Can anyone think of other contracts that might not have made sense in baseball terms, but may have made sense in business terms? Some of the contracts to older fan favorites might qualify, like McCann with the Braves and Abreu with the White Sox. I suppose that might have been a factor with Chris Davis, but the Orioles did not anticipate how dramatically his performance would fall off.
why go any further than signing Pudge and Werth? Pudge was the first credible ballplayer to sign here, and everyone acknowledges the Werth signing was as much if not more to show that this team was trying to contend and that it would bring in pieces around Strasburg, Harper, Zimmermann, Desmond, and Zimmerman to contend. Werth's contract did not pay off in terms of WAR, and arguably playing him in the field at the end was costly in the LDS, but few would argue that it wasn't a smart business move. I suppose the difference with Werth is it was a catalyst to other signings and a morale builder.
