Brewers: Ranking The 5 Worst Contracts In Franchise History

Not every contract the Brewers sign is a good one. Over the years, the Brewers have had their share of duds when it comes to player acquisition.

Free agency is a risky endeavor. Players who were good in the past may not necessarily be as good in the future, and teams can end up paying for past performance rather than how the player will perform under their current contract.

That realization by front offices has led to a depressed free agent market in recent years, which has of course upset the players’ union and has partially led us to the lockout fiasco baseball finds itself in in the 2021-22 offseason. Still, teams do need to look to free agency to supplement their rosters and not every contract turns out poorly.

However, the focus of this article will be on those contracts that did not go well. While the Brewers haven’t typically been the big spenders in free agency, they have splurged every now and then, and some have backfired.

What are the worst contracts in Milwaukee Brewers franchise history?

Worst contract in Brewers history #5: Jackie Bradley Jr. – 2 years, $24MM

It stunned seemingly everyone that Jackie Bradley Jr. was available on the free agent market late into spring training in 2021. He had a fairly productive career with the Boston Red Sox and was an excellent defender in centerfield. Sure he was prone to cold stretches offensively, but he was certainly deserving of being on a roster.

So the Brewers decided that they would sign him to a contract. Sure, they already had Lorenzo Cain for center field and Avisail Garcia for right field, and Christian Yelich for left field, but why not also bring in Bradley?

Bradley went on to have the worst season of his career. He hit just .163/.236/.261 with just six home runs. His 30.8% strikeout rate was well above his career average and he hit fewer home runs in 134 games in 2021 than he did in 55 games in the shortened 2020 season.

Bradley still brought value defensively, but he was a major black hole on offense. If the Brewers could’ve used a DH in place of position players, they absolutely would’ve used it on Bradley. Despite being known as a hitter prone to hot and cold stretches, 2021 was just one long cold stretch. There was never a point in the season where he got hot and looked like a legitimate major league hitter.

There was a player option on 2022 that Bradley unsurprisingly picked up after his poor season. That locked him in for $9.5MM for 2022 and ensured at least an $8MM buyout for 2023. The Brewers would’ve been stuck paying for all of that had it not been for the Boston Red Sox. Boston came in and was willing to take on the entirety of Bradley’s contract and give Milwaukee Hunter Renfroe.

If Bradley had stayed in Milwaukee through his full contract, he likely would’ve ended up much higher on this list. Instead, he comes in at No. 5.

Worst contract in Brewers history #4: Eric Gagne – One Year, $10MM

The Brewers might’ve set a record for shortest amount of time before regret sunk in on a free agent contract. The Eric Gagne deal was a disaster from the beginning and a complete waste of 10 million dollars.

On December 10th, 2007, the Brewers signed Gagne to a one year, $10MM contract. On December 13th, 2007, three days later, Gagne was implicated in the Mitchell Report as a steroid user.

So things got off to a rocky start right away, but he wasn’t suspended since PED rules were just being put in place at that time, which made Gagne still available for Opening Day, much to the detriment of the Milwaukee Brewers.

On Opening Day, the Brewers were able to snag a 3-0 lead over the Chicago Cubs in the top of the 9th inning. Gagne came on in the bottom of the 9th to close out the win. Instead, he gave up a single, then a walk, and then a 3-run, game-tying homer to Kosuke Fukudome. Luckily he didn’t give up a walkoff, but it forced the game to go to extra innings where the Brewers were able to win.

Still, it set the tone for the rest of the season for Gagne, who never had his ERA below 4.70 at any single point in the 2008 season. He finished just 16 games and got just 10 saves. That’s $1 million paid for every save he got, a high price to pay.

Gagne finished the 2008 season with a 5.44 ERA in 50 games, giving up an astonishing 11 home runs in 46.1 IP. He never pitched in the big leagues again after that trainwreck of a season with Milwaukee.

The only thing keeping Gagne from being higher on this list is the fact that it was just a one year contract and the Brewers weren’t saddled with him for multiple seasons.

Worst contract in Brewers history #2: Matt Garza – 4 years, $50MM

Matt Garza had quite the career. He had some decent years in Tampa and in Chicago with the Cubs, but he was never great or an ace-level pitcher. Yet that didn’t stop the Brewers from paying him like one.

The Brewers were trying to line up a rebound season in 2014 and get back into the postseason, and they needed more pitching to get there. So owner Mark Attanasio went all out and got one of the top starting pitchers on the market in Matt Garza. Garza was a highly sought after commodity at the trade deadline the summer before and was still sought after entering his age-30 season.

At the time, Garza signed the largest free agent contract in Brewers franchise history at four years and $50 million.

It did not age well.

Garza had a decent enough first season in Milwaukee, finishing with a 3.64 ERA in 27 starts as the Brewers tumbled down the stretch that year, but we don’t need to talk about that.

Then the rebuild started in 2015 and Garza’s contract became an albatross. They were stuck paying him for three more seasons at $12.5MM per year and Garza’s performance made him impossible to move. In 2015, Garza pitched to a 5.63 ERA and things did not get much better. He was removed from the rotation in September, was shut down for the season, and famously did not take it well.

In 2016, Garza missed the first two and a half months of the season with a shoulder strain. When he returned, he posted a 4.51 ERA in 19 starts.

Then came 2017, as Garza’s performance was still mediocre but the Brewers as a team were turning the corner. They were surprisingly in first place for a chunk of the season and remained in the playoff race until the final game of the year. However, that was because some of the young guns on the pitching staff were taking over.

Guys like Zach Davies, Jimmy Nelson, Chase Anderson, Brent Suter, and Brandon Woodruff were taking over the rotation and the Brewers simply didn’t want Garza in the rotation anymore. So they tried to move him to the bullpen after a rough month of August.

After a poor start against the Reds on September 5th, where he gave up five runs in 2.2 IP, the Brewers removed Garza from the rotation. He made a few appearances out of the bullpen but finished the year with a 4.94 ERA.

That was the end of Garza’s big league career.

The contract was an albatross from start to finish, and was completely immovable at a time where the Brewers were plenty willing to unload veterans for prospects, but Garza performed so horribly, they weren’t able to move him through the rebuild.

Worst contract in Brewers history #1: Jeff Suppan – 4 years, $42MM

Even just seeing the name Jeff Suppan puts a bad taste in Brewers fans mouths to this day. Any mention that he was with the Brewers or that they signed him to the contract they did makes fans react like they just got sprayed in the face by a skunk.

This is, without a doubt, the worst contract in Brewers history.

Jeff Suppan had 12 professional seasons under his belt when the Brewers signed him on Christmas Eve, 2006. Suppan had posted just one sub-4.00 ERA in those 12 seasons. The newspaper headlines talked about the signing as a Christmas present under the Brewers tree. It turns out, it was just a lump of coal.

Suppan had a really good postseason in 2006, where he helped the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series. In the NLCS, he made two starts, went 15 IP and gave up just one run. In the World Series, he made one start, going six innings and allowing three runs. The performance was good enough to convince the Brewers that they should give him $42MM over four years.

Keep in mind, Suppan had a career 4.60 ERA in over 300 starts in his career to this point. That’s not a small sample size. Yet, the Brewers decided to sign him to the largest free agent contract in franchise history at that point.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Suppan continued to post poor numbers. They couldn’t even blame injuries, Suppan was healthy as a clam, he just stunk. He put up a 4.62 ERA in 2007, making all 34 starts.

In 2008, the Brewers broke their playoff drought, no thanks to Suppan who had a 4.96 ERA that season. Milwaukee lost four of his five starts in September that year. Suppan gave up six runs in 3.2 IP in the second game of a doubleheader against Philadelphia on September 14th.

That was Ned Yost‘s last game as Brewers manager. He was fired the next morning because of the team’s recent downward spiral. If Suppan doesn’t stink it up in that game, or any of his several leading up to it, perhaps Yost never gets fired. If Yost never gets fired, Ken Macha never gets hired. Macha couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag and the Brewers stunk for two years with a great core in place because of it, while Yost got hired by Kansas City and won a World Series with them.

The Brewers still had two more years with Suppan under contract, and he struggled once more in 2009, posting a 5.29 ERA in 30 starts. 2010 was the final season of the Suppan Era in Milwaukee. They finally moved him out of the rotation, and then released him mid-season after he pitched to a 7.84 ERA in 15 appearances, eating the final $10MM on that contract, paying him to not pitch for them. He then signed back with the Cardinals, and actually pitched well in 13 starts down the stretch for them.

Suppan was by far the worst contract in Brewers history. It was a stupid signing to begin with, he was always a mediocre pitcher and they paid him like he was a No. 1 starter.

You could make the argument Suppan’s struggles led to Ned Yost’s firing, which was another one of the biggest mistakes in franchise history not only because they let go of a good manager who was a Brewers alumni and not at fault for the team’s struggles, but because it led to the hiring of Ken Macha.

Granted, Yost did make the “Soup pitched great” quote after he gave up 4 runs in five innings, but still, he was a far better manager than Macha and firing him was wrong. Did Yost feel he had to say things like that because of the investment the front office put in Suppan? Anyways, I digress.

It will be extremely difficult for any contract to ever top the horribleness of the Suppan deal, and for the Brewers sake, let’s hope no contract ever does.

Some honorable mentions include: David Riske‘s three year, $12.25MM deal and Franklin Stubbs’ three year, $6MM contract.