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The dollars to WAR analysis provides us with a metric basis for determining Pujol's worth in terms of winning games. Of course this is us spending St. Louis Cardinal money for them and they have traditionally been an upper middle of the pack spender. In 2010 they were 13th. In their biggest spending years they rise to about tenth, in their frugal years they drop to the 15th spot.
They have already committed 120 million dollars for seven years of Matt Holliday, can they afford 220 million for seven years of Pujols?
If so, then combined, Holliday and Pujols would be consuming an average of 48 million a year for the next seven years, on a team whose entire payroll for 2010 was 93.5 million. That would be a situation where 8% of the roster was eating 51 % of the team salary.
Neither of us knows the Cardinals financial situation better than the Cardinals do. But, you're right. Tying up so much money in two players does seem dicey at best.
But, the Cardinals were well aware of Pujols impending free agency when they signed Holliday.
They also have the following upcoming free agents:
Chris Carpenter 2011 or 2012 - $15 mil
Kyle Lohse 2012 $12 mil
Adam Wainwright 2011 - $6.5 mil, 2012 - $9 mil (team option), 2013 - $12 mil (team option)
and arbitration to worry about with guys like:
Colby Rasmus, Brian Anderson, Jon Jay, David Freese, Jamie Garcia
It's not easy to be a GM and efficiently allocate contracts to your team.
Pujols is on track to be one of the great players in history though, teams usually make room for that kind of talent.
Pujols has been almost twice as productive as the 30th best player in baseball. If each of the top players in baseball were redistributed to each team, the team with Pujols would get twice as good a player as the the last team to pick.
I do not think that the question for the Cardinals is whether or not they know that they have the best player in MLB to try and sign, rather the question is whether or not they can come up with enough money to make him happy and stick with St. Louis. Win value translated into salary value is one thing, employee value into revenue value is another. While Pujols may be twice as good as the 30th best player, it does not necessarily follow that he causes twice as many fans to attend games or tune in their tv's to see him play.
I cannot tell you which one, but in one of James' early Abstracts, he became interested in the conventional wisdom claim that Nolan Ryan created bigger crowds whenever he pitched. James of course went back, counted and compared, and discovered that there was no particular attendance boost when Ryan was pitching. James did discover that Fernando Valenzuela, and later Hideo Nomo, were indeed responsible for increased attendance when they pitched, but they tended to be exceptions rather than the rule.
With those latter two, (and I would expect with Ichiro! as well), the increased fannies in the seats were largely ethnic support turning out, the LA Latinos proud of the Mexican Fernando, the Japanese creating NomoMania.
To find a gringo who could trigger enhanced revenues, James had to go back to Mark Fydrich in the seventies.
In the last three seasons before Pujols, the Cards drew an average of 41,191 per game, 40,197 and 39,453.
the Pujols era it has been:
38,390
37,182
35,930
37,634
43,647
42,588
48,853
42,353
41,274
40,756
So, for the three years before Albert, the Cards were drawing an average of 40,280 fans per game. In the ten years of Albert, it has been 40,861. That is an extra 581 fans per game, or an extra 47,642 a year. If we assume each fan is contributing about 50 bucks when he or she attends, that makes for a revenue boost of about 2.4 million a year. Of course that isn't all profit, it cost the Cardinals something to buy the rat parts for the hot dogs they sold to the fans and so forth. If we say that they made a 75% profit on that revenue, that is 1.8 million in profits.
So, even if we determine that Pujols alone is 100 % responsible for those extra 581 fans per game, we may safely conclude that there is little relationship between paying Albert 30 million a year to keep him around, and a congruent increase in profits for the club.
One factor that does help the Cardinals is that the two biggest spending teams have each recently signed firstbasemen to long term contracts, Texiera and Gonzalez. Philadelphia is the 4th biggest spender and they are stuck with Howard for the next several years, and the 6th biggest dollar tosser is Detroit, who has Cabrera inked for the near future. The 7th biggest payroll belongs to the White Sox and they gave the big bucks to keep Konerko. So among the seven top spenders, only the Cubs (# 3) and the Mets (#5) are really in the market for a firstbaseman.
I don't know if you can soley attribute their attendance to Pujols as much as you can to winning. If they could win without Albert, I imagine the park would still see good attendance #s. Obviously, Pujols has been a major part of them winning the last several seasons, but if they could put together a 100 win team without him, I am sure their attendance would be just fine. By no means am I suggesting Pujols doesn't get butts in the seats, though, I know I suffered through an afternoon at Wrigley a couple times just cause he is in town.
Year Attend Win%
1993 86.2 .506
1994 63.9 .438
1995 90.7 .545
1996 128.3 .528
1997 142.9 .556
1998 115.4 .472
Randy Johnson traded to the Astros during 1998 season
1999 127.5 .488
Ken Griffey Jr traded to the Reds
SAFECO field opens
2000 139.2 .562
2001 149.7 .716
2002 160.4 .574
2003 149.2 .574
*Attend = Home attendance / AL average attendance
**Attendance data from: Seattle Mariners Attendance Records by Baseball Almanac
I chose to look at the Mariners because they lost two of their iconic players in consecutive seasons. Losing their two most famous players didn't appear to negatively impact their attendance. Attendance continued to increase after trading those players. Some things to consider though, they moved into a new stadium in 1999/2000. New stadiums increase attendance. They began winning a lot more games after trading Griffey and Johnson. Winning increases attendance.
While I commend the team of Ken Rosenthal and Jon Morosi for thinking outside the box, I’d like to offer one simple image as to why the Cardinals should not swap Albert Pujols for Mark Teixeira.
This means a Pujols for Texiera trade would be a net gain of $54 million for the Yankees.
So, does that mean the trade would be a net loss of $54 million for the Cardinals? No.
The only reason that the Cardinals would trade Pujols would be if they could not sign him. If they can't sign him then they are not losing out on Pujols' surplus value from 2012-2021.
From the Cardinals point of view they would be gaining Texiera, which is a net loss of $10 million. They are also losing out on this year of Pujols, in which he is expected to have a surplus value of about $19 million. All-in-all they'd be losing out on $29 million in the trade. Not much incentive to have a handshake.
Of course, if the Cardinals were to sign Pujols, they'd be on the receiving end of Pujols' $45 million in surplus value while the Yankees would be stuck with Texiera and his $10 million loss.
I'd say, no deal.
The Cardinals would almost surely get the short end of the stick. Better to get value out of Pujols this year by playing him, getting two draft picks (if compensation doesn't go away) after he becomes a free agent, and using that money to fill up some other holes next season.
JUPITER, Fla. -- The deadline for first baseman Albert Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinals to reach a new contract agreement passed Wednesday with no new deal, making it likely the three-time MVP will test the free-agent market after the season.
"We are greatly disappointed at this outcome," Cardinals chairman William DeWitt Jr. said at a news conference. "We will revisit it again following the 2011 season, at which time we will again make every effort to keep him as a Cardinal."
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
ESPN's Buster Olney updates us on Albert Pujols, saying the Cardinals slugger and the team have broken off talks without a deal. The sticking point is money, not years. Pujols will test free agency.
A source close to the negotiations told ESPN's Karl Ravech the biggest issue is not the number of years, but the amount of money the Cardinals offered. St. Louis' offer would place Pujols in baseball's top 10 in salary, but not in the top five
Cards may have only offered $20 million. If I were Pujols I'd have declined it as well
If I were the Cardinals, I would not have offered more. Whichever team employs Pujols will be paying him for what he has done the past ten seasons, not what he will be doing for the next ten seasons. He is worth 30 million a year for the next four or five seasons, but the odds are that he will not be able to justify that much after the age of 35 or 36. He will be more likley to get injured and miss time during his next contract. The older he gets, the fewer games he will play each season.
Mega talent like Pujols tends to age better than ordinary talent, mostly because the high end is so high, that even when it declines, it is still good enough to get you in the lineup. However, it is no longer high end, but the salary is.
Finally, it is now apparent to me that Pujols is being driven by pride more than dollars. He has already made about 120 million dollars from baseball salary, and if he was making 21 million a year for the next ten years, that will bring his earnings to 330 million dollars. If he holds out for 30 million a year, that brings his earnings to 420 million for his career.
Now really, who couldn't be set for life with 330 million? Does Pujols need to buy a solid gold Humvee twice a month for the rest of his life and really needs that extra 90 million? Pujols has been the best player in baseball, and he clearly wants his salary to send that message to everyone. When that happens, alarms should go off, lights should go on....caution. The club will be turning Pujols into such a franchise icon that it will be unable to treat him as an employee any longer, much in the manner that Bonds ignored whatever front office protocols that annoyed or bored him in his final years with SF.
It comes down to whether or not the St. Louis Cardinals should pay 90 million dollars to Pujols so that his pride remains intact. If I were them, I would not. The Cardinals have already gotten the best years that Pujols is going to have, and these franchise icons types tend to have messy, expensive ends. If they can play the press right in this situation, and make Pujols seem to be the greedy, disloyal mercenary, then they may in fact be catching a break in escaping having to overpay Pujols for ten years and an awkward exit. If Pujols goes on to become a 30 million dollar Albatross for the Cubs six seasons from now, all the better for St. Louis.
Overpaying Albert is not the most efficient use of Cardinal resources and I approve of their drawing a line.
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