6 worst contracts in LA Angels modern team history

Unfortunately, part of the reason the LA Angels only have one World Series Championship, and haven't made the playoffs since 2014 is due to some bad contracts that really hit the team hard.

Looking back at the recent history of this team, the squad has really been screwed over by six contracts in particular. Some, may even be awful contracts in progress that we don't 100% know are bad contracts yet.

Hopefully Perry Minasian will not be signing any contracts of this caliber, but in recent Angels history, there have been six in particular that have really destroyed the franchise.

No. 6 worst contract in LA Angels modern team history: Gary Matthews Jr. (2007)

Gary Matthews Jr. signed a five-year, $50 million contract with the LA Angels in the '06-'07 offseason, and it was a massive failure.

Matthews only ended up with the Angels for three years, before he was traded to the New York Mets. Unfortunately, the Halos ended up paying $21.5 million of the remaining $23.5 million he was owed. So we ended up paying him $48 million to play poorly for three years with the Angels, even worse for a year with the Mets, and then not even play the last year of the contract.

With the Halos, Matthews hit .248/.325/.383 (.708 OPS) with an 86 OPS+ and just 30 home runs. He drove in only 168 runs and scored just 176 of his own. The Angels were fooled by his All-Star season the year before, and he regressed drastically on the Halos.

No. 5 worst contract in LA Angels modern team history: Zack Cozart (2018)

The LA Angels made a very similar mistake with Zack Cozart as they did with Matthews. They fell for the trap of signing someone to a big deal after just one All-Star season. Sure enough, Cozart regressed to the mean with the Angels, and unfortunately did more than just that.

Cozart was a train wreck for the two years he was with the Halos. He hit .190/.261/.296 (.557 OPS) with just five home runs, 25 RBIs, and 33 runs. Keep in mind that he was signed to a three-year/$38 million contract.

Just awful.

The thing is, Cozart wasn't even very good offensively for the Reds other than the one season. There was no reason to do this, but the Angels did it. He played in 96 total games for the Angels.

Anyways, at least I learned something from reading into Cozart a little more today. I found out that it is apparently possible to have a negative OPS+. I have never seen that before, but in Cozart's second and final season, he posted a whopping -12 OPS+.

Again, it didn't work out with the Angels and Cozart at all.

No. 4 worst contract in LA Angels modern team history: Mo Vaughn (1999)

Similar to the previous two LA Angels signings I highlighted, Mo Vaughn turned into a very bad ballplayer as he spent time with the team. Vaughn went from an All-Star in 1998 to a horrific contract after a couple of years.

In his first couple of years with the Halos, Vaughn hit .276/.362/.503 (.865 OPS) while smoking 69 home runs and driving in 225 RBIs. After that, however, injuries had him miss the 2001 season.

Vaughn was signed to a six-year/$80 million contract. 2001 was a year where he didn't earn anything, and his weight got out of control. He had to be dealt to the New York Mets.

The Halos still had to pay over $30 million for a player who was counted on to be the All-Star he had been, and potentially the MVP he had been before in 1995. Unfortunately, he had two solid years and that was it. He regressed, and then had to sit out for an entire season.

For what it's worth, the Mets may have been screwed even more, as he played in just 166 games with them and even batted .190 with them the second year.

No. 3 worst contract in LA Angels modern team history: Vernon Wells (2011)

Vernon Wells was traded to the LA Angels for what was supposed to be the last four years of his seven-year/$126 million contract.

Unfortunately, Wells only lasted just two years with the club. The Angels also had to pay the majority of the rest of his contract after they traded him after those two years to the Yankees. To make matters worse, he didn't even play baseball after just one season with the Yankees.

With the Angels, Wells hit .222/.258/.409 (.667 OPS) in just 208 games and hit only 36 total home runs to go along with 95 total RBIs. He also certainly wasn't the Gold Glover he used to be when he played for the Angels.

Recording an 86 OPS+ with the Angels, Wells didn't live up to the hype at all. He, like the previous three on this list, was signed to the Halos after an All-Star season but ended up looking terribly in a Halo uniform.

He looked like a completely different player. And in the year where we basically paid him to play for the Yankees, he looked just as bad. We weren't even paying for a good player.

No. 1 worst contract in LA Angels modern team history: Josh Hamilton (2012)

The LA Angels' worst contract in modern team history has to be Josh Hamilton. Hamilton was signed to a five-year/$125 million deal, and ended up experiencing drug addiction relapse, injuries, and poor baseball performance. The first two are awful, and weren't deserved, so I'll focus on the baseball performance here.

Hamilton played just two years with the Angels before he was back off to Texas, where he played just one year. With the Halos, Hamilton hit .255/.316/.426 (.741 OPS) while he had just hit .304/.364/.549 (.913 OPS) prior to his signing. There was a deep regression, and he also only ended up playing 89 games in his second season with us.

He's another guy who had been an All-Star with his previous team(s) (five times to be exact), and went to the Angels and never was. Hamilton, who hit 43 home runs in the year prior to signing with the Halos, hit just 31 total in his Angels career. He totaled 123 RBIs with the Halos after driving in 128 in the season prior to going to the Angels.

None of these guys panned out how they were supposed to, and it's a major part of why the Angels are where they're at today. Hopefully Minasian doesn't make these mistakes moving forward, and we can finally taste victory again.