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The Phillies Handed out Two of the Worst Contracts over the Last 16 Years, Study Says
By Jim Adair
Published:
Sean Barnes and Margrét Bjarnadóttir of the Smith School of Business at Maryland put together a retroactive predictive metric using a proprietary blend* – is that paprika I taste? – of advanced statistics ranking the biggest bargain and bust contracts from 1998 through 2014 and what their rightful value should’ve been. Thank you, Ruben Amaro, for the gift that keeps on giving:
Kyle: Look, Burrell may have been overpaid and all, but you literally can’t put a price tag on Jimmy Rollins shouting at Burrell “Where’s 5 at?” in the dugout before the second half of Game 5 of the 2008 World Series and then Burrell going out there and doubling in his final Phillies at-bat and then riding on the Clydesdale float and cocksmithing every woman in the city for the entirety of his time here. There’s an intangible quality to that which can’t be measured in a university algorithm.
*Never mind. They just used WAR, but I liked the paprika line.
H/T to the reader who sent this to us whose name we can’t find
When he's not writing about sports here or ranting about them on Twitter, Jim is probably watching X-Files on Netflix or drinking a beer somewhere. Jim has nothing against hockey, it's just not his style. He once met Duce Staley at a Sixers game.