Anyone who’s ever made a bad bet understands the concept of a “sunk cost”. Essentially, this is the moment you realize that you’ve blown your money or time or whatever on something ill-advised, and that there’s no way to get it back, no matter what you do. Maybe you bought a used car that turned out to be a lemon. Maybe it was a bad relationship that sucked up too much of your time. Or a bad investment in Bear Stearns. Whatever.
In baseball, we typically talk about sunk costs in reference to players who sign multi-year, mega-dollar contracts and turn out to be busts. Think of Barry Zito’s seven year, $126 million dollar contract.
Some background: Barry Zito has basically been worse than your run-of-the-mill, Triple-A starter for the bulk of his deal with the Giants, which he signed in December of 2006. During that time, he’s been paid about $85 million. After this year, Zito still has $46 million left on his deal, covering 2012-2013 as well as his buyout for 2014 ($7 million...
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