OT: Pujols to the Angels

[youreachiteach]

I'm an even older bastard (40) and couldn't agree with you more, Ralph. It's such a shame we have an ownership that must take its pound of flesh profit before even TRYING to sign a major free agent (and I'm not talking about sloppy seconds, which is what JP got.)

Their modus operandi is basically this: Gimme Gimme Gimme and then maybe I'll throw you a bone. Look how they do their cell phone contracts! They lock you in for years where you are forced to replace their lost business even if you don't agree with their customer service. They shackle the consumer with the cost to assume no risk or loss. That's our Rogers!

Say... that sounds like "..if the fans show up, we'll start to spend", doesn't it?

You know what I find frustrating? Rogers got this team handed to them by Ontario on a silver platter, who begged them to take their stadium for 25 mil. Then they hamstrung JP for YEARS on a 30 mil budget while the Yankees was almost 200 mil. They were recouping their investment, I guess.

And then, when the team had the money to sign some excellent free agents who were first tier players (and siphoning off millions from their non existent payroll and College signings--non-slot), Rogers pulled some bull move about saying the money was for the NEXT year due to how they calculate payroll, when they had expressly told reporters the money was "going to be there". This forced JP to sift over second tier risk heavy signings that no one wanted to pay anywhere near what Toronto did--because that's when he had the money to spend. Sure, he could have held on to the money at that point, but good luck with that. If you were a dog tied to a tree and had a bone held directly in front of your face, when you were untied I bet you'd go a bit crazy on that bone (free agents). This all because of payroll timing.

Well, here we are again in 2011--Beeston promises we'll have the money when necessary and then when the writers call him out on it he backtracks and AA gets pissed. Now AA is no dummy and saw what happened to JP--so he'll just avoid the knife and try to move forward. But when we're this close (picture the thumb and the finger with a sliver of space between them) to winning but fall to the "spenders" I'm gonna be pissed about Fielder, Pujols and the like. And you know what, I'll be cheering for the Angels in the playoffs--at least they **** try.

[5DOM]

Rosenthal:

This explains it: #Angels' new 20-year TV deal with Fox, per @BillShaikin, takes them from $50M per year to $150M. Different world. #MLB