Diamondbacks’ $52.5 million free agent signing ranked 5th-best in MLB history originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

A four-year contract that leads to four Cy Young awards — tough to do a whole lot better than that.

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That’s what the Arizona Diamondbacks got when they signed Randy Johnson in free agency.

ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle is using the 50th anniversary of free agency as an excuse to rank the best and worst free agent contracts of all time.

For Johnson and the Diamondbacks, he has given the No. 5 best signing ever.

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The only reason the Big Unit isn’t higher is that he then left Arizona when his contract was up. The guys above him signed extensions with the teams that originally signed them, making their tenures in the new place longer.

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Johnson, though, won those aforementioned four Cy Young awards, and he led the Diamondbacks to a 2001 World Series title over the New York Yankees.

His four-year, $52.5 million contract was a huge one at the time. It entirely worked out.

“This signing worked out pretty well,” Doolittle wrote as part of his new article on Friday. “If you just focus on the four guaranteed seasons of the original pact, Johnson won NL Cy Young Awards in all of them. His lowest strikeout total during those years was 334. He averaged 9.5 bWAR, 20.4 wins and 354 whiffs. It’s a four-year run as good as any pitcher has ever had. All of this with the Diamondbacks, who when they signed the Big Unit were coming off their 97-loss inaugural season as a franchise. Johnson would be named co-MVP of Arizona’s 2001 World Series victory over the Yankees.”

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Johnson’s dominance may have been slightly underappreciated at the time because he was playing in the desert, but at the end of each season, the award voters certainly knew he was worthy.

Then his performance in the Fall Classic stamped him as truly the game’s preeminent pitcher of that era.

The Diamondbacks couldn’t have asked for his contract to work out any better.

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