Money, Money, Money

Mario over at Wax Heaven posted a link to a page over at Baseball Reference showing the top 100 career earners in MLB and the top 100 single season salaries. I've listed the top 20 career earners below.

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   Rank     Player                Career Salary

   01       Alex Rodriguez        $198,416,252 
   02       Barry Bonds           $188,245,322 
   03       Randy Johnson         $167,550,019 
   04       Manny Ramirez         $162,258,269 
   05       Derek Jeter           $161,230,000 
   06       Gary Sheffield        $154,008,550 
   07       Greg Maddux           $153,845,000 
   08       Ken Griffey           $147,353,682 
   09       Pedro Martinez        $146,259,585 
   10       Mike Mussina          $144,533,619 
   11       Carlos Delgado        $134,299,000 
   12       Kevin Brown           $130,890,502 
   13       John Smoltz           $130,095,446 
   14       Tom Glavine           $128,639,293 
   15       Jeff Bagwell          $128,134,019 
   16       Jason Giambi          $125,058,996 
   17       Sammy Sosa            $124,068,000 
   18       Jim Thome             $123,961,667 
   19       Mike Hampton          $122,550,270 
   20       Roger Clemens         $121,001,000 

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A few thoughts ...

• The three guys I named the blog after all made the top 20 list of career earners. Strangely, depite being the 7th (Maddux), 13th (Smoltz) and 14th (Glavine) all-time earners, not one of the three made the list of the 100 highest paid seasons. That just goes to show you how good they were for so long. (Not to mention, no one pays for pitching what they pay for offense which just makes good business sense, as the guy I talk about in the next bullet point proves.)
• There are a number of names that do not belong that high on the list and I think most of us Braves fans would agree that Mike Hampton is the most undeserving of all. This is a guy who, in his career, has had one single, solitary great season (1999 with the Astros, and it was a top shelf performance) and then one single, solitary very good season (2000 with the Mets). Funny thing is, those first few years with Atlanta weren't so bad because the majority of that money was being paid by the Rockies, with perhaps a small amount also being paid by the Marlins. (I'm far too lazy to Google that point right now.) Hampton was never great for the Braves although he was very good for stretches at a time. It actually looked like he might be coming around before he began his arm problem odyssey. I was always pulling for Hampton though because he seemed to be working hard to come back despite the contract. Still, after the Braves stuck with him all those years, he ran back to Houston as soon as the contract was up. Of course, he has wallowed in mediocrity for the Astros and we have one of the best rotations in the game so it's not like I'm crying about it or anything. Hell, I hope he pitches well.