"If it wasn’t for him we don’t win a championship" - When Nationals manager Dave Martinez defended Stephen Strasburg's contract amid injury concerns

In 2024, Stephen Strasburg's contract has officially gone down as one of the most questionable in modern baseball. He hardly pitched after signing a record deal and just wasn't worth the money. Most big contracts fail to pan out well, but this one failed pretty spectacularly.

However, in 2022, Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez gave his player the benefit of the doubt. He came to Strasburg's aid as fans and pundits criticized the deal and pointed to the lack of form and health on the pitcher's part.

Martinez said, via WTOP:

“For me, he deserved that contract. He really did. You look what he did, if it wasn’t for him we don’t win a world championship. Nobody could’ve predicted what was going to happen. Like I said, I just hope that the results, it’s something that’s positive from the next visit to the doctor’s and then we can figure out what’s next for him.”

---

Analyzing why the Nationals signed Stephen Strasburg's contract

Contracts, for better or worse, are not designed to pay for what a player will do most of the time. Future production is impossible to predict. A contract, nine times out of 10, is based solely on what the player has done.

For example, Aaron Judge set numerous records and had one of the best seasons of all time. He then signed for $40 million. The New York Yankees weren't saying he would always and for the next nine seasons be worth that, but they were saying his past performance necessitated that.

That's exactly how it happened with Stephen Strasburg. He ended up not being worth the $35 million salary, but the Nationals sent him that money because of what he had done: been an absolute ace and delivered them a World Series.

Stephen Strasburg's contract didn't age well

Teams can't know what a player will do, apart from a very few exceptions. Some teams like to get ahead of the natural growth and sign promising young talent early. That's a little safer, but it still carries risk.

Other big contracts, which are all the rage now, are set up to fail solely because they are based primarily on a player's past and not their future. What's known drives the value up, not the uncertainty of the future.