Until Joe Mauer signed with his hometown team last off-season, the five richest contracts in baseball history were signed by active Yankee players (note: one was actually signed by A-rod to play for the Texas Rangers, but of course he’s now in pinstripes).
This off-season has brought three new faces into the top 10, including the third and fourth highest total value contracts ever. In December the Angels locked up Albert Pujols for the next 10 years, and yesterday Prince Fielder and the Tigers agreed to a 9-year deal of their own.
Given my affinity for maps, I started to wonder what it would look like to somehow capture the magnitude of baseball’s largest contracts in geographical form. Here’s what I came up with:
UPDATE: The original map has been moved to the bottom of this post and replaced with this guy. There are two reasons for this. First, I had originally meant for each bubble’s *area* to correspond to the value of the contract, but thanks to some haste and some faulty thinking, I embarrassingly linked the contract value to the diameter (math degree: revoked). However, after then realizing that sizing by area actually decreases the contrast in bubble size, I just ended up squaring the contract values and using those relativities. At this point I don’t know that it has a mathematical meaning, but it makes for a more aesthetically pleasing map, and it’s easier to place the bubbles on top of each other. New York is already overcrowded.
The second reason for the update is blog partner Zach weighed in with a new idea on bubble format, and I liked it. Again, the original is below in case you’ve grown attached in the last 18 hours.
Each bubble represents a contract, with the size of the bubble being determined by the size of the contract, and the color and location of the bubble corresponding to the team. I felt that labels would only muddy it up, so I listed the players/contracts represented in the top left. I’ll let you match up contract with team.
Notable teams not represented: White Sox, Braves, Mariners.
Not surprising: Rays, Royals, Pirates, Athletics.
Original:
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