Gary Matthews Jr.: Addition By Subtraction

Unlike his father before him, Gary Matthews Jr. has never been a good hitter. Since his debut in 1999, he has only three times been an above-average hitter (2002 [116], 2004 [105], and 2006 [120 wRC+]). Matthews Jr. was a good fielder back in the day, however. From 2002-2006, he was worth 45.4 fielding runs above replacement (FRAR) in centerfield. Since 2007, it's been an entirely different story however. After posting a 3.2 WAR season in 2005 and 4.2 WAR season in 2006, the Angels inked Matthews Jr. to a 5 year, $50 million contract, somehow expecting him to maintain his 3-4 WAR ways through his age 33-38 years.

Clearly, they were wrong. Since, Matthews has been worth +0.5, -0.8, and -0.8 WAR. He's actually cost the team approximately $5.2 million dollars in lost production. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the Angels were forced to "Alex Rios" him to the Mets (give him away for nothing and eat almost all of his contract). What should come as a surprise is that Gary Matthews Jr. is getting a $500,000 pay raise next year for getting traded. That's right, GMJ has a clause in his contract which awards him an additional $500,000 in salary every time he's traded.

So how bad is Gary Matthews Jr.? He's so bad, you have to pay him more to get rid of him. Not even Neifi Perez was that cruel.