OT: Albatross of the Century?

[Parataxis]

There's already plenty of risk signing somebody Pujol's age to a 10 year deal - especially at a flat 25mil/year.

New information out is that the contract is backloaded - he'll only be making 12-14 mil for the first few seasons, and then increasing to 30 mil (or beyond?).

How much of an albatross is a 40+ year old Pujol going to be then. Wow.

[Mattd97]

the reason they do that is so that they can pay him with interest. in a league with no salary cap, the actual yearly salary doesnt matter anyways. whats the difference if they front load it when hes good, or backload it when hes bad. other than they fact at least this way they can buy him out.

[wbbfan]

Vernon wells.

[Raps in 4]

We're talking about one of the greatest players of all time here. I would have gladly paid Pujols that money to come to Toronto, even if only half of those years turned out to be productive.

[wbbfan]

We're talking about one of the greatest players of all time here. I would have gladly paid Pujols that money to come to Toronto, even if only half of those years turned out to be productive.

Of course you would, its not your money lol. The pujols deal is beyond rediculous that team is going to be in considerable trouble in a few years. Idk whats worse, the 250m fielder is trying to get or the back half of that pujols deal.

[flatjacket1]

We're talking about one of the greatest players of all time here. I would have gladly paid Pujols that money to come to Toronto, even if only half of those years turned out to be productive.

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?players=1177

Look at the last graph, WAR by age.

Even though:

Two things immediately jump out from this graph:

1) Heavy players peak a few years earlier than average players

2) Heavy players fall off the map once they are on the wrong side of 30

(http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.ph ... elder-age/)

Id much rather sign Fielder to a 10 year deal than Pujols, especially because his age is an estimation.

[satyr9]

He's perhaps the best offensive weapon of his generation, I think it's impossible for his contract to be the worst of anything. That being said, I wouldn't have gone 10 years, but if Pujols can be elite the next 2-3 years he might just give Moreno all the money he's going to spend and more. LA has a pretty weird sports scene right now and an elite Angels team might just capture some serious imagination.

What I will never understand is why they backload the aav on these deals. Presumably you do that in case it doesn't work and you're not on the hook, but the more you backload the harder it is to move off. If he needed the money now, it's easy to frontload and amortize the payments instead. Why they would make the contract full at the end is beyond me. To me, this deal makes way more sense if it's like 30x5, then 20x5 or whatever and if you're cash-strapped, you pay out 30-40 way further down the road. There's nothing illegal about payment plans and I can see that being in both their interests, but if you actually backload the yearly commitment, you're basically saying he cannot and will not be dealt no matter what happens with the franchise.

[flatjacket1]

What I will never understand is why they backload the aav on these deals.

Inflation is one of the reasons. 30M in 10 years is very different from 30M now. Also its worth noting that there is major baseball inflation, $$ per WAR will be likely at like 7M per WAR by then, maybe more, so he needs less production to be worth it.

[Raps in 4]

We're talking about one of the greatest players of all time here. I would have gladly paid Pujols that money to come to Toronto, even if only half of those years turned out to be productive.

Of course you would, its not your money lol. The pujols deal is beyond rediculous that team is going to be in considerable trouble in a few years. Idk whats worse, the 250m fielder is trying to get or the back half of that pujols deal.

If I was a billionaire owner, I would sign him in a heartbeat. That's the difference between being a good owner and a cheap owner.

[flatjacket1]

We're talking about one of the greatest players of all time here. I would have gladly paid Pujols that money to come to Toronto, even if only half of those years turned out to be productive.

Of course you would, its not your money lol. The pujols deal is beyond rediculous that team is going to be in considerable trouble in a few years. Idk whats worse, the 250m fielder is trying to get or the back half of that pujols deal.

If I was a billionaire owner, I would sign him in a heartbeat. That's the difference between being a good owner and a cheap owner.

Or you think they would at least sign Edwin or something to a 1 year deal to stopgap. (Like high end stopgap)

[wbbfan]

We're talking about one of the greatest players of all time here. I would have gladly paid Pujols that money to come to Toronto, even if only half of those years turned out to be productive.

Of course you would, its not your money lol. The pujols deal is beyond rediculous that team is going to be in considerable trouble in a few years. Idk whats worse, the 250m fielder is trying to get or the back half of that pujols deal.

If I was a billionaire owner, I would sign him in a heartbeat. That's the difference between being a good owner and a cheap owner.

If i was MJ id go out and score 50 points every night till i was 50.

[satyr9]

What I will never understand is why they backload the aav on these deals.

Inflation is one of the reasons. 30M in 10 years is very different from 30M now. Also its worth noting that there is major baseball inflation, $$ per WAR will be likely at like 7M per WAR by then, maybe more, so he needs less production to be worth it.

Inflation is exactly why I frontload. If he's making 20m at the end instead of the beginning, inflation might actually make him easily dumpable if necessary. Say 7m/WAR is feasible in 5-6 years. Anyone think he's going to be a 4-5 WAR guy at 38-41? But 3ish as a DH? That seems more likely.

I think the argument for backloading is if he's dumpable at 3/60 instead of 3/90, you can always pay out the 30m yourself anyway instead of having it already worked into the earlier years, although the optics of a move like that make it so I've never seen it actually happen.

I think when you backload the yearly salaries, you basically guarantee you're on the hook for 10 years or it'll cost a boatload to free yourself and i don't think you need to. **** happens to franchises that owners/GMs can't foresee. Think about ARod in TEX. He was earning that contract, just wasn't worth it for TEX anymore. I don't see why you don't help yourself a bit and try to keep the player tradeable throughout the contract in case things go sideways a bit with your franchise.