So Colby has a higher OPS than Albert the Great . . . , by that measure I guess he truly was a franchise  player.

Well put, and kudos for your admission.  Let's see what TK has to say.

But for the record, my complaints with the whole Pujols thing were:

1. A realistic way to make Pujols a Cardinal for life would have been for the FO to have restructured his contract way back prior to 2010, like they themselves discussed I believe, and given him something crazy like $30 M for the years 2010-2014, and then have a bunch of option years for the next five.  The Cards still would have gotten good value, considering the statistical wizards were calculating Pujols's value was OVER $30 M in 2010 and maybe 2011, too, as I recall.  But considering Fors's story that the FO rejected an offer from Pujols for an extension of $125/5, I think the FO never would have considered anything like what I thought would be in the best interests of the Cards, Pujols, and the fans.

2) I agree with Burwell that it is worth considering the hypothesis that the Cards FO "negotiations" were a carefully designed charade to ensure that he didn't accept any offer they made.  No point in thinking the Cards dodged a bullet when he didn't take the 10 year offer, since all events leading up to it had been designed to ensure that he wouldn't.  Just a hypothesis, but it fits the data well, as I see them.

Regarding his decline in performance, perhaps this was inevitable, but I suggested at the time that any move away from St. Louis might wind up analogous to Sampson cutting his hair.  Part of his magic was some strange nexus of his pride in being a Cardinal for life.

Anyhoo, I wish Pujols well.  Perhaps someday I'll be able to feel likewise for Bill DeWitt, Jr.

My hunch is that their marketing wizards calculated that they would have to meet or exceed fan expectations for at least 2-3 seasons in order for the fans to completely forgive and forget the Pujols fiasco, so I expect DeWitt will continue spending at least this year, and maybe next.
 

Last edited by Max (5/15/2013 7:25 pm)

Max wrote:

Well put, and kudos for your admission.  Let's see what TK has to say.

But for the record, my complaints with the whole Pujols thing were:

1. A realistic way to make Pujols a Cardinal for life would have been for the FO to have restructured his contract way back prior to 2010, like they themselves discussed I believe, and given him something crazy like $30 M for the years 2010-2014, and then have a bunch of option years for the next five.  The Cards still would have gotten good value, considering the statistical wizards were calculating Pujols's value was OVER $30 M in 2010 and maybe 2011, too, as I recall.  But considering Fors's story that the FO rejected an offer from Pujols for an extension of $125/5, I think the FO never would have considered anything like what I thought would be in the best interests of the Cards, Pujols, and the fans.

2) I agree with Burwell that it is worth considering the hypothesis that the Cards FO "negotiations" were a carefully designed charade to ensure that he didn't accept any offer they made.  No point in thinking the Cards dodged a bullet when he didn't take the 10 year offer, since all events leading up to it had been designed to ensure that he wouldn't.  Just a hypothesis, but it fits the data well, as I see them.

Regarding his decline in performance, perhaps this was inevitable, but I suggested at the time that any move away from St. Louis might wind up analogous to Sampson cutting his hair.  Part of his magic was some strange nexus of his pride in being a Cardinal for life.

Anyhoo, I wish Pujols well.  Perhaps someday I'll be able to feel likewise for Bill DeWitt, Jr.

My hunch is that their marketing wizards calculated that they would have to meet or exceed fan expectations for at least 2-3 seasons in order for the fans to completely forgive and forget the Pujols fiasco, so I expect DeWitt will continue spending at least this year, and maybe next.
 

i am gald they didnt extend pujols prior to him becoming a fa.  The pujols situation couldnt have worked out better.  If he woukd have agreed to play for the 16million he left at it still would have been a bad contract.  
 

Give Bill DeWitt the benefit of the doubt here and figure he calculated it was not in the best interest of club.

I imagine that going all the way back to 2006 or before they had charts and projections and money all mapped into some algorithm, the results of which led DeWitt to believe that it would make no sense to resign Pujols, period, and that the whole game became how to part ways with him in a manner that was least damaging to the franchise.  Kudos to him, he won in spades, and we all we had to suffer through was the character destruction of our hero and franchise player.

In fact, it seems like these days the art and science of running a profitable club is in decidinding which players to extend BEFORE they reach free agency, and give them their security blanket / payday, and that one contract is the one big contract that most players will ever see from a money-smart team like the Cardinals.  There are a few exceptions, of course.  

Last edited by Max (5/16/2013 4:01 pm)

"In fact, it seems like these days the art and science of running a profitable club is in decidinding which players to extend BEFORE they reach free agency, and give them their security blanket / payday, and that one contract is the one big contract that most players will ever see from a money-smart team like the Cardinals.  There are a few exceptions, of course."

The "art and science" is avoiding contracts of a length and value where the player can't possibly fulfill the value of the contract. A 32 year old player is unlikely to be able to perform at value for the next 10 years. Wainwright and Molina just signed their 2nd multi-year contracts with the Cardinals. Both are of a length where it's reasonable to question whether the player will perform at a level matching the value of the contract toward the end of the agreement, but neither is so oppressively long that it's likely to handcuff the team. 

As to the notion that the Cardinals assassinated Pujols' character, that's a pile of crap. Pujols and his wife took care of that in the aftermath of signing with the Angels. The Angels played their part with the dog and pony show they put on after the signing. But if we're being completely honest, the only thing that has really affected Pujols' legacy is his inability to play at his customary level. It also probably didn't help his legacy when Miguel Cabrera won the triple crown and put himself in the discussion as to the best right handed hitter of this generation, nor did it help when Mike Trout emerged as the best player on the Angels before Pujols completed his first season in Anaheim. 

I'm sure you believe that Pujols signing in Anaheim was a "fiasco" on the part of the Cardinals front office that is viewed as some affront to the fans. But the fact that you believe it and say it over and over again doesn't make it so. The simple fact is that you're the only person holding to that belief. Even Burwell changed his tune. 

Yes, we witnessed the destruction of his character, mostly because the Pujols family decided to use religion to justify their stance and that often leads to disastrous results when you're using it as something other than a defense of traditional marriage. They basically did it to themselves. Repeatedly.

I vividly remember everything about that time period. The Cardinals didn't do anything other than wish Pujols well. It was fan anger and hysteria that drove the narrative. Deidre overplayed her hand and forgot that Americans are generally envious and deeply infatuated with rich people, except when those rich people play professional sports or own a professional team. In this day and age, Wall Street can rip off this country with a smile and we forgive them because we see them as heroic. Professional athletes can't do that. They just can't. So when Deidre tried to turn the tables and act like Pujols was getting shorted, that drove a bunch of myopic people insane.

For the record, I don't begrudge Pujols one iota for taking the $252 million. He played some of the best baseball in the history of the game here for 11 seasons and someone was willing to pay him an exorbitant amount for that for another 10. I am fine that he got the money and more than happy that it wasn't with the Cardinals because he was on his way down. Then again, I don't do the wave at baseball games, so I'm probably not a true fan.

Max wrote:

Guys, notice that I did not say the Cardinals assassinated Pujols's character.  I said:

"all we had to suffer through was the character destruction of our hero"

Is there any question that we witnessed the destruction of his character?  We can talk later about how and why that might have happened, but i think we all agree that it did.

Yes, we can. Where we disagree is about who were the primary instruments. You still think Bill DeWitt orchestrated this grand conspiracy to avoid paying Pujols. Maybe they didn't want to re-sign him. But he didn't assassinate Albert Pujols' character. Albert and Didi Pujols did that all by themselves.

Now, for the record, I don't begrudge the Yankees making Jeter and Rivera and whomever sweat a bit, for the priviledge to end their careers as Yankees, but I am glad that in the end they gave back a bit of what those guys brought to the organization and to baseball.  It is stories like those that make the legend of baseball, and without legend, baseball is just another dying sport.  

Going back to 2009, the Cards may well have calculated that resigning Pujols at market rate was not in their interest.  What I suggested way back when was that the Cards should do something special and splashy, but not stupid.  Give the guy the chance to retire a Cardinal for life.  They did not trust him and took the safe route, in business terms, but the very expensive route in terms of the legend of baseball.  Baseball desperately needs some feel good stories that rise to the level of new legends, and Pujols could have been that.  Now he just looks like a greedy, self-righteous son-of-a-bitch who lied through his teeth about not placing money above success, and the 11 years he spent with the Cards are little more cherishable in that light than the years Reggie Jackson spent with the Yankees.

FWIW Max, as a fan of the team, I would much rather ownership run the team as businessmen concerned with profit and not sentimental "legend of the game" nonsense. Winning breeds profit. Sentimentality leads to bad baseball decisions.   

BTW, Reggie Jackson's legacy in NYC is solid. He still works for the team, or at least he did when George Steinbrenner was alive. He won three World Series in Oakland and was a much better player when he was with the A's, but I think if you asked most ordinary people "Which team did Reggie Jackson play for?" the vast majority would answer the Yankees.

forsberg_us wrote:

Sentimentality leads to bad baseball decisions.   

"Ken Burns: NBA" . . . won't happen.  Sentimentality is what it is all about. 

YES!  But he did so as a whore . . . for the YANKEES!!!

Pujols was set to be something really special.  Now he's not.
 

it wouldmt have been very special for him to play like this under this contract as a cardinal.  Even st louis would have threw a fit.