The Boston Red Sox failed to come to an agreement with first basemen Adrian Gonzalez today on a contract extension.
The botched deal comes on the heels of a potential blockbuster trade with the San Diego Padres agreed to earlier in the week. The Red Sox would have sent top prospects Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo and Reymond Fuentes plus a player to be named later to San Diego in exchange for Gonzalez.
Gonzalez will make $5.5 million in 2011, in what was supposed to be his final season before becoming a free agent. The Red Sox attempted to negotiate an extension with the slugger, but the two sides couldn’t agree on an appropriate figure. But how much is Gonzalez actually worth?
The only way to answer that question is to see what baseball’s other elite first basemen are being paid and how they were performing at the time that they signed their contracts. So with that, here’s a look at the other monster contracts that the game’s top first basemen have signed in recent years.