Zito is definitely top 5 among biggest busts in MLB history

My two teams, the Brewers and Giants, finished up their series today with the Brew Crew completing an impressive sweep of a totally un-impressive team. While Zito was busy driving his ERA towards double digits (giving up runs in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th AND 5th innings!), Sheets threw a shut-out. The juxtaposition was painful to watch, nearly as painful as writing off that $126 million is going to be. The good news for Giants fans: there's only 5 more years left in his contract.

Forget top 5. After Zito's start this season, he's making a legitimate case for "BIGGEST BUST IN MAJOR LEAGUE HISTORY." Seriously, it's hard to come up with many names in front of him.

The guy got the absolute piss beaten out of him last night. He's 0-6 with an ERA of 7.52! 7.52!!! And now the Giants announced they're sending him to the bullpen.

http://sports.espn.go....

Who is worse? Ever. All time. Any position. If, for the sake of argument, you consider a "bust" to be the worst ratio of salary to performance, then I haven't been able to find anyone worse. This article of top 5 busts shows Mike Hampton (P, Rockies) as the #1 bust http://ezinearticles.c...

But Hampton's contract was "only" $121M for 8 years (or $15.1M/yr) compared to Zito's $125M for 7 years (or $17.9M/yr) -- plus, his performance was better. His worst season was 2002 with a 7-15 record and an ERA of 6.15. The article also mentions Kevin Brown (P, Dodgers), but his $15M/yr and 6.50 ERA doesn't beat Barry.

I'm not going to adjust for inflation, but if anyone can come up with a name of a bigger bust, I'd love to hear it. Regardless, the implosion has been so complete, you almost have to feel sorry for the guy.