Former Baltimore Orioles player Chris Davis, who announced his retirement in August 2021, will still collect a sizable amount of money for the next few years.
Let’s recap the facts.
Davis hit 33 home runs in 2012, 53 in 2013, and 26 in 2014.
He followed that up with 47 more dingers in 2015: he was a premier power hitter on a contending team.
Yes, the Orioles made the postseason several times between 2012 and 2016.
In January 2016, they decided to extend him to a mammoth seven-year, $161 million contract.
He was already 30 and played a non-premium position (first base), so the deal was probably a mistake at the time.
Monday’s newspaper said, however, that the deal was not just a mistake: it probably set the Orioles back at least a couple of years.
Davis hit 38 homers in 2016, but wasn’t really productive after that at any point.
Injuries didn’t help.
The Davis Contract Was A Disaster
Baltimore will still pay him a lot of money even though he retired, because he deferred some of it for the 2023-2037 period.
Here are the details, per the always reliable Codify Baseball.
“Chris Davis begins receiving deferred payments next year for a 15-year period. He will get $9.16M/year from 2023-2025; $3.5M/year from 2026-2032; and $1.4M/year from 2033-2037,” they wrote.
Adding all that up you get $59 million, not the $42 million originally stipulated.
However, they later explained that Davis decided to have his $17 million salary for 2022 deferred (a nice gesture for the team).
The contract was painful for the franchise, but that’s not Davis’ fault: they negotiated a deal and all parties agreed.
All things considered, he was much more productive before signing it, though.
That stretch of power from 2012 to 2016 was one of the most impressive in franchise history.
It’s too bad it didn’t work out after 2016.
Much like Bobby Bonilla, Davis will earn money from an MLB team without even suiting up to play.
More must-reads: