How Much Is Too Much for Albert Pujols?

by
December 7, 2011

While we wait through the last few hours of the Marlins and Cardinals jockeying for Albert Pujols, the reported offers are going up, and it’s now looking like Pujols is going to get a 10 year deal for somewhere around $220 million or so. It might end up a little south or north of that, but that seems to be the general landing area for the deal.

We’ll have analysis of the deal once it happens, but for now, I’m curious as to the perception of the upcoming deal among our readers. We’ve already asked you guys to guess what Pujols would get, but now, let’s see what you think he should get – if you were a GM, what would your absolute best offer be?






 

Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

142 Comments
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Atom
12 years ago

He’ll be paid more than $20 million *when he’s 42*!!!

# of players in baseball history who hit more than 20 home runs in their age 42 season: 1.

# of players who hit more than 20 home runs in their age 41 season: 4

1
Dave Cameronmember
12 years ago
Reply to  Atom

And he’ll be paid half of what he’s actually worth when he’s 32. This is how long term deals work – you accept that the player is going to be overpaid at the end to get value at the beginning. You don’t just automatically forfeit that early contract value because the player is going to be overpaid at the end.

30
philosofoolmember
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

Can we just post a big “Here’s how long term deals work” thing on Fangraphs right now? Why dose everyone seem to miss the point that long term deals, when they’re team friendly, underpay early and overpay late.

4
jcxy
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

half is a touch hyperbolic…he was worth 5 WAR last year as a 31ish year old. that’s only 20-25 MM, right?

12
Bill@TPA
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

And the last single year WAR is always the best predictor for what he’ll do going forward, right?

1
jcxy
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

never said always…

seems like it’s a worthy discussion though. the difference between a 7 WAR (fan projected) start vs a 5 WAR start @ $5 MM/WAR with standard aging and 10 % interest is 168 MM.

2
Will
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

Pujols’ 2011 BABIP was 20 points lower than any other season, and 43 points below his career average. Yes, even Albert Pujols can be unlucky…

If you add another 20 points onto his BABIP, his 2011 season looks much better.

0
vivalajeter
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

I agree about the hyperbole issue. If he gets $22MM, that would imply he’s about an 8 WAR player next year. I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if he does that, but I wouldn’t count on it either. I don’t think Dave really thinks it’s exactly half though – I assume it was more a figure of speech.

0
Yirmiyahu
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

Another thing for philosofool’s “Here’s how long term deals work” post: long-term deals are usually back-loaded. Let’s say Pujols is paid $225M/10, but it’s structured so that he gets a $1M pay raise each year (gradually increasing from ($18M to $27M). Because of inflation, a deal like that is really only worth about $192M in present day dollars.

1
philosofoolmember
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

vivaeljeter–

$22m would imply a just-under 6 WAR player right now, not an 8WAR player. At 4.5m/WAR, for ten years, at 0.5 WAR/year decline, you get 37.5 WAR over ten years; assuming market inflation of 5% per year, that gets you $212 dollars in value, or approximately 22m/year.

0
vivalajeter
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

philosofool, what I meant was, if he’s paid $22MM next year and he’s only paid half of what he’s worth (per Dave’s comment), then they’re expecting him to put up about 8 WAR next year (I was using $5MM/WAR, but it can go either way).

0
Joey B
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

He’s not paid half of what he’s worth. He should be worth about what Gonzo gets paid. Maybe slightly more. And I wouldn’t expect him to out-produce Gonzo over the life of Gonzo’s contract, unless you think Pujols will be better at age 38 than Gonzo at age 36.

Pujols OPS was in decline 3 straight years, as has his W/K ratio. It’s the same as ARod when he was re-signed. As was Santana. Someone is going to sign a 1B with a .906 to play until he is 42.

-1
Keith
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

Stuff like that is why I wish teams would just make front-loading the norm. Players get underpaid early and overpaid late. If they flipped that, baseball economics would follow common sense and we wouldn’t have these discussions.

3
Bill@TPA
12 years ago
Reply to  Dave Cameron

And thanks to the time value of money (unless deflation happens), baseball players will be a lot richer and teams a lot poorer. Back-loading is the way to go.

0
vivalajeter
12 years ago
Reply to  Atom

Atom, how many players averaged 8 WAR over their first 10 seasons?

0
njd.aitken
12 years ago
Reply to  Atom

Since when did HRs become the sole determiner of a player’s success?

0
Yirmiyahu
12 years ago
Reply to  Atom

vivalajeter, if he’s only worth $35M next year (7 WAR x $5M/win), and is paid $20M, he’ll still be paid 1.75 times what he’s worth.

Which is half. Or close enough to it when you’re speaking English rather than mathematics. Which is what Dave was doing.

1