No other option was on the poll, but other is my choice - Soriano for $136 million for 8 years.  I figure he'll be an average LF'er within a couple of years then sub-par by years 6-8 thus a massive waste of money.  To me signing him for more than 5 years or for more than $10 million a year was nuts.  Thus a massive waste of money.

Gary Mathews Jr: replacement player next year? Maybe. In 2? For sure. $10 million bucks per year.

You can't really say you wouldn't pay Soriano $18 million a year because that's what the market dictates for great hitting. Good luck signing an impact bat for anywhere near $10 million....But 8 years is insane. Then again, he could age pretty well, or who could never play as supremely well as he did in his contract year.

I agree in part with John, but I would also add the subsequent waste of money they are compounding on to the deal by continuing to bat him lead off.

jsm -- you're right, brain cramp on my part not making Mathews an option. I went ahead and added him in place of Mussina, since nobody had voted for Moose anyway.

Totally invalidates this poll from a statistical standpoint, but what the hell!

The Gary Matthews deal looks pretty bad, but I bet he'll still play some good defence in a few years. On the other hand, I can see Carlos Lee completely falling apart in year 3 or 4.

  Adam Eaton looks pretty bad, too. Danys Baez was totally overpaid, but I can see him being a decent reliever for another three years.

I think the Pierre signing was better than the Mathews signing, but the kicker is that the Dodgers have perhaps one of the best farm systems in baseball, yet the clearly have no intention of using it. They would waste a horrible contract and block guys like Ethier, Kemp, Loney, Betemit, etc. (now I'm including the Garciappara one).

Lee, Matthews, Pierre, and Soriano may all end up being worse signings just because there's more money and years involved, but Eaton's is probably the most puzzling to me. Not only has he never performed at a high level, he hasn't even been healthy the past two seasons! And it seems likely that his contract will jack the market for other pretenders like... Gil Meche.

There are only 4 candidates for worst signing:

Soriano
Lee
Mathews Jr.
Pierre

Since the money does not kill you, the years do.

Of those, I think Pierre will continue to be overrated due to his empty BA and the preception of him being a + base runner and fielder so I think he will not be the worst.  Mathews Jr. I think will be the worst of the signings because Lee and Soriano are probably going to be worth nearly their contracts for the first couple of years.

Looks like the general consensus is that the long-term deals are the worst, which is as it should be. This offseason has been drawing comparisons to the last great spend-fest when A-Rod, Manny, Hampton, Neagle, Park, Dreifort, Kevin Brown, etc...got the huge long term deals (I don't remember if those were all in one offseason, but they were close together). What stuck out that year was that long-term deals for pitchers, no matter how good or full of potential, are a terrible idea. So the worst deal is possibly yet to come, and will likely involve a pitcher (Matsuzaka, Schmidt, Weaver, Suppan, Zito).

Pierre, Lee, Matthews, Soriano get the longterm deals for big money. Soriano is a very similar player to Lee (age, power, not too many walks, basestealing), especially since they're both outfielders now.  The 8 year deal, looking at the past, how many of these deals have looked good 5 years later?

I'm confused as to how Carlos lee acquired a reputation as a top player...he has never hit a ton of HRs or played on a great team, and the White Sox won after trading him away. When did this happen, does anyone remember? Was it the trading deadline hype?

For Pierre and Matthews, I'd rather pay Matthews and hope his career year was a sustainable level, rather than pay Pierre and hope he regains his form from 2-3 years ago, so I voted Pierre. Of course, I'd rather not pay either one anything close to what they are getting, but hey, bad signings by other teams help Toronto, right?

other is my choice - Soriano for $136 million for 8 years

Soriano at least is coming off a good year - he had a WARP of 8.6.  Carlos Lee had a WARP of 4.7 and has averaged more than a win per season less than Soriano over the last four years, and he's even older than Soriano.  Plus, at least Soriano is in excellent physical shape.

I don't like either signing, but Lee looks to me like a worse risk to actually deliver half his contract value... I see Soriano as a better risk to return $68M of value over the next 8 years than Lee is to return $50M over the next six.