Joey Votto’s contract is exhibit A that gigantic, long-term contracts can hurt a small market franchise even when the player does everything right.
Back in 2012, the Reds signed Joey Votto to a twelve year, $251 million contract. Votto was a 28 year old former MVP and two-time all-star. The Reds had a solid core of young players under control who had already won the central division in 2010. The future looked bright. So the Reds decided to lock up Votto for life.
In the six years since, Votto has lived up to his end of the bargain, earning 33.