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Orioles' $161 million signing ranked as 2nd-worst free agent deal in MLB history originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Baltimore Orioles have made a ton of free agent signings in their franchise history, though not all of them have been great.
This season, Ryan Helsley looks to be a great pickup, while Pete Alonso is off to a bit of a slow start. But even Alonso's slow start cannot compare to the issues the Orioles had with a different free-agent signing.
As ESPN's Bradford Doolittle noted, the Orioles' $161 million free agent signing from back in 2016 with Chris Davis was ranked as the 2nd-worst free agent signing in MLB history for a few clear reasons.
Orioles' Chris Davis $161M deal ranked 2nd worst in MLB history
"But this contract went from questionable to terrifying with each season of Davis' plummeting OPS, which was .923 during his platform season," Doolittle writes. "Then: .792, .732, .539, .601, .337, retirement."
Baltimore signed Davis to a massive seven-year, $161 million free agent deal back in 2016, and it was almost immediately a massive mistake.
He posted 3.0 bWAR in his first season in 2016, hitting 38 home runs after his 47 homers the year prior. It was a .792 OPS season that didn't justify the big deal he got, but it wasn't setting off alarm bells just yet.
But, he then regressed further in 2017, posting a 96 OPS+, the first time he was below 100 since signing the big deal, and it was also the first year with negative bWAR with a -0.4 on the season across 128 games.
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And it got a whole lot worse in year three. He posted an unfathomable -3.3 bWAR, completely turning a bad free agent deal into a complete disaster. His 49 OPS+ was terrible, and there was little to like about his production in 2018.
He played two more seasons, posting -1.1 and -1.0 bWAR, respectively. His -1.0 bWAR in 2020 was in an inexplicably small 16-hame sample-size. He hit .115 with a .337 OPS and poor fielding. It was a complete disaster for the Orioles and Davis.
It's the 2nd-worst free agent signing in MLB history for a reason, as it was a disaster that set the team back many years with all of the wasted money and potential in this deal.
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