Pujols is Hurt

by rrvwmr on Dec 11, 2011 9:55 PM EST

I've had a difficult time digesting the news that Albert Pujols signed with the Angels last week. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach for days. I SHOULD be happy right now. The Cardinals just gave us a World Series win, and I got to enjoy Game 6 from the seats of the stadium. But I cannot enjoy that now. Who cares if the Cardinals win 8-10 years from now? The missing piece of my baseball puzzle is watching the greatest player of my generation (I'll ignore Bonds for now) finish his career as a Cardinal and then go on to get the Stan Musial treatment for the rest of his life. I'd have that, those memories, for the rest of my life.

Instead, business has triumphed. I am a businessman. I know it is a horrible contract. I know it may have crippled the franchise. I get why the Cardinals ownership's bid wasn't enough. But now, I see Albert Pujols introduced as an Angel, and I can only ask why did this happen? Is it money? Pride? Is it the team? Was it LaRussa? Matheny? Mozeliak? Arte Moreno? Jerry DiPoto? Dan Lozano or the players union? Was it the weather in California? My only hope was that Pujols might shed some light on it at his introductory press conference so I could get back to sleeping 8 hours per night...and this is what I got:

"I wanted to make sure that it wasn't a decision [I made] because I was feeling hurt."

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=20027675

Not physically hurt. Emotionally hurt. He mentioned he cried over this decision. So why not make the easy decision and stay with the Cardinals?

Money, Pride, and Alex Rodriguez

Pujols has never seemed like a person out for the last dollar and the money on the table from the Marlins was substantially better, especially when considering the differential tax treatment. So it couldn't have just been about the money. Maybe Albert felt he had to beat the free agent contract Alex Rodriguez' signed for 10 years/$252 million. While it appears he did beat this, A-Rod still has the heftiest contract at 10 years/$275 million.

The Team, LaRussa, and Mike Matheny

In St. Louis, the 2012 Cardinals looked to be as competitive as ever with Pujols at first. Tony LaRussa has retired and Mike Matheny has stepped in to manage the Cardinals. Pujols claimed when interviewed by the MLB network that this did not affect his decision.

Arte Moreno and Jerry DiPoto

The Angels owner and GM had a tremendous affect on this decision. Pujols spoke about how Arte Moreno really acted like he wanted him. Harold Reynolds asked if he and Moreno spoke in Spanish or English when discussing the deal. Pujols answered English, but made it very clear how comfortable he felt with Moreno. Now I think Albert Pujols is a smart guy, but he should know that a good salesman can make you feel however he wants over the course of a few conversations in a 2 day span.

John Mozeliak, Cardinals Ownership, and Dan Lozano

It is good to feel loved and needed. After a World Series championship where David Freese, Chris Carpenter, Allen Craig (w/ his turtle), Lance Berkman, and a rally squirrel placed ahead of Pujols in theoretical World Series MVP voting, Pujols didn't feel quite like the cog of this feel good story. Mozeliak and company let Pujols walk out the door and shop for the best deal. Maybe they thought that without the Yankees and Red Sox, there would not be any real players. Maybe they thought they'd get to match whatever offer Pujols found. Maybe they thought they might still even get a hometown discount. Maybe the damage was already done in the last round of negotiations. Maybe Dan Lozano didn't shield his client from the difficulties and complexities of negotiating a deal of such historic proportions.

I think fundamentally John Mozeliak under appreciated the asset he had in Albert Pujols and drastically underestimated his competition. It wasn't just their willingness to spend, but he missed that other teams had a chance to bring in the greatest player of this generation. The greatest player, a Latin American baseball Diety...in Miami...in Los Angeles...this is a salesman's dream. (Did I mention that Arte Moreno majored in marketing?) Pujols WAS feeling hurt. It wasn't his elbow, plantar fasciitis, or UCL. It was his heart. Arte Moreno sold him in 2 days better than John Mozeliak did in two years.

After watching his podium speech and interview, I didn't get the impression that Pujols got the warm welcome he expected. He paused a couple times in his speech, seemingly for the crowd to erupt into cheers, but there was only a sliver of the appreciation he was used to from the St. Louis faithful. Hopefully, Arte Moreno and a few million bucks can make up the rest.

Poll

What/who do you think had the biggest effect on Pujols decision?

The Money

223 votes

John Mozeliak

28 votes

Arte Moreno

36 votes

Tony Larussa

6 votes

A-Rod, Dan Lozano, Mike Matheny, or other

20 votes

313 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

With incentives, Pujols can make $280M.

2011 - Year of Our Berk

by spants on Dec 12, 2011 12:54 AM EST reply actions

I think

Albert didn’t get what he thought was the Cardinals should offer him for an entire career. He’s been the greatest thing since sliced bread for a nominal amount of money. I think it is reasonable for Albert Pujols to expect the Cardinals to pony up and pay him the going rate to finish his career here. I also think that Albert meant what he said about wanting to stay in St Louis. St. Louis just wasn’t willing to match the best offer for the best player. I side with ALbert on this one and I’m disappointed in the Cardinal org for not playing to the fans.
The money that the Cardinals have made because of Albert, in my opinion, coupled with his icon status as a Cardinal, should justify paying him.

Baseball statistics are like a girl in a bikini. They show a lot, but not everything. ~Toby Harrah, 1983

by Dave Pendleton on Dec 12, 2011 2:15 AM EST reply actions

I think you might have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word "nominal" means.

It’s not like Albert was making the league minimum for all 11 years he was here. After his third year, he signed an 8-year extension for something on the order of $115 million dollars. It was, at the time, roughly the fifth or sixth largest contract in baseball. It was unprecedented for a third-year player. Yes, the Cardinals received a lot of surplus value from the contract. Yes, Pujols may have felt he was underpaid by that contract. But no, the amount of money he made wasn’t nominal – to suggest that the Cardinals somehow wrongly took advantage of Albert is disingenuous at best. He received the largest-ever payday in history for a player in his position at the time. Was his ability to negotiate limited by the free agency structure set by the CBA? Sure, but no one forced him to sign the deal – he could have played out his arbitration years and gotten his ginormous(er) payday five years earlier than he did.

I don’t begrudge Albert his decision to follow the money at all; if someone offered me 25% more than the next largest bidder for my services, I wouldn’t think twice about jumping ship. I also don’t think, however, that the Cardinals had any obligation to essentially let Albert dictate to them what he should make and they certainly didn’t do him a disrespect him – objectively – by offering him what would have been the largest deal in franchise history, for the second time, and the largest non-Alex Rodriguez deal in MLB history.

Makin' toast!

DING

Butterin' toast!

by dronemc on Dec 12, 2011 11:44 AM EST up reply actions 2 recs

I think you got it exactly right.

Albert’s entitled to it and he doesn’t have to apologize for it.

What he doesn’t get to do though, is take the money and then claim it wasn’t all about the money.

It is especially irksome that he would disrespect his millions of loyal fans by claiming that he wasn’t loved. He WAS loved in Saint Louis. By millions of fans. But by his own account, his anger at DeWitt and Mozeliak trumps all of that.

That is not greatness.

It’s not even grown up.

Albert Pujols has revealed himself to be (outside the batter’s box) and very small man.

I’ll miss his bat. The rest? Not so much.

by Plowboy on Dec 12, 2011 11:20 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs