"ready for a big plastic bottle of bourbon."

Albertson's, or are you going top shelf with S.S. Pierce?

artie_fufkin wrote:

windwalker wrote:

The Cards wont be seeing any of my $$ anytime soon, whether its at the gates of Busch III, the merchandise counter, or the MLB streaming audio/video products. None of it. I am completely disgusted.

I understand your frustration, and if this story is accurate, it's evident by the Cardinals low-balled Pujols compared to his two other offers. But let's not forget they still offered him in excess of $200 million, which ought to be enough to take care of Albert and many generations of little Pujolses. Even at $210 million, the contract would have crippled the Cardinals ability to remain competitive, and $275 million would have obliterated their ability to remain competitive.
At the end of the day, the guy who consistently said he wanted to play his entire career and win championships in St. Louis forced the Cardinals to choose one or the other.

Agreed.

Not surprisingly, the Pujols decision dominated office conversation yesterday.  I'm not suggesting it's a representative sample, but the consensus seemed to be that the Cardinals had one of two options:

1) Pay Pujols what he wanted, be in decent shape a the next 2-4 years, but be likely relegated to a non-competitive team during the last 6 years of the deal whose marketing plan focused on the achievements of an individual rather than those of a team; OR

2) Make the offer they made, hope he accepted it, but with the understanding that if he didn't, the fans are going to hold their feet to the fire to field a consistently competitive team that doesn't include Albert Pujols.

I'll agree with two things Max has said: they made a mistake not approaching Pujols before, during and after the Holliday deal was being completed.  The reason they traded for Holliday was Pujols' insistence that they provide him protection and his threat to have TJ surgery and sit out a season if they didn't do it.  Like TK said, the Cardinals heald up their end of the bargain, but they should have been talking to Pujols about the implications it would have on his deal, and then tried to make something work within the confines caused by the Holliday deal.  Maybe they would have had to exceed the Teixiera deal (8/180), but maybe not.  At the very least they should have tried.

As an aside to this point, I didn't hear a single person yesterday who suggested the Cardinals should have matched the Angels offer.  In fact most, like Artie, thought the 10/210 was foolish. 

Second, whether or not this was the right move will be determined over time.  Right now emotions are raw and people have dug in their heels.  Some will be pissed at Dewitt.  I can tell you that right now, a majority of the sentiment in St. Louis is anti-Pujols.  I didn't see any news coverage of people burning Dewitt in effigy, but there were several clips of Pujols jersey burning parties.  The team just won the World Series and Pujols wasn't the LCS or WS MVP, it was David Freese.  It was David Freese who appeared on Leno and Ellen and who presented an award at the CMAs.  It silly given that Freese has yet to play 100 games in a single season, but right now, Freese is arguably the new face of the franchise.  At the very least he's the flavor of the month.

It's going to hurt when Pujols reaches milestones, but if the Cardinals continue to be successful it will take a lot of the sting out of this.  If Pujols goes into an A-Rod type decline, some people who rejoice.  If the Angels win the World Series and Pujols is the MVP, people are going to be bitter.  If the Cardinals as a team suddenly can't contend, people will be pissed.  There are people who are Pujols fans who will never be happy with this move, but there are also a surprising number of people who had been rubbed the wrong way by Pujols who are happy he's gone (think the anti-Larussa crowd).

If we're still posting here in 10 years, I guess we'll know.

Me personally, I'm not pissed at ownership for not paying him, and I'm not pissed at Pujols for taking the deal.  It's an unpleasant part of sports.  I root for the team, not the player and I'll continue to root for the Cardinals.  And I hope Pujols doesn't go into decline and surpasses all the records that are out there for him--but I hope he finishes his career with only 2 World Series rings.

"The part that bugs me about it is the way they came back in October with a piss-poor offer. It was probably over at that moment. That might be a textbook strategy if the player is Reggie Sanders, but you cant play chicken with the face of the franchise."

The only resentment I have toward Pujols is because he consistently made those statements about wanting to be a "Cardinal for life." Look at Fielder by comparison. By hiring Boras, he's made his intenion clear that he's going to accept the offer that yields him the most money. That's fine. Or at least it's honest.
Pujols' comment in that story to which you posted the link reveals his duplicity. The Angels didn't tug at his heart. They tugged at his wallet. And shame on me for thinking he isn't just another guy out for the bucks.

artie_fufkin wrote:

windwalker wrote:

The Cards wont be seeing any of my $$ anytime soon, whether its at the gates of Busch III, the merchandise counter, or the MLB streaming audio/video products. None of it. I am completely disgusted.

I understand your frustration, and if this story is accurate, it's evident by the Cardinals low-balled Pujols compared to his two other offers. But let's not forget they still offered him in excess of $200 million, which ought to be enough to take care of Albert and many generations of little Pujolses. Even at $210 million, the contract would have crippled the Cardinals ability to remain competitive, and $275 million would have obliterated their ability to remain competitive.
At the end of the day, the guy who consistently said he wanted to play his entire career and win championships in St. Louis forced the Cardinals to choose one or the other.

The Angles will regert this.  It is only a matter of time.  Years down the road Pujols will be limping around the bases as a .270 hitting DH.  Pujols didnt react well to the contract pressure this year.  It wouldnt suprise me to see him struggle again while pressing to prove he is worth his contract.  Plus he will be in the AL facing what some think are better pitchers.

artie_fufkin wrote:

The only resentment I have toward Pujols is because he consistently made those statements about wanting to be a "Cardinal for life." Look at Fielder by comparison. By hiring Boras, he's made his intenion clear that he's going to accept the offer that yields him the most money. That's fine. Or at least it's honest.
Pujols' comment in that story to which you posted the link reveals his duplicity. The Angels didn't tug at his heart. They tugged at his wallet. And shame on me for thinking he isn't just another guy out for the bucks.

I wonder if Pujols didnt take into account that his can barely walk by season end.  Being able to DH when not 100% and latter in his career could really boast his career numbers.  I know he would never admitt it but I wonder if it played a factor.

tk/fors/artie. I can't speak for Wendy/Max, but I know that I really do find myself torn. I see every "good business" aspect of this deal from both Pujols and the Cardinals. I know why AP didn't sign with the Marlins. There was no "no-trade". They don't do that, they ramp up for a monster year, hopefully win, firesale for prospects, dish the trash, cycle. That means they have AP for maybe 3-4 years, and then dish him to the Yankees, or Boston, or someone with any interest in taking on that contract. Albert would be powerless against it.

As for why Albert signed with the Angels? Money isn't everything, but he treats money and respect as one in the same. If you value me, you'll pay me. If you don't, why should I stay?

I'd be the first in line to tell you that giving Albert 10 years because he's going to leave is a bad move, but I also felt that you just couldn't let him walk. You can't let Stan the Man leave. This is a major kick in the balls for a strong portion of their fans, and better come with some type of lollipop to make it better. Otherwise, they are running the risk of losing people, 3 in this board alone. Not because they couldn't keep Pujols, but because they made moves for 2-3 years that outlined they had no desire to keep him, and are trying to make it seem otherwise. You don't hire a PR firm to assess life after Pujols if you have no intention of losing him. If contract offers were serious, and Pujols wants to stay, you don't kill negotiations between an agent and a front office just so a player (not involved until serious talks are around) can focus on baseball. As a club, if you want to keep him, you don't respect those wishes even if they do come out. You are responsible for the Cardinals, not the breathing space of Albert Pujols, so running details through his agent and potentially wow'ing the man isn't going to piss him off just because you did it during the season. At least, not if you want to keep him.

That is where I begin to lose it for being on anyone's side. AP is a money grubbing asshole who spent 3 years lying every time he opened his mouth. However, the Cardinals have made it abundantly clear to everyone including Pujols, that they were perfectly happy to play without him, and have done so for a long while now. That's NOT how you treat an icon, and if they care so little about my fan support that they take the games best hitter and alienate him over 2 years with substandard offers, ridiculous discussions, meaningless public statements when he's been in the conference room and really knows the papers on the table....

Like I said, there's a lot of blame for the entire goddamned table for me. I have no intention of being an Angel fan, but I have no idea how I'm supposed to support a club that CLEARLY doesn't love the game enough to cherish one of it's best ever...

APRTW wrote:

Max wrote:

APRTW wrote:

"So the Pujols camp never came to you and said, we've got this offer ...

They never put us in a position to do that which I think shows a lot about Albert and his representation. They never pinned us like that."

source?

Post dispatchinterview with Mo.

corroborated in the story Windy linked too. 

More proof that this was about respect, not money.  If this had been about money, he would have called the Cardinals.  But the Cards had disrespected him and he returned the favor.

How the fuck does some arrogant business man fuck things up so badly that he disrespects the face of the franchise, and a pillar of the community?!?

artie_fufkin wrote:

windwalker wrote:

The Cards wont be seeing any of my $$ anytime soon, whether its at the gates of Busch III, the merchandise counter, or the MLB streaming audio/video products. None of it. I am completely disgusted.

I understand your frustration, and if this story is accurate, it's evident by the Cardinals low-balled Pujols compared to his two other offers. But let's not forget they still offered him in excess of $200 million, which ought to be enough to take care of Albert and many generations of little Pujolses. Even at $210 million, the contract would have crippled the Cardinals ability to remain competitive, and $275 million would have obliterated their ability to remain competitive.
At the end of the day, the guy who consistently said he wanted to play his entire career and win championships in St. Louis forced the Cardinals to choose one or the other.

Yes, but Artie, he left even more money on the table walking away from the Marlins, nor did he ask the Cardinals to match the offer.  This was not about money so much as it was about respect.

Max wrote:

Yes, but Artie, he left even more money on the table walking away from the Marlins, nor did he ask the Cardinals to match the offer.  This was not about money so much as it was about respect.

Max, I'll counter you by saying if the Marlins included a no-trade claus, that the Angels would have never 'tugged at his heart'. In other words, bullshit. He didn't want to be traded against his will, that was important to him. It was worth 21 million over 10 years important to him.

Like I said, he'd have been better served taking less. Every other 'motive' he has is questioned, and reasonably doubted by the money.

windwalker wrote:

"Pujols' frustration stemmed from two years of not being able to come to an agreement with the Cardinals on a long-term contract extension and sensing the team didn't view him as a priority. He helped the team to the World Series championship this season in the final year of an eight-year, $116 million deal.
They made an offer in February worth about $195 million for nine years. Pujols, who wanted a 10-year deal, declined. They agreed to shut down negotiations until the season ended, but when free agency opened on Oct. 30, the Cardinals took the offer away and supplemented it with much shorter-term deals. Pujols, people said, almost felt as if the team was daring him to leave."

But here's the thing, Windy: two years ago when the two sides approached each other about an extension, Lozano told the Cardinals negotiations started at the A-Rod deal. That right there should have been an indication that they weren't going to come to terms. Lozano gambled that someone would be dumb enough to go 10 years/$250 million on Pujols and it worked.

I also can't fault the Cardinals for, as you put it, "going cheap." The market for Pujols took a good while to develop and the team should not have been getting into the business of handing lengthy deals for soon-to-be designated hitters, even if it was Pujols. There's a sentiment (and I'm not sure why) that the Cardinals should've started at their highest bid. Well, they worked from their lowest bid and that strategy almost worked until Arte Moreno decided to go bonkers. Florida had the best deal out there, blowing the doors off STL's offer, yet he was still leaning towards the Cardinals.

For all of his grumblings about being low-balled, he was very close to winding up in St. Louis with a deal that would've severely hindered the team's chances of being competitive in the last part of the contract.

This wasn't Albert deciding he wasn't going to be a Cardinal, it was the other way around.

It was as mutual as it gets, IMO.

alz wrote:

Max wrote:

Yes, but Artie, he left even more money on the table walking away from the Marlins, nor did he ask the Cardinals to match the offer.  This was not about money so much as it was about respect.

Max, I'll counter you by saying if the Marlins included a no-trade claus, that the Angels would have never 'tugged at his heart'. In other words, bullshit. He didn't want to be traded against his will, that was important to him. It was worth 21 million over 10 years important to him.

Like I said, he'd have been better served taking less. Every other 'motive' he has is questioned, and reasonably doubted by the money.

that's a fair argument about the marlins, but the way the angels story reads, there was little if any negotiation.  pujols didn't ask them to kick their offer a bit higher, and he can't really ask his agent, who works on a commission, to kick it down!  i also think the point you make about $ = respect to have some merit.  here's how i think that could have played out.  DeMoz goes for the love and cuddles route: they build the clinic in the DR, they wine and dine Pujols, they make him king of St. Louis . . . they live and breathe respect for the man.  then, when some team 'respects' him with a huge offer, he can balance the respect in dollars versus the respect in action.  DeMoz never gave him that opportunity.  Everything for the past two years was a two-faced game of "we want to make him a Cardinal for life" but doing little (2011) or nothing (2010) to make that a reality.

Max wrote:

[ First it was daring him to not to get injured or suffer a peformance decline for the final two years of his contract, then it was daring him to leave.

We cant point out the mistakes of signing guys like Mulder and Edmonds to extensions and then turn around and say that they were daring Pujols to get injured.