The Milwaukee Brewers were perhaps a bit surprised last week when reliever Francisco Rodriguez accepted their arbitration offer, likely putting the team on the hook for something north of the $11.5 million Rodriguez made last season in the third year of a three-year contract he originally signed with the Mets.

While Brewer GM Doug Melvin has stated that the K-Rod situation doesn’t represent a miscalculation on the club’s part — and while the move hasn’t prevented the Brewers from signing shortstop Alex Gonzalez and third baseman Aramis Ramirez in the meantime — it’s also likely the case that Melvin et al. would prefer not to make a set-up man the team’s highest-paid player in 2012. With Zack Greinke due a (non-Rodriguez) team-high of $13.5 million in 2012, that’s a distinct possibility.

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Episode 115
If you’re the sort of person who likes baseball, comedy jokes, and smiles as bright as the sun, then you’re precisely the sort of person who will care — or already does care — deeply about Sam Miller of the OC Register. In this episode, Sam talks at some length about the effects of the Albert Pujols signing. Also discussed: why not to write a novel, lowered expectations.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 44 min. play time.)

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When he accepted a 10-year, $254 million offer from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim last week, free-agent first baseman Albert Pujols ended a tremendous chapter in his baseball career. He also joined a team in California — the state with the highest tax rate in Major League Baseball for those who earn as much as Pujols.

Various sources have noted that Pujols’ decision to sign with the Angels, over the St. Louis Cardinals, could see him forgo millions more dollars to income taxes. Certainly, his leaving Missouri — where the highest marginal tax rate is 6%, plus the 1% local rate in St. Louis — now puts Pujols in a state where the highest tax rate is 10.3%.

But athlete taxation isn’t anywhere near as cut-and-dried as it might seem. Most definitely, it’s not simply comparing rates between states or multiplying a player’s salary by the highest rate. That’s not how it works. As we discussed earlier this offseason, the ‘Jock Tax’ is fairly convoluted and it’s far more intensive.

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With the Angels throwing a small mountain of money at Albert Pujols, a common justification for the expenditure is that the revenues he creates through gains in attendance and merchandise sales will make up for the costs of acquiring him in the first place. This argument is a pretty common one among people looking to defend free agent prices, but it has one fatal flaw – there isn’t much in the way of evidence to support the idea.

The merchandise argument is almost a total non-starter, in fact. As part of MLB’s revenue sharing plan, the profits from sales of jerseys, hats, and the like are pooled into the central fund and distributed equally to each team around the league. While about one-quarter of all baseball jerseys sold have a Yankees logo on them, each team shares equally in the profits from those sales. Even if every person to walk through the gates in Anaheim next year purchased a Pujols jersey, the Angels wouldn’t get much benefit from those sales.

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While the Angels’ signings of C.J. Wilson and LaTroy Hawkins didn’t displace anyone, Albert Pujols‘ new deal has created quite a logjam at the corner positions for his new team. And now someone is going to have to go to make it work.

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With their 10-year, $250 million commitment to Albert Pujols, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are making a huge bet that Pujols will continue to be one of the game’s premier offensive threats and be healthy enough to be in the lineup through his age-41 season. His health history to date provides reasons both for optimism and concern on the part of the Angels and their fans.

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Thursday morning C.J. Wilson, the consensus top free agent starting pitcher, signed a five-year, $77.5 million contract with the Angels. His new contract has an average annual value of $15.5 million, which is only $1 million more than Mark Buehrle’s four-year, $58 million deal signed less than 24 hours earlier.

Wilson is younger — 31 to 32 — and better — career FIP- 83 to 92 — than Buehrle, so why did he sign such a similar deal?

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The Albert Pujols era is officially over in St. Louis.

The future Hall of Famer signed a 10-year deal worth $250-$260 million with the Los Angeles Angels this morning, leaving a bittersweet taste in the mouths of Cardinals fans. Pujols undoubtedly helped lead them to an unlikely World Series championship in 2011, but he’ll take no part of their title defense next season. One of the most beloved players in the storied history of the franchise has moved on to, quite literally, greener pastures.

Losing Pujols is tough both emotionally and in terms of replacing significant production, but it isn’t a death blow to the Cardinals playoff odds. If they spend the freed up $22 million — or a portion of it — wisely, the team can absolutely come back strong next year.

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Episode 111
If you’re looking for full coverage of the Thursday trade that sent left-hander Dana Eveland from the Dodgers to the Orioles, you won’t find it in this edition of FanGraphs Audio, because it’s mostly managing editor Dave Cameron discussing the Angels’ twin signings of Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson — and rhapsodizing on the virtues of brisket, too.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 20 min. play time.)

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As of this writing  — and the way news is breaking right now, this could be outdated in anywhere from twelve hours to twelve seconds — the market for C.J. Wilson still stands at two teams: the Angels and Marlins. The common assumption was that the Marlins would pull out of the Wilson sweepstakes after landing Mark Buehrle last this afternoon, but at the moment, they have left their six-year offer on the table. Considering that the Marlins were willing to commit $220 million to Albert Pujols, it appears that a mere $58 million deal is not going to prevent them from jumping back in on another big-name free agent — especially when the trade market for starting pitchers is so steep.

With Buehrle off the market,it begins to get a bit easier to make some estimates on how much C.J. Wilson will get paid. The FanGraphs crowd-sourcing project had originally pegged Wilson as signing a 5 year, $15.5 million/year contract, but the Marlins have thrown a wrench in everything by giving Buehrle a contract with an AAV of $14.5 million. Since Buehrle was considered the second best pitcher on the market behind Wilson, it follows that Wilson should get a considerable amount more than that and will likely surpass his FanGraphs estimates. Then again, it seems unlikely that he approaches Roy Halladay’s deal from last offseason ($20m AAV) or surpass Jered Weaver’s current deal ($17m AAV).

Here’s where things get interesting to me: if the Marlins sign Wilson as well as Buehrle, they’ll then have two left-handed starters locked up through their age 36 season. If we assume that Wilson gets paid around $17 million/year (and we know Buehrle will receive $14.5m/year), which deal looks the best?

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