When referring back to the February 2004 ESPN article in which I was credited for breaking the story of Albert Pujols previous contract, discussed here on Friday, I noticed the upper right section of the ESPN webpage remained just as it was seven years ago.
The “Also See” area lists these three articles:
- Pujols’ real age should concern Cards (ESPN insider article)
- Pujols to Cardinals: I want long-term contract
- Sosa’s MVP goes to Pujols, not Bonds
Each has interest to me in a nostalgic way.
The “real age” article scolded Pujols if he was taking money under false pretenses. This storyline has dogged the first baseman off and on over his entire career, just as have unfounded rumors of use of performance enhancing drugs.
Suspicion of Pujols having falsified his age was broached in 2003, just as it was picked at recently by another ESPN writer, Rob Neyer. Like all those before him, Neyer, who days ago left the worldwide leader, had absolutely nothing of substance to back up his insinuations.
With the size of the target on Pujols’ back, if there was dirt in his past to unearth, I truly believe someone would have done it by now. In today’s media world, the only thing better than floating anonymous rumors about big game is actually taking down the beast.
The “long-term contract” story came out of the 2004 Cardinals Winter Warm-Up and includes what I believe is one of Pujols’ two most famous lines. It was spoken by Albert in reply to a question as to whether or not he would offer the Cardinals a hometown discount.
“What do you mean? This is business. There’s no break here.”
What is Pujols’ other memorable line, you ask? It was from the spring of 2009, words I highlighted just a few days ago right here at The Cardinal Nation Blog.
“It’s not about the money. I already got my money. It’s about winning and that’s it.”
The contrast between the two is most striking. The first was spoken when it was contract time. The second quote was made three years before Pujols’ current deal is to run out.
The third ESPN article, from October 2003, highlights remarks from Sammy Sosa, who like Pujols is a native of the Dominican Republic. The Cubs star asserted that the Cardinal, not Barry Bonds, deserved the 2003 National League Most Valuable Player award. Bonds had taken 28 of 32 first-place votes, soundly defeating Pujols, 426-303. Albert had yet to win his first of now-three MVPs.
Sosa’s comments caused ill will from San Francisco at the time, yet he had a point. Pujols’ outpointed Bonds in batting average by .018 and sported a whopping 34 RBI edge over the Giants’ slugger that season.
In 2003, Bonds did edge Pujols in home runs, though a marginal difference at 45 to 43. Sosa had 40 long balls that season and was celebrated for having become the first Hispanic player to reach 500 career home runs. Sosa finished at 609, seventh all-time, while Pujols currently sits in 45th with 408 home runs.
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For some reason, I kept coming back to Gordon’s article yesterday on how the Cards can afford Albert. Trying to figure out the point. His idea is to have Albert and Matt and a bunch of guys the system will develop. Well, yah. That’s been the issue with signing Albert the whole time. Earth to Jeff. . .
The other thing is that the article paints a pretty good picture of what that would be like. The Cards would be essentially a small market low payroll team trying to field 23 players on around $65M. He correctly describes how we’d have to constantly develop MLB ‘impact’ players only to see them leave as we could not afford to keep them. It would be like trotting the Royals out there with Albert every year.
The thing that gets me is, that sounds good to Gordon. “…well worth the effort to keep Albert in the Cardinal fold for life”. I’m not so sure I would want the Cardinals master plan the next decade to be finding a way each year to field a respectable team on the crumbs left over after Albert gorges on the payroll. I think it would get old pretty fast, especially as Albert’s contribution moves away from daily productivity and toward topping out career stats.
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/jeff-gordon/article_1a718420-3b76-11e0-b7fc-00127992bc8b.html
Do you get it now BB?…………….reverse psychology……… the campaign against AP is still being fought in the media………….if there had been no deadline……..it would have been conducted below the surface……….as it is, everyone will learn to recognize these articles for what they are….Gordon is carrying water for the Front Office and will continue to do so. At least he has to try to be clever in broad daylight…………..
I still think Albert will end up staying. Last winter I argued that a much better estimate of Albert’s worth from 2012 onward could be had after the 2011 season than after the 2009 season, and the same applies now. There is more uncertainty that would be coming along with an extension this winter as compared to next.
It is worth noting that no organization in baseball knows more about Albert than the Cardinals. It is a long way to the all-time numbers, a lot of innings and at-bats. They may be nervous about his ability to get there. If so, kicking the tires for another year would be smart.
Smart is relative BB……… it isn’t about baseball smarts. BD has taken a liking to this baseball business. He brought his own rules for smart. If you learn them, you will know him.
The Kingship goes to the one who can pull the sword from the stone…………. If I don’t need, it will rest there. When I leave, I will give the gang here the option of “change”. I think we have our best chance to win at this point……… 5 key guys in contract years……….. thats a good combination…….. lets hope AP becomes a team man………. volunteering to hit forth would be a start.
I think BDW is smart enough to figure out how to make a profit off of Albert.
As to Albert hitting fourth, I think we should hold off a few weeks and see what we’ve got.
Smart enough to have convinced everyone there isn’t enough revenue…….. from that posture he has many option………… why share his profits with the Dominican lad…… this is the “tip of the iceberg” smart………..
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6666/is_296_37/ai_n29355249/?tag=content;col1
Classic Westie – if the article supports BDW and what he’s (Westie) arguing it’s the guy schlepping for management, if it doesn’t support it, he’ schlepping using reverse psychology.
A big unknown is how much payroll the team is willing to bear. They won’t want to risk the revenue flow by fielding bad teams. On the other hand, even with flat revenues, they could decide to take less profit. Since no one knows the numbers behind this, it is all speculation.
If I’m not mistaken Brian, this is already a done deal. The Cardinals will offer their one and only term sheet in their window after the season….based on their perceived market position at the time. What ever that is, it will stand until January, win or ( lose ) ………. Pujols will then have to decide whether he wants to play elsewhere……….. its pretty straight forward now. Any offers over the Cardinals will be lethal……. there isn’t going to be a Christie’s style bidding war. If the big dogs are in it…….. others will shy away.
This Gordon article is an example of how they see “fan manipulation” ……….. of all the possible season outcomes………. most fall within the bounds of the “unremarkable”. BD, I believe has gotten rid of AP………. Albert is just trying to keep his mythology in tact…….thats why he is so relaxed……………there is bad blood…….
Deciding to take less profit seems unreasonable since it is a business, and owners would have the objective of maximizing return on investment.
Paying Albert big bucks would, seems to me, have the same effect… lowering the bottom line profit coming out of ownership’s pocket.
Except sometimes spending more makes more. Maybe not in terms of the next years cash flow, but in terms of value of the franchise, etc. Increasing the organization’s footprint nationally, growing the audience, all that stuff that turns into money somehow.
It seems that the strategy would be making less in the short term so not to be strapped by an AP contract in the long term that could cause them to make even less still or even lose money. A risk averse strategy. IT also would assume they could build back up the goodwill and winning over time.
I just can’t see letting the biggest draw in baseball walk away. I also think Albert wants to stay where he is king.
The most that could be gleened from whatever ‘lowball’ offer Mo made is that the Cards didn’t want to sign him this winter. Not, as Westy theorizes, that they don’t want to sign him at all.
Likewise, all that can be known by Albert’s ‘greedy’ demands is that he didn’t want to sign this winter. After all, once he signs, the drama is over, and nobody has to kiss his butt anymore. Until then, he rules.
On what basis do you say that Albert is the biggest draw in baseball? The Card’s road attendance last year was the same as the Mets and eclipsed by 10% by the Reds. Sounds like Joey Votto and a bunch of no-name pitchers are a bigger draw than Pujols, Holliday, Carpenter, and Wainwright.
Good point.
It could also be overachievers in a good baseball town (Reds) and underachievers in a massive market (Mets) outdrawing the underachieving Cards.
And the Astros who out drew us and the Pirates who were only a couple of hundred a game less? Yeah, that Pujols guy really draws them in.
Road attendance is not much of a differentiator. Comparing the best of the 16-team NL to the worst, the difference in road attendance was less than 300K over the entire season. The difference between best and worst at home was over 2,000,000.
bb — I had the same feeling reading that article this morning, only I wasn’t as polite to Jeff as you were.
We tried that strategy somewhat last year and it bombed.
Gordo is carrying water, as usual, for Jeff Luhnnow…
More interesting was the article about giving AP a piece of team ownership. That, IMO, is likely the only way a deal gets done that would be acceptable to ownership… one that allows them to keep a reasonable level of team payroll and not have such a large percentage of it going to one player.
I did some research yesterday on percentage of team payroll consumed by A-Rod, Howard and Pujols last year.
A-Rod made $32M plus some bonus money, part of $10M in bonus that is being spread out over a number of years. Without the bonus, he consumed 15% of the Yanks $213.36M payroll.
Ryan Howard made $19M last year, which is a bit less than 14% of the Phils $138.178M payroll. With his salary only bumpin up to $20M the next two years, and adding in Lee for this year, his percentage should probably drop.
Albert made $16M of the Cards $94.221M payroll, about 17%. Just for grins, if he was to make $30M with a payroll of $110M, that would be 27%, and if payroll was increased to $120M, it would still be 25%.
Last time I looked, Cards were committed to just under $107 for 2011. That did not include the raises for guys that the team sets as they please, which haven’t yet been reported.
If anything, I’d say he’s putting unwarented pressure on Luhnow and Vuch – [ossibly setting them up for a fall (assuming Gordo is smart enough to have an agenda – don’t know him but the insights in his writing haven’t impressed me as overly deep or intelligent).
CC — We agree on Gordon… not the sharpest knife in the drawer… and a big booster of Jeff Luhnow and the farm system.
Cool photo, Albert looks so relaxed.
A slice of team ownership would be great if that could work out. Wonder which ownership partner(s)
would be willing to lower their percentage of ownership??
I’m not convinced that the resulting production of paying three guys 10 million each would equal the production of Pujols at 30 million.
The big question in my mind is can Pujols continue to perform at this high level thru all the nagging injuries, if he can keep playing without serious injury problems–I think his production level will continue similar to his first 10 seasons.
Matthew Leach reports:
“La Russa contemplating hitting Colby Rasmus second”.
He also states there is “virtually no way that Yadier Molina or David Freese will hit in the top two positions.”
Really? I wonder who has been suggesting that all winter…
Cleverly throwing the opposition off the track. LaGenius.
Someone more interested in the details than I am can break the numbers down, but a writer at Gas House Graphs did an analysis of Pujols’ value and drew the conclusion that waiting to sign him isn’t necessarily a bad financial decision:
“This seems to indicate that the team would have only gained by signing Pujols after 2009 if they had been able to sign him to a shorter and slightly smaller deal. By extending him at 8 years and $200 M prior to last season rather than extending him at the A-Rod deal after this season, the team would have gained about $30 M in surplus value. If, however, Pujols was determined to get the A-Rod deal either way, the team would have likely gained nothing – or very little, anyway – by extending him prior to the 2010 season. That surprises me. I expected that waiting would have been a losing proposition regardless of the size of the deal but that doesn’t appear to be the case.”
After reading and re-reading the linked article, and a previous article on Albert’s projected WAR production which the linked article relies on for data, my head feels all egg shaped.
What I get from it is a contract after the 2011 season is better value for the team than the same contract after the 2009 season would have been.
The reason is that by waiting the team gaines a huge surplus value in 2010 and 2011 when Albert is working for far less than the market value of his services. The deficit in the later years of a contract will be greater having waited because Albert will be two years older and his production correspondingly less, but that greater deficit will be less than the huge surplus from 2010 and 2011 when Albert is working for cheap in his prime.
The article correctly points out that the team would have benefitted from signing Albert after 2009 or this winter only if Albert would have accepted a lesser deal.
To me, your last sentence is the key – a point I have been hammering for months.
Those who have been critical of ownership for having a flawed and failed strategy make a HUGE assumption that no one knows is true – that Pujols would have given up his considerable contract leverage by accepting a lower deal early on.
It made no sense to me then and still does not now. All the Howard, etc. talk is just noise. A-Rod’s deal has been there all along as the record to beat.
Ok, then do you believe the Cardinals will pay 10/300? If they do, they are stupid.
No one knows the Cardinals’ ceiling, but if I had to guess, I would say no. There may be other factors in the deal as well that would make a straight dollars/years comparison uneven.
Well, if Pujols won’t accept less than 10/300 then he will walk. If the Cardinals know this then that would explain why no deal. If Pujols would accept an offer with higher AAV but less total dollars than the Arod deal then why didn’t the Cardinals offer that? Do they expect Pujols to take less AAV than the Arod deal? You suggest that he wouldn’t. Why wait until the end of the season when some team offers him 10/300? Some team will offer more than the Cardinals are willing to pay. If Pujols would accept less to stay with the Cardinals, then why not make the offer he would accept before ST instead of when he becomes a FA and they get into a bidding war with other teams? What am I missing here?
Maybe you are missing that Pujols is stuck on getting both the highest AAV and highest overall contract of all time (both). As well as he may want a bidding war – he may think he’ll get more than 10/300.
Way too many assumptions for me. It is highly unlikely that either side knows the other’s true position in terms of what they would accept.
Based on DeWitt’s comments, it appears the Cardinals strategy has included trying to expand the scope of the deal beyond a simple dollars and years view.
Whether Pujols will accept that and how he might value those elements remains to be seen, though as an example, I recall at least one report suggested that the Pujols camp brought up the idea of partial ownership. Clearly that would be in lieu of money.
If he simply wants the most cash per year and the most number of years and that is all that matters, then he may suspect he will be playing elsewhere next year. In that case, all the “I want to be a Cardinal forever” talk would seem inappropriately optimistic, but at least it would perhaps help keep the noise level down during the season.
I see it as smart negotiating on Pujols’ part. Wait as long as possible for the price to go up as high as possible before deciding whether or not to remain.
If all Pujols cares about is top dollar (both in AAV and total dollars) then he is a phony and a liar and Cardinals fans should tell him to not let the door hit his ass on the way out.
Smart negotiating strategy if you don’t care about leaving a legacy or about public opinion or any of the other intangibles.
We are caught up in the moment. There was a lot of angst when Boras sent Holliday out into the market, too, but that has long since been forgotten. If Pujols re-signs, so will these interim ups and downs pass.
True. But if Pujols leaves for the highest bidder, there won’t be any angst from me.
I don’t see it as a matter of negotiating strategy crdswmn.
If Albert wants to take on the risk involved in waiting to sign until he can get top dollar, then the offer of a discounted deal in exchange for the Cards taking on the risk would have no appeal.
If DeWit doesn’t want to pay top dollar and take the risk too, then there is no possibility of a deal until next winter.
Albert has already made $100M, so he and his family are set, so the risk involved in waiting may not mean much to him. So he’s unwilling to cut his price. But it means a lot to DeWit so he’s unwilling to take it on for free.
Under those circumstances, it makes sense to wait until next winter when the ‘risk valuation’ issue is not an insurmountable barrier. I don’t see where that makes either side a bad guy or a good guy. I also don’t see where it means Albert doesn’t want to stay or DeWit wants him to go.
I’m not placing blame on anyone yet. I will wait and see what happens. I am just having trouble seeing how the Cardinals win letting Pujols become a FA.
All of which supports the idea that just because the Cards didn’t make an offer he couldn’t refuse this winter doesn’t mean they won’t do it next year. A point a lot of the national media ignores as they figure Albert as good as gone.
Like I said responding to Westy yesterday “The most that could be gleened from whatever ‘lowball’ offer Mo made is that the Cards didn’t want to sign him this winter. Not, as Westy theorizes, that they don’t want to sign him at all. “
I had recently read a couple things in the Wall Street Journal looking at the Albert contract issue. A couple quotes:
“Using a standard aging curve, Mr. Pujols is expected to produce about 48 WAR over the next 10 years, and estimating future salary inflation at 5% a year, those wins would be worth $286 million. That’s above the $275 million the Yankees gave Mr. Rodriguez in a 10-year deal after the 2007 season.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657104576142452463234220.html
“What if something happens to Pujols when he’s 36, and the Cardinals are on the hook for $150 million while getting little or no performance on the field?” SB Nation’s Rob Neyer writes. “The Yankees could make a $275 million commitment because they can, if necessary, eat a big chunk of that $275 million and all you’ll hear is a mild burp. But something like that could cripple the Cardinals for years.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2011/02/16/deadline-day-for-pujols/
I think that article is kind of pointless – it compares a deal that would have replaced the one he had in place. I don’t think that was ever a realistic consideration. And of course if you are going to give an ARod Deal either way, it makes sense (for the club) to wait as long as possible to reduce their risk of sudden downturn or injury.
Albert had reason to sign at a lower price early- both financial and personal. He locks himself in and insulates himself from injury and also allows him to reduce any uncertainty about his personal life. HE chose not to reduce those risk and it may pay off for him but if I’m ownership I dont assume those risk for him without a discount. Of course that might not have satisfied the ego portion of being the highest paid palyer if that is a truly a factor.
The 3rd question is the 5% inflation value. Do player salaries go up 5% a year for the next 10 years? I wouldn’t make that bet if I were the Cardinal ownership. IF I truly think that salaries will rise 60% + over the next 10 years I’m locking everybody up as long as possible!
The article and also the WSJ article doesn’t factor in Albert’s value other than the value of his daily production. His WAR might be worth $8M at best when he’s 40 but if he’s chasing Hank or the Babe, that adds value not reflected in WAR.
Off topic.
The Seattle Mariners will be playing a regular season game at Safeco Field in Seattle under National League rules, with no DH. They will be playing three such games, in June. The reason is that the three game series is being played in Seattle against the Marlins in inter-league play and the Marlins are the home team, so NL rules apply.
The series was scheduled to be played in Florida at the Marlins home field, but the team rented out the stadium for a U2 concert so the games were moved to Seattle, with the Marlins remaining the ‘home team’.
Right. Amazing that a Marlins/Mariners matchup isn’t perceived as a draw, huh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY5hhsLBuC8