One of the more publicized offseason baseball stories of the year has been the ongoing negotiations (or lack thereof) between arguably the best player in baseball, Albert Pujols, and the St. Louis Cardinals.
For those who may have forgotten, Pujols publicly stated that he would not negotiate a new contract during spring training or the regular season, and if a deal was not agreed upon by the time he arrived for spring training, Pujols would become the most sought after free agent since Alex Rodriguez (we know what kind of deal he received).
With no deal currently in place and Pujols scheduled to arrive at spring training on February 16th, the chances of a new contract happening look slim. Pujols and agent Dan Lozano have been requesting a 10-year deal worth around $300 million.
Keep in mind, Pujols is currently 31, meaning a deal like that would last until he was in his 40s, so it’s understandable the Cardinals are more than hesitant at giving “The Machine” that many years or that kind of money.
As the deadline approaches, maybe Pujols will realize that instead of making sure the best player in the game makes the most money, by setting his pride/ego aside, he could change Major League Baseball forever.
How? Take less money to stay in St. Louis.
Now, I don’t mean dropping it to $250 million. I mean dropping it to $100 million guaranteed with tons of incentives for around seven years. Let’s say that reaching every incentive (MVP, lead league in categories, play in 150-plus games) could end up making the deal worth as much as $150-200 million.
Now I admit, the likelihood of this actually happening is virtually zero, but hear me out.
First, by having the best player in the game take a dramatic pay cut, it will prevent guys like Barry Zito and Jayson Werth from making double or triple their actual value simply because when compared to a guy like Pujols hardly anyone deserves to make more than him. Owners could use Pujols’ contract as a baseline for free agents, which would prevent them from drastically overpaying players.
After all, $100 million is an incredible amount of money that only the absolute best athletes deserve to earn (and even that is a little outrageous).
While Zito was very good at the time of his deal and Werth is a good player now, neither deserve anything close to $100 million, let alone $120 million-plus.
Second, Pujols could actually set a trend in baseball. I don’t believe for a minute that a human being NEEDS more than $100 million to live as long as they aren’t completely inept at spending/saving their money. It’s always been about ego and wanting to be paid comparable to their fellow players.
If the best guy in the league is making $100 million, a guy like Werth isn’t going to look for $120 million-plus because everyone in the world knows he isn’t $20 million better than the best player in the game.
Third, by using incentives to sweeten the deal, it would reward the guys who deserve to be paid.
Had Zito’s contract been incentive-based, there’s no way he would have made half the amount of money he did this year. On the other side, a guy like Josh Hamilton, who won the MVP, would have been paid far better than his $3.3 million he made last season (granted, he just signed a two-year, $24 million contract with the Texas Rangers).
Fourth, and finally, the deal would give other great players on the small- to middle-market clubs the idea of taking less money to stay with their original team and allow the franchise to go after free agents or re-sign other players to make the team better.
This has been done before (Evan Longoria is a good recent example), but not on as great a scale.
So, Pujols has two options: to listen to Lozano and get one of the biggest contracts ever for one of the best players in the past 40 years, which would further increase contracts exponentially like they have been in the past 15 seasons (which is completely understandable and incredibly likely), or sacrifice the ego and take less money which could change MLB contracts forever, and in my opinion, for the better.
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