation by being thankful Angels ownership spends money at all. There are some teams, in Pittsburgh, or Miami, to name a few, where payroll is a scarce commodity. There aren’t as many bad contracts on those respective owners’ ledgers because they’re unwilling to invest in their teams.

The Angels have ranked in the top six or seven, if not higher, in team payroll over the past decade. They might not always spend that money wisely, which is the reason we are writing this piece, but from Disney to Art Moreno, ownership has been committed to spending money.

Now, let’s get back to the point at hand, and talk about where that money has gone. Over the past ten years, the Angels have made several signings that have made fans scratch their heads when the deals were completed and scream at their television sets watching the frustrating returns.

Without further ado, here are the five worst signings since 2010:

5) Justin Upton

5-years, $106 million

We start with a verdict that isn’t complete. After acquiring Justin Upton in a late season trade in 2017, the Angels signed the veteran outfielder to a five-year, $106 million contract a few months later. The four-time All Star still has three years remaining on his deal, so it’s possible he could remove his name off lists like this one in the future, but the early results are not promising.

Before signing a new contract with the Angels, Upton was considering opting out of his existing pact that had four years, $88.5 million remaining on it. Instead, he negotiated new terms with the Halos which also earned him a full no-trade clause.

The four-time All Star played mostly as expected during the first year of his deal in 2018, suiting up for 145 games and hitting 30 home runs. But a knee injury slowed him down considerably the following season in which he played in only 63 games and batted a career-worst .215 with only 12 long balls.

Upton will need to bounce back in a big way to justify the hefty price tag on his contract.

4) Zack Cozart

3-years, $38 million

When general manager Billy Eppler decided to sign shortstop Zack Cozart to a three-year, $38 million contract in 2017, he didn’t really have a position for him. The Angels already employed the best defensive shortstop in the game in Andrelton Simmons, and as they negotiated the final terms to sign Cozart, Eppler traded for veteran Ian Kinsler. Cozart would eventually move to third base, a position he had never played before in the majors.

Cozart lasted two months into the 2018 season before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury. He played only 58 games in his debut season with the Halos, batting an anemic .219 with an even worse .296 on-base percentage.

The 34-year-old infielder returned to the Angels lineup in 2019, but once again, suffered an early season injury to his shoulder that forced him to miss the remainder of the season. His production at the plate was even worse than the season before, as he failed to reach the Mendoza Line, swinging to a .124/.178/.144 slash line that would make some hitting pitchers look bad.

Cozart’s tenure with the Angels ended this past offseason when he was traded along with Will Wilson to the Giants. He was released one month later.

2) Albert Pujols

10-years, $254 million

The contract that keeps giving. Albert Pujols, a three-time MVP, considered the best player in all of baseball before Mike Trout took over the crown, signed a 10-year, $254 million contract with the Angels in 2011 that was the second highest in baseball history at the time (to Alex Rodriguez 10-year, $275 million).

The signing coincided with the Angels agreeing to pay starter CJ Wilson five-years, $77.5 million in an offseason that broke the bank, but failed to produce a playoff team.

Pujols, 32-years-old at the time of the signing, was coming off his worst season in the majors, although still a pretty impressive one by most players standards. In 2011, he hit 37 home runs, while batting .299/.366/.541. Since breaking into the big leagues in 2001, the future Hall-of-Famer put up an impressive run of consistency that led to ten All-Star appearances, six Silver Slugger awards, two Gold Gloves, and two World Series championship.s

Pujols deserved to be paid a King’s ransom, but the problem for the Angels is that they were left paying for the value he produced in St. Louis. There was no reasonable way to expect he could continue the same production on the back-end of his career, which has proven true in the eight seasons since his signing.

After batting .328/.420/.617 over eleven seasons with the Cardinals, the first baseman has dropped his numbers to .258/.314/.450 over the past eight seasons with the Angels. While his power has been somewhat consistent, the days of him batting well over .300 every season had past him by the time he got to The Big A.

Amazingly, the Angels still owe the 40-year-old veteran $59 million over the next two seasons.

1) Josh Hamilton

5-years, $125 million

You knew this one was coming. After inking Albert Pujols to a 10-year, $254 million contract the previous winter, the Angels kept spending like a teenager with a credit card. The Angels made the biggest splash of the 2012 offseason by signing Josh Hamilton, 32 years-old at the time, to a five-year, $125 million contract.

Hamilton is a story of a baseball player who reached incredible highs, winning the American League MVP award with the Texas Rangers in 2010, while also falling to incredible lows, suffering a drug relapse after his second season with the Angels.

Upon arriving to Anaheim, the left-handed power slugger immediately experienced a drop in production, cutting his home run total from 43 in 2012, his final season in Texas, to 21 during his first campaign with the Halos. He played in 151 games during the first year of his mega-contract, but was then limited to 89 games in an injury-marred 2014 season.

After suffering a relapse in the 2015 offseason, the Angels were ready to move on from the troubled slugger and eventually traded him back to Texas, while agreeing to absorb the majority of the $83 million still owed to him over the final three years of his contract.