forsberg_us wrote:

The story was that Pujols told Chad he had suggested 5/$125M at some point before Howard's deal. Did it happen, I don't know. I've never seen a single report suggesting such an offer was ever made.

I don't think Chad intentionally feeds me misinformation, but recall he also told me about Luhnow supposedly having a 2nd family in the D.R. and that Luhnow was banging minor leaguers girlfriends in exchange for promotions, but we never heard that reported either.

You source has been good and I trust and value it, and your contribution.

FWIW, my experience in the developing world is that 50% or more of the expatriates working there are doing it at least partly to scam the chicks.  That other Luhnow rumors emerged makes him even more suspect in these regards.

APIAD wrote:

That is opening day payroll.  For example the Cardinals took on a chunk of payroll in 2009 when they got Holliday.  Over 5 million.  they also added DeRosa.  That probably cost them 2 over 2 million.  I doubt they would have done that had they had the opening payroll they had in 2008.  Adding those two players in pushes the total up closer to the 2008 total. 

Also most of the savings between the 2008 and 2009 team was Izzy being gone.  Izzy was wasted money in 2008.  Still I am not sure how the 2008 team cost so much.  That team sucked. 

My point was look at the numbers.  2001 - 77mill, 2005 - 93mill, 2012 - 110 mill.  It is going up.  If we are still around 5 years from now I bet the payroll is higher then 110 million.

Fine.  So why was it such a big issue for me to argue that back in 2010?

Max wrote:

APIAD wrote:

That is opening day payroll.  For example the Cardinals took on a chunk of payroll in 2009 when they got Holliday.  Over 5 million.  they also added DeRosa.  That probably cost them 2 over 2 million.  I doubt they would have done that had they had the opening payroll they had in 2008.  Adding those two players in pushes the total up closer to the 2008 total. 

Also most of the savings between the 2008 and 2009 team was Izzy being gone.  Izzy was wasted money in 2008.  Still I am not sure how the 2008 team cost so much.  That team sucked. 

My point was look at the numbers.  2001 - 77mill, 2005 - 93mill, 2012 - 110 mill.  It is going up.  If we are still around 5 years from now I bet the payroll is higher then 110 million.

Fine.  So why was it such a big issue for me to argue that back in 2010?

That was two years ago.  I dont remember threads from 2 years back.

forsberg_us wrote:

Payroll isn't always linear, nor should it be.

At the end of this season (2013), the Cardinals have C. Carpenter ($12.5M), Beltran ($13M), Westbrook ($8.75M), Furcal ($7.5M), Mujica (est. $3.25M) and Schumaker ($1.5M) coming off the books.  That's $46.5M  Assume they extend Wainwright at $20M/year.  That only adds $8M.  Carpenter, Westbrook, Beltran, Mujica and Schumaker likely get replaced by internal candidates making $500 each. 

There will be some players they decide to keep who will get raises through arbitration (or outside of arbitration) like Freese, Motte, Craig and Jay.  Maybe they go down that path with Boggs and a couple of others, but those guys aren't looking at $36M in raises.  So it's very likely the 2014 payroll is less than it was in 2013, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Payroll went down in 2009 because the team purged a couple of bad contracts.  Mulder and Edmonds come to mind.  It doesn't mean the team suddenly went cheap.  As AP astutely pointed out, by the end of the year, the money was already spent on mid-year acquisitions.

I am reminded of another post from that era.  In early-mid August 2009, after it looked like my Pineiro bet was going to unexpectedly pay off, I also predicted that Cards would be ahead in their division by the end of the month by 10 or more games.  AP took that up and bet TK, and when it happened that the Cards actually were up by 10+ games, TK, rather than just acknowledge the obvious, went absolutely apoplectic: "Did you know that blah, blah blah . . . ?".  So, it's easy to say now, with 20/20 hindsight that payroll was going back up, but I remember sitting on a lonely side of the bar back then for suggesting it.

"I dont remember threads from 2 years back."

I don't remember what I ate for lunch yesterday.