When it comes to bad contracts, Jays' Ricciardi is hard to beat

9. Travis Hafner (Cleveland Indians). He has three years at $13 million per left on his four-year deal ... and a buyout on top. The reason this is not higher on the list is you can certainly understand why the Indians made the deal. Hafner had led the American League in OPS+ twice. He was coming off a year when he hit .308/.439/.649 -- tough to argue with those numbers.

BUT ... they gave him the contract in the middle of the 2007 season, when he turned 30, when his numbers had already started to take a precipitous fall, when he had not shown an ability to stay healthy (he had never even played 150 games in a season when they gave him the deal). PLUS, he's a big, slow guy who literally cannot play a single defensive position ... he has not put on a glove for a big league game since 2007. Hafner has shown a little spark of offensive life this year, but he has so many injury problems, and he's 32, and this contract surely will only look worse as time goes on.

8. Kerry Wood (Cleveland Indians). He signed before this season for 2 years at $11 million per and there's a reasonable chance it will kick in and become a three-year deal. He has been terrible this year, but that's not even the problem ... Why would you spend all that money to sign a 31-turning-32-year-old pitcher with a long line of injury problems who has never pitched in the American League and has had one decent year as a closer? Mark Shapiro seems to me a bright guy who has done some good things ... but this was a head-scratcher to me.

7. Alex Rios (Chicago White Sox). This is the third deal where Ricciardi has hit the ejector button in the middle of the contract (B.J. Ryan and Frank Thomas coming first). At least with this one, someone else picked up the tab -- and yes, Kenny Williams will now be the one judged on how this contract turns out.

6. Gary Matthews (Angels). Still has two years and $23 million left on his contract, which is tough because he has become one of the worst hitters in baseball (74 OPS+ and .346 slugging percentage last two years) and the two big defensive stats I like -- UZR and Dewan -- both suggest that he has lost whatever he might have had defensively. This was another example of a player with a long history of being below average (89 career OPS+ for seven teams between 1999 and 2005), then having one good year and making one incredible catch, and then signing for big money at age 32.

One funny part of this, though, is that I don't think the Angels have a lot of buyer's remorse here. They are a weird team, the Angels. They just chug along, year after year. They pretty wildly overpay for a player now and again. They give players odd roles. They do odd things that make you wonder what the heck is going on over there. But they make the playoffs almost every year, and they seem to deal pretty well with whatever mistakes they make. Matthews plays quite a lot, and he has a 69 OPS+, but the Angels continue to score runs like crazy. It's just weird over there.

5. Alfonso Soriano (Cubs). Wow, the Cubs owe him $18 million per year for the next four. And he's going to be 34 in January. And he has a 90 OPS+ this year and he seems to have lost his speed, which was a big part of his game. Bad stuff.

Funny, I kind of thought that in many ways Soriano was underrated when the Cubs signed him... because a lot of people seemed to be talking about all the things he couldn't do (he didn't walk, he struck out a ton, he was moody and didn't want to change positions) and were kind of missing some of the obvious things he COULD do, such as the fact that he had a 40-40 season (and was one homer away from a SECOND 40-40 season) and was showing improvement even in those troubled areas (he walked a career-high 67 times in Washington and moved to left field).

Still ... eight-year deal. Damn. You'd better be SURE before you give someone an eight-year deal, especially a guy two months away from his 31st birthday. Check that: There's no way you could be THAT sure about a player about to turn 31. Soriano still has some value, but you've got to think that deal will only look worse from here on.

4. Carlos Silva (Seattle Mariners). Three years left on that four-year, $48 million deal ... and a buyout to boot. Funny, people will constantly rip the Yankees and Red Sox and teams like that for all the money they spend ... but it is teams like the Mariners, Royals, Brewers, Blue Jays and Indians that seem to actually make the worst signings.