The biggest news of the offseason thus far is that the New York Mets signed Juan Soto to a mind-boggling, 15-year contract worth $765 million. So, Major League Baseball officially has reached the point where a team has committed over three-quarters of a billion dollars to one player.

Upon hearing the news of Soto’s contract, I couldn’t decide which aspect of the deal flabbergasted me more, the money or the length of the contract. At 15 years, this is the longest contract in the history of the game. Soto is 26 years old, which means he will be 41 by the time he collects his final paycheck from this contract.

According to an article by Sarah Langs on MLB.com, there have been 28 contracts of 10 or more years in the history of MLB. Reading the accounts of how most of these deals turned out makes me wonder why any team would commit to a player for that many years.

Back in the fall of 1976, the Cleveland Indians signed Wayne Garland to the first-ever 10-year contract; it was worth $2.3 million. Garland went 13-19 in his first year with Cleveland, and then early in 1978 he underwent surgery for a torn rotator cuff and was out of baseball by the end of the 1981 season. Garland went 28-48 with a 4.50 earned run average over the first five years of the contract, and Cleveland paid him for the next five years even though he never pitched another inning in the major leagues.

Richie Zisk was the first position player to get a 10-year contract. He signed with the Texas Rangers for $2.75 million after the 1977 season. Zisk ended up playing just three years with the Rangers before they somehow pawned him off on the Seattle Mariners. He played three seasons with the Mariners and then drew $272.5K a year for the next four seasons without ever playing another game.

Zisk’s situation was the first case of a team offloading a big contract. Quite often after committing to a player for a huge sum of money, the team realizes they cannot afford to sign any more decent players, so they deal the player and his contract to a richer team, usually the New York Yankees.

The Rangers signed Álex Rodríguez to a 10-year deal worth $232 million in 2001. Despite having three great seasons, the Rangers traded him to the Yankees to get out from under the financial burden of his contract.

Then there’s Giancarlo Stanton. The Miami Marlins gave him a 13-year contract worth $325 million following the 2014 season. After only three years, the Yankees once again came calling and took on Stanton’s contract. With the Bronx Bombers, Stanton has settled into the role of the slow, oft-injured designated hitter, and his batting averages for the last three seasons were .211, .191, and .233.

While Soto is a dangerous hitter, his deal is not without potential problems. Soto’s defensive skills have him on the fast track to becoming a full-time designated hitter. And who knows how well he’ll be hitting once he turns 35.

But the Mets should not despair. If things don’t work out, maybe they can send Soto up the East River. After all, the Yankees only have to pay Stanton for three more seasons.

And one more thing about Soto’s contract. It’s the latest thing that has me wondering how much longer I can keep following baseball. What does it say about us as a society when we support an entity that pays yet another person $51 million a year to play a game?