In December 2015, Chris Davis was at the top of his game. The Baltimore Orioles slugger had just hit 47 home runs and the free-agent market was wide open. His agent, Scott Boras, negotiated hard — as he always does — and Baltimore wasn’t about to let their star walk. The result: a 7-year, $161 million contract, the largest in franchise history. Davis was 30 years old. The Orioles were betting his power would drive their lineup for the better part of a decade.
What happened next was nearly the opposite of what anyone expected.
A Slow Fade, Not a Sudden Collapse
Davis didn’t fall off a cliff overnight. It was more like a dimmer switch being turned down, slowly, season by season. In 2017, his first year under the new deal, he hit .226 with 26 home runs — not a disaster, but not a $161 million player either. By 2018 it got worse: a .168 batting average and just 16 home runs. Through 2019 and 2020, the pattern held — injuries, inconsistency, and a batting average that couldn’t crack .200.
Baltimore kept paying. The money kept going out the door every month, every year, while Davis returned less and less on the field. No one can blame the contract alone. Injuries, age, and the physical toll of the game aren’t things any agent can negotiate around.
In August 2021, following hip surgery, Davis announced his retirement — with two full seasons still remaining on his deal.
The Ghost Who Still Gets a Check
This is where the story becomes a clear window into how MLB contracts actually work. Davis hasn’t played a game, hasn’t appeared in a lineup, hasn’t picked up a bat in official competition since 2021. But the Baltimore Orioles are still paying him.
The contract included $42 million in deferred payments that run through 2037. That means when Davis turns 60, the team that signed him back in 2016 will still be sending him checks. The money was committed the moment the deal was signed — it doesn’t disappear just because a career ends early.
Then-GM Dan Duquette made the call. It was a bet on the future. Sometimes those bets don’t pay off. This one didn’t — not even close.
More Than a Cautionary Tale
This isn’t really a story about whether Davis deserved the money. It’s a story about how the market works. A team saw elite talent, paid for future security, and the future didn’t cooperate. The human body, injuries, and time had other plans.
Boras did his job: he structured a contract that protected his client even in the worst-case scenario — retirement. Baltimore accepted those terms because they believed Davis would keep producing. He didn’t, and the bill is still being paid.
- Contract: 7 years, $161 million (signed 2016)
- Retirement: August 2021, with two years remaining
- Deferred money: $42 million owed through 2037
Every season the Orioles compete and try to allocate payroll toward players who can actually take the field, a portion of that budget goes to someone who already left. That’s the cost of a long-term bet gone wrong — and one of the most visible examples of it in recent MLB history.
