Max wrote:

Why is that important?  Well, if Pujols knew he had chronic injuries, but also knew he was worth A-Rod type money, he might have reckoned: "I'll go to the owners and offer to split the difference, and we each share the risk, $125/5".  Apparently the club's response was along the lines of: "We'll not be sharing any risk.  Talk to you in 2011, Al."  So, of course, after that Pujols played through the injury, kept his numbers up and told his agent that there would be no risk sharing, as per the Cardinal's FO actions.

That's still too much.

alz wrote:

The Cardinals could have come to the table with sincerity and said, "Look Albert, we were wrong not to take the 5/125 extension. We were absolutely wrong, and the price has went up, but we simply cannot commit to 10 years guaranteed. We want you in a Cardinals uniform, what will it take for you to spend 6-7 more years here, with mutual options for another couple years?" I doubt that happened, because even the BIGGEST HARDASS IN THE WORLD would really have a difficult time holding a grudge against that type of apology. Give him 30 million for 5 years, 25 for 2 more years, and 15 for the last three (option permitting). You could have made it happen, he would have stayed, but the Cardinals front office has an ego just as big as Alberts.

I agree with this part, and this is why I continue to stick blame on DeWitt.  Having screwed up once, he put his ego ahead of humility time and again and made things worse and worse. 

Windy made a good point about DeWitt's public response, "we tried our best", being a pile of horse shit.   If DeWitt was an honorable man, or even a sensible one, he'd show some humility and apologize to the fans along these lines: "I tried my best and it wasn't enough.  I know that we have let the entire Cardinal fan base down, and shocked the baseball world with our inability to retain Albert Pujols.  For this, I sincerely apologize to Cardinals fans and vow that I will do my utmost to make it up to them by fielding a team so successful for the next ten years that it will take at least a little bit of the sting of this disappointment away."

I would respect that, but I have no patience for his PR posturing, attempting to massage the facts to fit his plan.

Last edited by Max (12/09/2011 5:05 pm)

"I know that we have let the entire Cardinal fan base down, and shocked the baseball world with our inability to retain Albert Pujols."

If only that were true.  From Bernie:

Let's take a look at the national reaction to Pujols' defection. I suppose Cardinals fans can take some comfort in knowing that virtually no one of any significance (nationally) ripped the Cardinals for their offer or for declining to match dollars with the Angels. Quite the opposite, actually. It just reaffirms my belief: reasonable and intelligent people understand this situation and reacted accordingly.

Let's take a look ...

* Jon Paul Morosi, FoxSports.com:  "Cardinals fans feel heartsick right now. Yes, a unique opportunity in baseball history - the chance for Pujols to succeed Stan Musial as the Cardinals' franchise icon - has been lost forever...but give them time. They will come around. This is excellent news for the Cardinals' long-term, on-field health. Don't get me wrong: Pujols is probably the game's best hitter. The Cardinals, in the near term, would have been better with him than without him. But objectively speaking, a 10-year contract for Pujols in the National League would have been a catastrophe."

Tyler Kepner, New York Times: "The St. Louis Cardinals offered the fairy tale. It was going to cost more than $200 million, but they were willing togive it to Albert Pujols. If he wanted to stay in the heartland, with the championships and the love and the unbroken legacy, he could have. Pujols has seen how the Cardinals treat their legends. They come back in October, wearing red sports coats and soaking in the adulation. They did not all start in St. Louis, as Pujols did, but they all finished there: Red Schoendienst and Stan Musial, Bob Gibson and Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith and Mark McGwire. Not Pujols. The second half of his breathtaking career will unfold elsewhere."

* Keith Law, ESPN: "It's a Pyrrhic victory for the Angels because it's almost unthinkable that this contract will look like a good one in 2021 when we look back on it after its conclusion. Offering Pujols -- or any player past the age of 30 -- a 10 years is just not rational; there's no way we can accurately project a player who will spend more or less the entire decade of his contract in his decline phase. Even if we assume Pujols' listed age is accurate, a 10-year deal takes him to an age when most hitters are shadows of their former selves.

"Per Fangraphs, Pujols was worth just over eight wins above replacement every year from 2003 to 2009, but he hasn't reached that level the last two seasons due to some injuries and very slight signs that he's getting slower, probably the first indications that he's starting his decline. He'll still be very valuable the next two or three seasons, if healthy, but by the midpoint of this deal, he'll probably be overpaid relative to his production, and the last few years of it will be ugly, as they would be for any player signed to a deal this long that takes him past the age of 40."

* Richard Justice, MLB.com: "The Cardinals attempted to re-sign Albert Pujols. Boy did they try. But the thing they didn't do is every bit as difficult as the thing they did.  It's the thing good organizations do, and it's sometimes incredibly difficult. The Cardinals had to assign a value to Pujols, and that's not easy in a business in which emotion frequently frames decisions. To ignore the noise of fans, talk-show hosts, etc., requires discipline many organizations don't have. In the wake of Pujols agreeing to a 10-year deal with the Angels worth between $250 million and $260 million, there'll be a storm of second-guessing about how the Cardinals handled the negotiations. In the end, though, the Cardinals would not give him a blank contract ...based on 2011, they're just not certain how many great years he has left. So they drew a line. From the beginning, they said they could afford a $110-million payroll. They may have moved on that a bit in the hopes of trading some pitching later, but they were unwilling to go for 10 years and $250 million.

"The Cardinals won before he got there, and they've got a great shot to win after him. It'll take some time to grasp a post-Albert era in St. Louis, but the Cardinals knew there was this chance when this process started. They're as prepared as any team could be for how it played out. Great organizations endure, and they're still one of the best."

* Joel Sherman, New York Post: "The Cardinals' Derek Jeter left to become the Alex Rodriguez of Southern California. Good luck with that, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Albert Pujols was so Jeter-esque in St. Louis the Cardinals not only offered 10 years at more than $200 million, they had their greatest living player, Stan Musial, call to try to appeal to him to do what The Man had: Play his whole career in that baseball-mad city. Instead, Pujols shunned legacy, loyalty and familiarity to sign a 10-year, $254 million contract with the Angels, transforming from St. Louis' favorite son to an Arch-villain. His uniform color will remain red, but this decision was about green.

"The dubious business decision here was made by the franchise giving Pujols the money. The Angels are gambling the second-largest contract in history that Pujols will remain as good a player for the next 10 years as he was for the past 11. And if you would like to see just what a risk that is, let's examine the largest contract in history: The 10-year, $275 million deal for A-Rod that even the Yankees executives who gave it to him now concede was a mistake."

* Dave Cameron, FanGraphs.com: "At $250 million over 10 years, the Angels are essentially paying for something close to 40 wins over the life of the deal. In order to believe Pujols will produce at that level, you need to see Pujols as something close to a +6.7 win player now and will age fairly well, which is possible but is not the most likely outcome in this scenario. You also need to believe that he's not lying about his age - if he is, there's almost no chance this deal works for Anaheim. And, of course, you need him to stay healthy, which bigger guys often can't do in their thirties. The Angels have absorbed a massive amount of risk by guaranteeing Pujols this much money for so long, and while the potential for him to earn it is there, it's not clear that this is the best path they could have taken."

* Anthony Castrovince, MLB.com: "You can bet on the Cards one day counting their blessings that this albatross of a contract is not on their hands. That day won't come in 2012, especially given the news of Allen Craig's knee surgery. That's a blow to the backup plan. But it will come one day, perhaps sooner than we suspect. Pujols just crushed the heart of a team and a town. He joins the trail of traitors. But he had hundreds of millions of reasons to leave, and the Cards had just as many reasons to let him walk."

* John Harper, New York Daily News: "A 10-year contract for the soon-to-be 32-year-old Pujols is likely to haunt the Angels well before it has run its course, especially if he is actually older than he says, as many in baseball suspect."

* Jonah Keri, Grantland.com: "The same word of caution that applies to the Angels should foster some optimism in St. Louis. The Cardinals just won the World Series. They did it without staff ace Adam Wainwright. They did it with old retreads Ryan Franklin and Miguel Batista anchoring the back end of the bullpen early in the year. They did it with Pujols playing worse than he ever had before. With playoff hero Allen Craig likely to crash the lineup (and Lance Berkman moving to first base), this should still be a strong offense. The Cards also suddenly have a big chunk of disposable income, which they could use to do anything from pursue Prince Fielder (the last elite free agent on the market), go after Jimmy Rollins to play short, or trade some of their pitching depth for a big-ticket player whose salary might be weighing on his current team. Just as you can't plan a parade just yet in Anaheim, you shouldn't discount a potential repeat run for the Cardinals. One player can certainly nudge a team toward a championship. But he can't guarantee it. Not even close."

* Jeff Passan, YahooSports!.com: "While the genesis of the Angels' binge will reveal itself in the coming days, what struck most was (owner Arte) Moreno's forceful renunciation of his abhorrence for high-dollar, long-term deals - or, as one official put it, 'He's such a hypocrite.' Rarely does hypocrisy cost so much. In dollars for Moreno. In reputation for Pujols. In tears for St. Louis. Pujols said, and repeated, that he wanted to be a 'Cardinal for life.' The price of his word, it seems, is about $35 million - the difference between what the Cardinals offered and the Angels paid. Nor were the Cardinals close, unwilling to compromise their payroll and profits for Pujols...on the other hand, this may be the day that saved the Cardinals, the one on which they avoided the sort of albatross - or, as it shall be called, the Albertross - that can hamper a franchise for years. Sort of like A-Rod's current deal, which he signed at age 32. Before Rodriguez signed this contract, he averaged 154 games per season and hit .306/.389/.578. His numbers have dipped significantly since, and he has played an average of 30 fewer games over the first four years. The deal is a disaster."

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/bernie-miklasz/bernie-bytes-matheny-and-life-after-pujols/article_889da330-227e-11e1-9973-001a4bcf6878.html#ixzz1g4uUoqX4

Burwell nails it!

"Their actions seem to suggest that Pujols' departure to the Los Angeles Angels for a stunning, 10-year, $254 million contract was, as best as I can figure, the result of only three possible scenarios:
1. The Cardinals grossly underestimated how high his asking price might soar once Pujols reached free agency.
2. They arrogantly underestimated what sort of human touch would be required to successfully court a prideful man and the best hitter of his generation.
3. The Cardinals simply decided a long time ago that they never had any intention of re-signing Pujols and allowing him to retire as a local treasure, but opted for image purposes to put up a carefully constructed facade of a "negotiation" to mislead Cardinals fans into believing an earnest pursuit of Pujols was going on."

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/burwell-pujols-deal-belies-cardinals-actions/article_76a196f1-21c2-5e55-a8df-0d62ce716957.html

Last edited by Max (12/09/2011 6:33 pm)

forsberg_us wrote:

"I don't understand why you spend so much time as DeWitt's apologist."

Because I, unlike you apparently, would rather continue to field a competitive team on a regular basis than trumpet individual accomplishment--even if those accomplishments prove historic.

I was here when McGwire went on his home run binge.  It was fun, but the team pretty much stunk on ice.  I've been here through the most successful run of Cardinals baseball in the history of the franchise.  If I have to choose between the two, I'll take the latter.

. . .

Damn, Fors.  If you keep writing rants like that the FBI is gonna reopen the Unabomber file.

I get the take home message:

1. You will go to great lengths to apologize for DeWitt
2. Your case is so bad that you must resort to the false dichotomy that we have just two choices: (1) McGwire-led teams of 1998-99, or affordable Pujols-assisted teams of 2001-2011.
3. Your argument rests on the acceptance of the false dichotomy AND the assumption that I choose the former.

Max wrote:

APRTW wrote:

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.

#1: dmonds earned his money.

#2: You and Fors both have apoint when you state that problems with money to Mulder, and even Carp (back then) was playing on their minds.  Businessmen earn their money for their acumen . . .wisdom . . . it's not a science, it's an art.  With 20/20 hindsight, DeWitt lost and should be held accountable.

Edmonds was given a two year extension that didnt work out in the Cardinals favor.

tkihshbt wrote:

Cubs fans are doing some serious concern trolling today. I've read more than a few of them write about how badly St. Louis messed up and how they should've just gone all-in.

The same ones who hailed the Soriano signing as the start of an era that produced multiple championships, no doubt.

windwalker wrote:

Webstergrovesalum wrote:

Well Windy - I think I'll drink away my sorrows at La Fonda tonight (cry)

La Fonda, nice! Last time I was in that little bar there was a Hello Kitty theme to the evening

Is she still with the pirate?

"Do I want to be in St. Louis forever? Of course. People from other teams want to play in St. Louis, and they're jealous that we're in St. Louis because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like St. Louis to go somewhere else and make $3 million or $4 more million a year? It's not about the money. I already got my money. It's about winning, and that's it."

artie_fufkin wrote:

"Let's stop the blame game" is about as persuasive as: "This is supposed to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who."

When Max is in this idiom, he sometimes gets carried away.

If a poster named Brother Maynard shows up, run away!

tkihshbt wrote:

Question about the supposed 5/125 deal: has that ever been confirmed? I can't recall.

It was from Chad by way of Pujols.

Everything posted on this thred has been interesting.  Sadly, this sort of takes the bloom off the World Series Rose (depressed)