Werth's carreer through age 31 compares unfavorably to that of J.D. Drew. According to Baseball-Reference, is most closely matches that of Brad Hawpe, whoever he is.
I think Washington choked on this one. They think they are on the brink of becoming Washington's team with Strasburg and the rookie with the Kiss makeup, but they panicked when they got some adverse fan reaction from losing Dunn to free agency. I remember when the Washington Wizards got lambasted for "losing" Juan Howard to Miami, so when the league struck down his contract, Washington took advantage of that opportunity to overpay Howard by tens of millions of dollars - a decision they would regret for years to come.
Not only did they choke on this one, but pissed off EVERY SINGLE OWNER in MLB! Every single agent started licking his lips after that deal. Then you wonder why I will NEVER EVER side with owners, because of dumb ass signings like this! HOW can you go crying "poverty" and then do THIS??!! Don't get me wrong,
Werth is a nice player...but this is a franchise, building-a-team-around-a-guy type money. Crazy....