Five players. Five contracts of 13 years or longer. More than $1.76 billion in committed money. And when the 2026 regular season wrapped up, their results ranged from a 4.3 WAR to a guy who barely showed up for 24 games. Codify Baseball posted a side-by-side comparison on October 9 putting Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Bryce Harper, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Giancarlo Stanton on the same screen — and the numbers say more than any Twitter argument about whether ultra-long deals make sense in today’s MLB.
Tatis: The Clear Winner of the Group
Fernando Tatis Jr. was the most complete player of the five by a wide margin. He played 159 games, hit 25 home runs, drove in 83 runs, stole 38 bases and posted a 4.3 WAR — roughly four and a half wins above what a replacement-level player would deliver. That makes him the undisputed leader of this group in 2026. The Padres made the postseason, so the 14-year, $340 million deal he signed with San Diego still looks like one of the best bets of the past decade. The one caveat: he came out cold in the playoffs, hitting just .143 with 1 HR in 21 at-bats.
Guerrero: The Most Concerning Number
On the opposite end sits Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and the numbers sting when you remember he signed the largest extension in baseball history in 2025 — 14 years and $500 million, topping even Mike Trout’s deal with the Angels. In 2026, Guerrero put up 9 home runs, an OPS of .688 and a WAR of 1.1 in 144 games — his worst season since signing that record-breaking extension. The Blue Jays finished 77-80 and missed the postseason entirely. His average exit velocity sat at 90.3 mph and his barrel rate dropped to 6.9%, signs that something wasn’t right with his mechanics or his health for a significant stretch of the year.
Soto, Harper and Stanton: Efficiency, Consistency and 24 Games
Juan Soto had the most efficient season of the group, even if injuries limited him to just 111 games. He hit .275 with 27 home runs and an OPS of .908. His OPS+ of 154 means he was 54% more productive than the average big-league hitter — the best pure quality per plate appearance of anyone in this group. The catch: signing someone for 15 years and $765 million — the largest contract in North American sports history, closed in December 2024 — means the Mets need Soto close to 150 games a season. That didn’t happen this year.
Bryce Harper was probably the most reassuring name on the list for Philadelphia. He played all 162 games, hit 29 home runs, drove in 87 and posted an OPS of .865 with a 3.1 WAR. That’s the kind of steady, elite production that justifies a 13-year, $330 million deal. It’s not MVP-explosion Harper, but it’s a franchise cornerstone who shows up every single day.
And then there’s Giancarlo Stanton. Just 24 games, 3 home runs, a .724 OPS and a 0.1 WAR. His 13-year, $325 million contract — signed with the Marlins in 2014 and inherited by the Yankees — runs through 2027. At 36 years old with a long injury history, 24 games is too small a sample to declare a full collapse, but the pattern has been building for years. The exact reason for his 2026 absence still needs to be confirmed before drawing final conclusions.
What 2026 Actually Tells Us About Mega Deals
Codify’s table is useful for more than social media debates. It shows that even with five of the best talents in the modern game, individual-season performance can swing wildly. Tatis earned every dollar this year. Soto did too, when healthy. Harper delivered exactly what was promised. But Guerrero had his worst campaign right when the weight of half a billion dollars started feeling real, and Stanton barely poked his head out.
The lesson isn’t that long contracts are a mistake — it’s that they’re bets made on incomplete information. No team can guarantee health, form or motivation across 13, 14 or 15 years. What teams can do is look at numbers like these and remember that the value of a contract is measured in full, not in any single season. For Guerrero and the Blue Jays, 2026 was a rough year. For the rest of the deal, the clock is still running.
