Ha Ha: Giants Give Ex-Met Angel Pagan $40 Million

Like many, many mediocre players before him, Angel Pagan has parlayed a decent year into a huge payday — reports Monday say he has agreed to a  four-year, $40 million deal to return to the Giants. Mets fans are laughing right now.

Laughing because we know the real Pagan — the guy who showed flashes of brilliance but who ultimately will disappoint his team and its fans. The guy whose baseball IQ is so low that sometimes it looks like he is stepping onto the field for the first time. A reported clubhouse cancer who spent 2011 sulking. And the Giants get to pay $40 million for the privilege of four years of that.

I guess the Giants didn’t learn their lesson from the failed Aaron Rowand contract, but at least Pagan’s is a little smaller; Rowand got $60 million for five years. He didn’t even make the fifth year, cast aside like so many Jason Bays.

Sandy Alderson has been criticized, unfairly in my view, for trading Angel Pagan for Andres Torres and Ramon Ramirez — two stiffs who didn’t amount to anything (isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?!). But hey, at least he didn’t waste $40 million on the other stiff like the Giants did.