When Josh Hamilton signed a five-year, $125 million contract with the Angels two years ago, the contract was not well received. There were exactly, hold on let me do the math… carry the four… yes, exactly zero people who thought the contract was a good idea. Everyone predicted the contract would be considered regrettable by the time it runs out. Now, coming off an injury-ravaged season in which he failed to homer at home, posted a career-worst strikeout rate and career-low slugging percentage and had one of the worst playoff series in recent memory, that day of regret has come. With three years and $83 million left on his deal, the Halos are in a tough situation with Hamilton. The only way it could get any tougher is if Hamilton started criticizing a fan base that has already begun to single him out as the target of their ire. Oh, wait, he did that. Via Jeff Fletcher in the Orange County Register:
“I thought it was pretty funny, after my third at-bat of the first game, I got booed,” Hamilton said. “I’m like, seriously? I’m out for a month, put all kinds of poison in my body to even attempt to play, and get booed. Whatever. It’s kind of comical.
“I don’t take offense to it because they don’t know me. There is no personal interaction.”
So, yeah, that’s not going to help. That little comment about him putting “poison” in his body is, ironically, going to push his relationship with Angels fans from bad to toxic.
Let’s be honest, the Halo fans have never warmed up to Hamilton. He was too closely associated with the hated Texas Rangers and then he fell on his face almost immediately upon joining the team. But through most of these last two years, he’s been able to turn the other cheek like the good Christian he is always reminding us he is. But now that the fans have violated the commandment of “thou shalt not boo your injured slugger at home in the playoffs,” Josh is done playing nice. Angels fans are done with Josh playing for the team altogether.
Small problem. Getting rid of him is not an option so much due to that $83 million I mentioned before. There isn’t even a realistic bad contract swap out there for the Angels to futilely pursue. The closest possibility is Alex Rodriguez and the three years, $64 million he’s still owed through the media circus that he calls the rest of his career. That’s… an upgrade? Besides, Hamilton has a full no-trade clause which he’d surely invoke just to troll Angels fans further.
Cutting him loose isn’t really an option either. Lord only knows that the Halos are not unaccustomed to dumping the contract of a high-priced outfield free agent that went horribly wrong. It’s kind of their thing. But even that move isn’t on the table. That’s just too much money for them to eat without any return.
And here is the dirty little secret, Hamilton actually is still providing a return. It just isn’t the type of return that they paid for, which is what drives the fans so bloody crazy. In his two years as an Angel, Hamilton has been worth 3.1 fWAR and posted a 105 wRC+ and 113 wRC+ in 2013 and 2014, respectively. That isn’t great, but it isn’t burn $83 million on your front lawn bad.
In other words, there is going to be at least one more year (probably two) of trying to make this dysfunctional relationship work. Maybe Josh and the fans can patch things up or at least learn to be civil with each other when the kids are in the room. Probably not though. There just isn’t much reason to believe that Hamilton is going to magically learn to stay healthy or remember how to hit. That’s only going to mean more vitriol from the fans, more Hamilton trying to act like he doesn’t care, more fans getting even more irate that he’s acting like he doesn’t care and more of stuff like this:
And that might have actually been his best play of the entire ALDS. Yeah, it’s going to be a long three years.
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