The best and worst contracts share one thing in common: When you look them up, your immediate reaction is “I’m sorry, he makes how much for how long? That’s insane.” It works both ways.



After doing a lot of work on this year’s free agency crop and estimating their worth, it’s time to look back on past deals and figure out which ones are the best and which ones are the worst, using the same methodology that I’ve been using to analyze this year’s crop.



This exercise is obviously a popular one, but I’m not sure it’s been ever done in a strictly empirical manner. That’s the goal here, so no hard feelings for any players who show up (or don’t) on either list – it’s just math. (The comments are always open to respectful discussion, debate and questions for any particular disagreement, of which there are usually many when it comes to making any list whatsoever).



The way I’ll be...