Pujols to the Angels

[keyzick]

I want Gaussian on my team...heard he has a good glove

[alvarndc]

This has been a fantastic thread. I wanted to add a couple of points.

I think Albert had the rarest of opportunities: literally, to become immortal.

And in the end, he sold that for about $35 million.

Now that is certainly a lot of money. But when you are already getting $200 million -- really, how much money do you need?

At the risk of sounding like a "communist", I think this is the overriding point here. Albert was gonna do well -- anywhere.

What sort of a price can you put on being with ONE team for an entire incredible career. Talk to Jeter. Completely overrated as a player, and I say that as a Yankee fan. But absolutely adored.

That would have been squared or cubed with Albert simply bc of his greater ability/stats.

What price can you put on that? I suspect when he is old and grey, a "mere" $35 million will seem like a pittance compared to immortality.

[Munich_Man]

So true. Too bad such players like Ruth, Hornsby, Cobb, Mays, Lajoie, Maddux, Ryan, Randy Johnson, Clemens, Foxx, Speaker, Eddie Collins, et al
will never be considered immortals in the baseball pantheon.

Albert really blew it.

[coyote303]

[quote:3ede94268e="macnole"]coyote--sorry but it appears the objective part was lost.
What you referenced vs what I addressed are unrelated mathematically.
Bad analogy on the wind. Not sure what you mean by that. Everything I posted was objective, not opinion.

...

[/quote:3ede94268e]

I'm sorry you didn't follow my wind analogy. I certainly thought it better than your original...

[quote:3ede94268e]On averages--consider this: At location X, for half the year the wind blows out of due east at 50 miles per hour. Other half the year it blows out of due west at 50 mph. So, what is the average wind direction/speed at this location over a year? ZERO. Misleading and inappropriate to use an average on a multimodal distribution.[/quote:3ede94268e]

At first glance it appears as if "average" implies the wind doesn't blow even though technically what you said is correct. If the less-misleading question was asked, "what is the average speed of the wind?," then the answer would have been 50 MPH.

[quote:3ede94268e]Why wouldnt more money mean "more wins" in "general"? If they hired people out of college, or the bottom tier of the professional ranks, why would one expect them to win? Or better yet, to be "entitled" to win? Nonsense. That's not competition. That's rationing.

No matter--teams, with revenue by their supporting element--fans-- can spend what they want--as it should be (now that's an opinion ). Some are just better managed (better managed=spend more on their investment)[/quote:3ede94268e]

What you are saying is that teams should be able to spend whatever they want based on their supporting element. Really? That is the one "argument" I can't counter. I oh so disagree. And there is no way a mid- or small-market team could "choose" to ever match Yankee spending and stay solvent.

What I'm hearing (trying a new analogy) is when you enter a poker championship, you can bring whatever you can afford to the table. Sure, a better player can still win (poker being a game of skill), but is it fair?

[Valen]

[quote:a76aea3ac2]And in the end, he sold that for about $35 million. [/quote:a76aea3ac2]
How do you figure that. According to Pujols wife he was never offered more than 5 years and roughly 130 mil from Cardinals. Marlins were reported to be offering more than Angels.

There may be some people who hold changing teams against Albert but the vast majority of fans will not care. They will look at the overall numbers he finishes with and likely declare him among the best to ever play the game.

He has tarnished nothing by exercising his constituional rights and working for the employer of his choice.

[Valen]

What poker game have you ever sat down at where they searched you to make sure you did not have more money than anyone else at the table?

What poker game have you ever sat down at where if you happened to have more money than anyone else they made you give part of it to your opponents before you started playing?

What poker game have you ever sat down at where they pooled everyone's money and then divided it equally before they started playing?

All I can say is none of the above have ever happened at any game I ever was involved in.

[quote:463fa6fda8]So true. Too bad such players like Ruth, Hornsby, Cobb, Mays, Lajoie, Maddux, Ryan, Randy Johnson, Clemens, Foxx, Speaker, Eddie Collins, et al
will never be considered immortals in the baseball pantheon.

Albert really blew it.[/quote:463fa6fda8]
There you go muddying up a good discussion with facts. :lol:
Interesting side note to your comment: Many of those on your list were traded. They were not exhibiting selfish greed because the reserve clause allowed the owners to trade them like cattle and tell them where they had to play.

If I could use your statement as a foundation and build on it....
Pujols is skewered because he chose to change teams and accept a lot of money. But it was just fine for the Angels to tell Ryan they thought he was getting too old. He wound up in Houston. After a few years they too thought he was too old and certain to be heading in to his declining years so they gave him his walking papers. He wound up in Texas which is a real good thing because they stuck with him until the actual end and now he is part owner of the team. :D

Why do we come out so critical of players when they change teams to make more money but it is okey dokey for ownership to kick a guy out the door.

If Cardinals had shipped Pujols at the trade deadline last year few would have criticized the Cardinals for lack of loyalty. But Pujols loyalty is called in to question the legacy he is assigned is shamelessly greedy.

This strikes me as a double standard. You better be loyal to ownership/management but no need for ownership to show any loyalty. When I worked for Sparks Hospital in physical therapy I was very loyal and passed on jobs making more money. They layed me off and then asked if I would come back with a 20% pay cut. When I worked for Baylor hospital in Richardson I was loyal. Then I fixed the computer problem of a nurse that had been begging for it to be fixed for years. My reward was being escorted to my car and told not to come back. Guess how I now feel about labeling someone shamelessly greeding for looking out for themselves, family and friends.

You better be taking what you can get when you can get it because once ownership decides you are no longer making them a profit you are getting bulldozed out the door.

[alvarndc]

[quote:9d7f46390c="Munich_Man"]So true. Too bad such players like Ruth, Hornsby, Cobb, Mays, Lajoie, Maddux, Ryan, Randy Johnson, Clemens, Foxx, Speaker, Eddie Collins, et al
will never be considered immortals in the baseball pantheon.

Albert really blew it.[/quote:9d7f46390c]

Thanks MM for completely missing the point and warping my meaning of my post.

I did not maintain that being on a single team was [u:9d7f46390c]necessary[/u:9d7f46390c] to become an "immortal". btw, most of the players you mentioned ARE associated with only one team, even if they were traded late in their career or finished a couple years at the end with someone else. By changing teams, Albert will be half with Cardinals, half with Angels in all likelihood.

The point I made was that being on a single team for an entire career is a special thing. I referenced Jeter as the best current example of how being on a single team can elevate ones standing perhaps disproportionately.

@Valen: many reports suggest that Pujols was offered in the area of 10 years $200 million by the Cardinals. These reports were cited in many other posts on the thread.

There is WAY too much reverence for the almighty dollar nowadays. Lets be candid - no one here could possibly know what to do with $200 million, so what is the differnce between $200 and $235 or even $300 million.

Once you get that high it is an abstraction that has nothing to do with happiness. Being in a home and in a community seems to me to be worth something. Call me crazy.

Of course Pujols will be considered among the alltime greats. But he had a legitimate chance to be called THE GREATEST EVER. And changing teams puts just a little tarnish on that. He is simply just anther great ballplayer now. He "lost" the ability to be a true transcendant icon.

[ADRIANGABRIEL]

I think pretty much every post in this thread says more about the poster than anything else...

[PotKettleBlack]

[quote:73b3047f28="Valen"]What poker game have you ever sat down at where they searched you to make sure you did not have more money than anyone else at the table?[/quote:73b3047f28]

The World Series of Poker. Or really, any poker tournament without buy-back.

[PotKettleBlack]

[quote:3d2fb6a2fc="alvarndc"]There is WAY too much reverence for the almighty dollar nowadays. Lets be candid - no one here could possibly know what to do with $200 million, so what is the differnce between $200 and $235 or even $300 million.

Once you get that high it is an abstraction that has nothing to do with happiness. Being in a home and in a community seems to me to be worth something. Call me crazy.[/quote:3d2fb6a2fc]

You are crazy.
With the excess $35 million, I could buy the votes of several more politicians... probably about 15 senators, 35 house members, and 5 governors.

That's just if I want to spend it on political influence.

After I buy my dream house, my dream cars, my folks' dream cars, my brother's dream cars, I would invest down. By that, the extra money becomes angel investment to make things happen. Put people to work. Build stuff in the third world. Whatever. Get an ownership stake in the team after I hang em up (like Elway and Jordan... transcendent icons, right?).

The money at that point is abstract. But abstraction is a fun place to play, as evidenced by the inability of people to leave this game.