Sky-high ball

Baseball is a game of lore, the beauty of a story.

In 1930, the New York Yankees paid Babe Ruth $80,000, at that time an astronomical figure for playing a working man’s game. Back then, most players needed an off-season job to help pay for milk and diapers.

When Ruth was asked how he felt about making more money than President Hoover, his response, like his glorified playing days, became legend.

“I had a better year than Hoover,” he quipped.

Today, Major League Baseball’s minimum annual salary is $490,000 -- $90,000 more than President Obama makes. And at the start of this season, there were 45 contracts worth $100 million or more, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

In 1998, the Dodgers made pitcher Kevin Brown baseball’s first $100-million man, and just two years later, Alex Rodriguez was awarded the first $200-million deal. In the last two seasons, 17 players have signed contracts that reached nine digits.

Big money, which prompts an important question:

Are those long-term mega-deals worth it?

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Baseball is a game of statistics and analysis.

Teams employ experts to crunch numbers, and the game’s executives digest all the information at their disposal and try to determine how to get the most bang for their buck.

Those executives and analysts are reticent when it comes to divulging their strategies -- several wouldn’t cooperate for this story -- but The Times’ research revealed a few things.

On average, the $100-million men are 29 in the first year of their mega-contracts, and they head into the final year of their deals at 35, according to figures from Baseball-Reference.com. And, just as soon as they put pen to contract paper, these players become targets of increased scrutiny.

“The fans’ expectations of you change,” Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez said. “You always do the same things, but when you sign a deal like that it’s almost like you should do that, plus more. But it’s understandable. If I were a fan, I’d probably be the same way.”

Gonzalez is a near-perfect statistical model for the performance of a player before and after he signs a $100-million-plus contract.

Before signing a seven-year $154-million contract at 29, Gonzalez was batting .293, while averaging 32 home runs and 103 runs batted in per 162 games. After signing the deal with Boston, through the 2012 season, Gonzalez hit .299, while averaging 18 home runs and 108 RBIs per 162 games.

The 31 position players who have signed $100-plus million contracts hit .300 and averaged 26 home runs and 91 RBIs before their big payday. Post-signing, they had hit .293 and averaged 25 home runs and 86 RBIs heading into this season.

The trend represents a slight decline due in part to injuries and age, but the average production is such that a player with those numbers wouldn’t be stealing a team’s money. And, in addition to average numbers that are All-Star caliber, the player is also driving ticket and merchandise sales.

“The demand is great; you’re going to pay an acquisition cost,” agent Scott Boras said of the teams that sign such players. “You’re going to expect to be spending dollars because that player is iconic.”

New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira (eight years, $180 million) and former Angels outfielder Vernon Wells (seven years, $126 million) are among the players who have been criticized for not living up to their contracts.

However, Teixeira’s averages over 162 games before (.290/37/122) and after signing (.263/37/117) are comparable. Wells’ numbers before (.281/27/98) and after signing (.258/27/85) follow suit.

“You cannot blame a player for taking more money than you think he is worth,” said John Thorn, MLB’s official historian. “Any fan, in their own personal situation, if he was offered five times the salary he made two weeks ago, would he say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t accept that, I’m not worth it?’ ”

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Baseball is a game of money, and enormous expectations come with those fat contracts.

Some players seem to thrive on the pressure. Milwaukee outfielder Ryan Braun (five years, $105 million) and Detroit first baseman Miguel Cabrera (eight years, $152.3 million) won MVP awards after signing $100-million contracts. Cabrera was the American League MVP last season and Braun was the National League MVP in 2011.

Albert Pujols, who was with the St. Louis Cardinals when he was NL MVP in 2005, 2008 and 2009, and Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who won the AL’s top award with Texas in 2003 and with the Yankees in 2005 and 2007, are the only other players who were MVPs after signing nine-digit deals.

On the flip side is Philadelphia first baseman Ryan Howard (five years, $125 million) and Washington outfielder Jayson Werth (seven years, $126 million), who have struggled to regain their All-Star form.

But that doesn’t mean the signing of players such as Howard and Werth represents mistakes, according to Boras.

“That doesn’t make it bad business, that this guy is not going to perform at a high level every year,” said Boras, who represented the players who inked the first $100-million (Brown) and $200-million (Rodriguez) contracts. “The owners are receiving the benefits of millions and millions of dollars in franchise value increase, season-ticket sales and cable network fees because they have the rarity of the elite players on their team.”

No pitcher has won a Cy Young Award after earning a $100-million contract. Johan Santana of the New York Mets (six years, $137 million) and former Colorado pitcher Mike Hampton are often cited as examples of pitching deals gone wrong.

Each missed two full seasons because of injuries, and because baseball contracts are guaranteed, there wasn’t anything their teams could do to recoup their investments -- unless they took out insurance. Teams can take out three-year insurance policies that can cover up to 80% of a contract, according to Sports Business Daily.

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Baseball is a game of winning, champions ruling the pantheon of history.

Since Brown signed the first nine-digit deal in 1998, only half of the last 14 World Series winners have had a $100-million player. However, the last four World Series winners have carried at least one player with such a contract.

Boras said he fielded a phone call in 2003 from Detroit owner Mike Ilitch, who wanted to build a winning team with All-Star talent. Since, the Tigers have been to two World Series in the last seven seasons, and they have a Triple Crown-winning slugger in Cabrera along with what are reportedly the highest local television ratings in MLB.

“An owner wears the loser’s hat the majority of the time. It’s hard to win,” Boras said. “If an owner takes a franchise into winning mode, his market is a wonderful place to live in.”

Despite being a lightning rod for rampant criticism, San Francisco pitcher Barry Zito is one of only three $100-million players to win multiple World Series. Pujols and former Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez are the others.

Zito has lost 13 more games than he’s won for the Giants in his seven seasons with the team, but his 15 wins were key last season as San Francisco won its second World Series in three years.

“I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t spend a lot of money to get a world championship,” Dodgers President Stan Kasten said. “All owners feel that way.”

Kasten and Thorn both said there’s no simple formula to winning, and spending more brings no guarantee.

“Take any figure you like and it’s irrelevant,” Thorn said. “The fact will always remain, you need to perform well and win.”

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andrew.gastelum@latimes.com

twitter.com/andrewgastelum

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