White Sox: 5 worst contracts in the American League Central

Hunter Dozier has hurt the White Sox but he hasn’t lived up to the contract.

The Chicago White Sox have been beaten badly by Hunter Dozier over the years but he has been awful for most of this 2022 season. It is fairly obvious that he has one of the worst contracts in the AL Central division.

The Royals as a team aren’t very good but they have played the White Sox hard. They could be the team that you can point back to as the main reason the White Sox didn’t make the playoffs.

Dozier makes over seven million dollars a season to basically be a terrible player. He might have his moments but he is mostly very bad overall. That is evident in his negative WAR for the entire season., He has provided the Royals with almost nothing this season.

Dozier has a few more years left on this deal as well. There are some bad contracts in this league as a whole. This is literally an example of a player having a very tough season on a contract that is going to be tough to get out of for the organization.

It is going to be a few more years before the young kids on the Royals reach their true potential and start winning a lot. They are well on their way but they need to figure out what to do with this horrendous contract that Hunter Dozier carries with him.

Joe Kelly has been mostly terrible for the Chicago White Sox this season.

The Chicago White Sox was a team looking to win the World Series during the offseason. Because of this, for better or worse, they felt it was necessary to shore up the bullpen. One of the pieces they added in this process was Joe Kelly.

At the moment, it might have felt like a smart decision. Kelly was a two-time World Series champion with two different teams and had many other deep playoff runs. Pitching in high-leverage situations was a specialty for him.

Unfortunately, he just hasn’t been that good for the team in 2022. He has come into some high-leverage situations and low-leverage situations and had mixed results. His numbers in 2022 are not good at all.

He has a 7.07 ERA with a 1.679 WHIP. He has had a fair amount of strikeout success as he has  35 in 28.0 innings pitched but the runs allowed have been his detriment. The 18 walks that he has allowed have hurt as well. All of this accumulated a -0.8 WAR which is atrocious.

Kelly started the year hurt and hasn’t been the same this year as a result. That makes his contract look pretty bad as he is making over 8 million dollars in 2022 and 2023. There is a team option for 2024 but if he continues to struggle, he for sure won’t be back.

The Chicago White Sox have a problem with Yasmani Grandal’s contract now.

It might seem like the Chicago White Sox are on here more than everyone else but they have some tough contracts on the books. The fact that Yasmanni Grandal is on here at number two is very sad and would have surprised a lot of people to hear after seeing how good he was in 2021.

He isn’t just having a down year in 2022. He is having one of the worst years of any player in the league which is not good for the highest-paid player in the history of the Chicago White Sox. As a result, he has a very bad contract.

We can only hope that this doesn’t scare the White Sox from handing out another big contract to a free agent. Grandal was the perfect move at the time but it is just aging very badly. The thing is, how did he go from so good in 2021 to so bad in 2022?

If Grandal somehow figures it out, the White Sox might actually be able to make a run. That still won’t erase the fact that this contract has the chance to hinder the White Sox going into 2023 unless he gets back to that 2021 level which is unlikely at this point.

The White Sox have had the honor of seeing Miguel Cabrera a lot in his career.

The worst contract in the division is Miguel Cabrera who is also the biggest legend in the division. He was at one point the best hitter in Major League Baseball which accumulated some stats that are going to get him into the Hall of Fame.

He won a Triple Crown, a batting title, seven Silver Sluggers, two MVPs, has been an All-Star 12 times, and is a World Series champion. This is nothing short of an all-time baseball great that deserved the contract that he was given but it is albatross for the Detroit Tigers now.

He has the rest of this season and 2023  his eight-year 240 million dollar deal. The Tigers have been pretty bad for most of his contract and he is a big reason why despite all of the accolades that came before the deal.

In 2022 he has a slash line of .258/.308/.319 for an OPS of .627. He has four home runs, 37 RBIs, and 23 runs scored. All of this has accumulated him a WAR of -0.8 which is not what the Tigers needed this season.

He hit his 500th home run at the end of 2021 and earned his 3000th hit early this season which was worth the price of admission on its own but the hype didn’t last all year. It has been an amazing career for him as he will walk into the Hall of Fame with ease but it is getting ugly at the end.

All of these players earned the contract that they were given by their teams but have failed to live up to it once it was signed. Hopefully, each of them is able to get out of the rut and finish their contracts out with some high praise but don’t count on it.