Its late, but you raised a subject I was a little curious about. The truth is, baseball players by and large do NOT make out like bandits with endorsements. Consider the “Fortunate 50” as identified by Sports Illustrated.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/specials/fortunate50/index.html

You’ll find of the top 50 pro athletes in the US today, 10 are from baseball. These players are in order of endorsement moolah:

1. Derek Jeter (NY) $8,000,000
2. Alex Rodriguez (NY) $6,000,000
3. Albert Pujols (STL) $3,500,000
4. Manny Ramirez (TBD) $2,500,000
5. Jason Giambi (NY) $500,000
6. Torii Hunter (LA) $500,000
7. Carlos Delgado (NY) $500,000
8. Andy Pettit (NY) $500,000
9. Todd Helton (CO) $300,000
10. Jason Schmidt (LA) $250,000

What does this tell us? It suggests there are benefits to being in a large market like New York or LA. But it ALSO tells me that baseball players are not making huge money off endorsements. The dropoff after the mega-talents is mighty steep. For someone lucky enough to get a local endorsement, its pennies on the dollar. Remember, minimum salaries these days are $390K.

As for your other question, the “intangibles” of a city, there may be something there. It certainly seems to affect some players like CC Sabathia, who loves the west coast. Sometimes players will give their hometown team a small discount. But again, these are all professionals out to make their fortune.

I hope that Miller and other athletes look at St. Louis favorably. It IS a good town to play baseball in, with positive, knowledgeable fans. But its a marginal edge at best.

has to do with the fact that St. Louis is a historic fanchise. I’m just speculating, but players with no trade clauses seem more likely to want to come to St. Louis. Take Peavy. His short list of teams includes the Cardinals. This also probably has to do with the fact that the Cardinals are viewed as a winning team. I think the best “recruiting” that the Cardinals can do is to keep winning because most* players care about winning.

*See Affeldt, Jeremy

… what’s the p that MLB players understand NPV? their agents might, but agents get paid a %, so their job is to maximize the raw dollar amount regardless of NPV or cost of living.

We can easily speculate that money is the most important aspect, after all, baseball is their job. I’d assume, however, that once a player has been around long enough to earn plenty of money, he’d put winning a championship at the top of his list.

As far as intangibles, all I can say is that if it were me, I’d certainly prefer living in a big city, with lots of excitement, like New York or Chicago, over a place like Kansas City or Cleveland.