SI's Jon Heyman leads his latest column with a discussion of the Albert Pujols situation, which is due to flare up once the season ends. Heyman's sources say the Cardinals are "not overly confident" about retaining Pujols. Heyman hears the Cardinals are not inclined to increase their offer much from nine years and around $210MM, although the SI writer thinks the team could reduce the number of years to boost the average annual value past the $23MM range. Heyman hears Pujols is "not overly thrilled" that the Cardinals' offer last winter wouldn't place him in the top ten among MLB player salaries, though by my count there are only five players currently averaging $23MM or more as their AAV.
Heyman has plenty more musings on the Pujols topic in the column; here are a few other highlights…
- The Pirates intend to extend the contract of GM Neal Huntington. He says the Bucs have waited for the draft and trade deadlines to pass. Huntington was hired four years ago.
- "There are some who could see" Rangers ace C.J. Wilson "wanting to go to his native Southern California." Heyman views the Angels as a threat for Wilson.
- Heyman says Angels people suggest they would have been willing to resume extension talks with Jered Weaver next year if they hadn't reached a deal by the team's deadline this year.
- The Twins are interested in re-signing reliever Joe Nathan, though they won't be picking up his $12MM option.
$210M? Seriously? Oh brother, what is this world coming to?
Coming to? Have you not been paying attention to rising salaries over the last 15-20 years? AP is and maybe should get paid in accordance with the salary fitting a player of his stature, talent, revenue source, accomplishments, and projections with his given profession. Maybe you object to the state of salaries in general in professional sports, but there is nothing outlandish about that particular salary, nor is it somehow a new kind of development.
And that is why it costs me $300 to take my family to a ballgame.
It costs $300 to take your family to a ballgame because teams can get away with charging you that. You, or enough people like you, are paying it. The players are getting a share of that money, not driving it.
So you think only the people who own baseball teams should enjoy the revenue? Do you know how much money the Cardinals make because of Pujols, both directly and indirectly?
Wal-Mart enjoys the revenue and last I heard they don’t give out $210M dollar contracts. Microsoft enjoys the revenue as well as Apple. I could go on.
If mgmt would stop handing out these riduculous contracts, salaries would go down as well as prices and I wouldn’t have to sell a kidney to see a MLB game.
When prices go down, so does revenue. The percentages should stay about the same.
“If mgmt would stop handing out these riduculous contracts, salaries
would go down as well as prices and I wouldn’t have to sell a kidney to
see a MLB game.”
show your work. what reason in the world is there to believe this would happen? why would it? “we owners have decided we would like less profits”
Owners getting together to decide to reduce salaries in order to keep costs down is called collusion. And it’s illegal. The owners got caught doing it in the 1980’s, and it led to the ownership-player divide that resulted in the 1994 strike. So let’s not go down that road again.
Baseball teams make tons of money based on the work of the players. It makes sense that the players share some of it. If you think prices are too high, don’t go to games. If too many people think prices are too high, it will be self-correcting. If only you think prices are too high, and everyone else continues to buy tickets? Well, be happy they show baseball on TV.
Player salaries are a component cost and have nothing to do with the prices charged to go see a game, eat at the concession stands or buy a Rally Monkey (or whatever sad mascot your team has). What drives the cost of a game from a fan’s perspective is the fact that fans are willing to pay that much money.
If anything, the fans who are willing to pay tons of money to watch a game and the networks who are willing to pay billions of dollars for tv contracts are driving the steeper trajectory of baseball player salaries. If fans stopped watching then players (and owners) would make less money and the cost of going to a game would drop.
Dewitt is a Billionaire with or without Pujols…….. If he wants every last $$$$,,,, go place somewhere else.
But he’s not owning a winning baseball team without Pujols. Baseball owners aren’t just in it for the money, they want the glory of owning a championship team.
Winning/championship teams also make much, much, much more money.
Right, the Cardinals are worth less without Pujols. Winning teams make money. Pujols has done a huge part to make that team win, and his departure will do a lot to make them lose.
heyman’s “not overly eloquent”
Half the things Heyman says is a pile of s***. Of course the Angels could be a threat, but Texas will pay more than anyone else will.
Pujols os complaining about 210 million? good lord baseball needs a salary cap
Remington – I have a longtime on-line friend from down in Texas (she runs an oil-rigging company down there) that knows Albert personally, and she says he’s all about the money.
Why would someone who runs a oil company know Albert Pujols?
Albert Pujols works on oil rigs in the offseason for extra money. Duh.
Matt – well, she not only knows Albert, she knows Roger Clemens and his wife, and AFraud, and Jeter, as well as Bud Selig, personally.
and I have friends that are in the Pujols family, that is NOT the word I get !
Yea? Well I am Albert Pujols and I love money. So beat that.
Well I am money and Albert has never shown me the sort of love that Arod did.
Yeah, completely agree. It would be so much better for Albert to only get 80 mil and the owners to simply put the other 130 million in their pockets because clearly people pay to be entertained by the owners, not all those guys with funny looking clothes swinging those odd shaped sticks.
Stadium was full before AP & will be full when he leaves…. Good Bye Forever.
What’s that got to do with anything?
It means he won’t be missed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Still not seeing what that has to do with anything I said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let me make this crystal clear….. People pay to see the St. Louis Cardinals. Not Albert Pujols.
Thanks for clarifying I guess. I’m sure people would still go to the the Cards without Pujols there (though I do think less people would go, particularly if they start losing a lot of games) but I would be willing to bet that if they don’t have to spend that money on Pujols the majority of it will end up in their pockets, not put back into the team in other places.
Ding Ding Ding Most Cardinal fans have this fantasy that if we don’t bring Pujols back we have $30MM/year to distribute through the rest of the team to improve. That won’t happen. If Albert leaves we will be looking at basically the same Cardinals team as this year minus Pujols.
Yeah, I think so too. They could potentially try for Fielder with that money, but my money would be on them bringing Berkman back as a 1st baseman and leaving the rest of the team pretty much the same.
Let me make this crystal clear for you 50 year fan.
I would say that it may be 60% pay to see the cards and 40% pay to see albert, but no albert means much less winning which means less fans thru the turnstiles in general so losing albert will be as much as half of the fans may be gone from live games.
Yay! Cardinal Nation should be thrilled that Bill Dewitt Jr. will be loaded with even more cash while we let the best player that has been here in my lifetime leave town. Go Owners!
Baseball: The only sport where one “bad” season after being insane for 10 costs you $100MM and still break the bank.
haha, even in his “bad” season he has a 5 WAR by the start of september and leads the NL in HRs. Albert’s sweet.
I think you should go check out that “bad” season. Maybe that’s the exact reason he will still break the bank. Because this very good season, is “bad” in Albertland.
Maybe that’s why I put the word “bad” in quotes.
Albert will still get a nice haul of benjamins, but $210MM is looking far more realistic than $300MM.
Agree. But, I’m not sure he would of hit $300MM no matter what kind of season he had. Albert is great, but he is playing the easiest position to fill(besides DH). Just not enough needs on big market teams for him to get the 300MM
Pretty much how I’ve always felt about Pujols. The objective of a team is to get more value than what you pay for, and $300MM was just utter ridiculousness from the first time it was mentioned.
While a .916 OPS, .389 wOBA, and on pace for about 5.7 fWAR is an amazing season to have, it’s extremely low for the guy. Is he worth $23MM+ AAV now? Maybe, but not for 8 years anymore he isn’t–at least not to me.
This trade rumor is really nothing but censorship, figures they would not post my last comment about Heyman, There goes your FREE speech !! So for sure this will never see the day of light !
I love the people that throw around the “free speech” crap all the time and they have no idea what Free Speech really means.
The framers of the Constitution clearly meant that anyone could say anything they wanted about anyone else with total anonymity and impunity at no charge on a web site owned by somebody else. Or do you hate America?
Free speech- the ability to swear, be tough and a general d bag, all while hiding behind a screen……just like our fore fathers envisioned.
Wow, we clunked heads on that one.
only way i can see the angels going after Wilson is if they trade either Haren or Santana (unless they want to increase payroll). Im not a fan of Heyman, but i think there is definitely some truth to Wilson wanting to play in SoCal. He is still very much involved in the community and the Jr. college he went to. Would be great, but as was said by a previous comment, i cant see the Rangers letting him get away.
How would you like to see, on your team, a 40 year old first baseman making $30MM/season? If I owned a team and had as much money as I needed, there is no way I would ever sign AP to a 8-10 year contract. He declined a little this year, although they are great numbers for any other player, but that is a little concerning. Maybe not a big issue, but an issue nonetheless. If he has 5 years/$150MM left and is a shell of what he used to be, well then my team is pretty much screwed for the next 5 years.
The risk is not worth the reward in this case. I’m gonna have to pass for the future of my ball club. Unless I can get him for 5 years, but we all know that probably ain’t gonna happen.
Pujols and Fielder have a HUGE problem. Virtually every potential big bidder either has a highly paid 1b stud (Boston and Bankee), or they’re so cash strapped (Dodgers, Mets, Angels) they can’t afford a massive contract. I think Texas makes a big play for Fielder. They’re the only team I can think of besides St. Louis that (A) has a need at 1b, (B) has $ too spend, and (C) is a likely contender next year. Maybe the Nationals, but I think Prince wants the $, and he wants a ring, and the Nationals are far from that right now.
CJ is definitely a SOCAL surfer kind of Dude, but I don’t see how the Angels can afford CJ, not even taking into account that hitting and the bullpen are their weaknesses. Adding one more ace to a sucky offense probably isn’t the best way to spend $100 million. As if they had that $ to spend. Until they’re out from under the Hunter and Wells deals, they’re not making huge moves unless it’s a trade. I’m betting the Bankees will pay whatever it takes to get CJ Wilson, but there’s a real chance CJ stays in Texas because he likes the more laid back atmosphere there versus the hyper critical media and all the egos the Yankees have. but Texas won’t come close to the Yankee’s bid.
If the Dodgers got sold real fast, CJ would be probably go there if the deal was somewhat close to what the Bankees will pay, but I don’t see the Dodger situation being settled by then.