The waiver wire is crackling and humming, making this an optimum time to identify the worst contracts in baseball, players nobody wants because at one time so many teams coveted them that they were vastly overpaid. Funny how a player can go from priceless to pariah, sometimes only months after signing.
Waivers remind us of the most ridiculous contracts because the murky process is a lot like big fish languidly swimming far beneath the surface of the ocean. Big fish that aren’t good eating.
Players placed on waivers – which are supposed to be kept secret – often have bloated contracts no other team is willing to take on. Once a player is ignored by every team, known as passing through waivers, he can be dealt just like before the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline. 
Overspending, of course, occurs every year, and players with ridiculous price tags flow through waivers, drawing nothing more than laughs from general managers around baseball. Here are 10 players so wildly overpaid they can’t be given away, worst first:
1. Vernon Wells, Los Angeles Angels; signed through 2014, owed $48 million: Trading for Wells before the 2011 season was unfathomably stupid. The Angels gave the Blue Jays Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera and got back an $84 million albatross. Wells is one of the least-productive players in baseball, and rarely plays since Mike Trout was promoted to the big leagues. Wells’ last base hit came in May and he’s hit .219 with a .250 OBP as an Angel. He’s useless.
