{"id":3011,"date":"2011-02-23T13:47:35","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T19:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=3011"},"modified":"2011-02-23T14:03:53","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T20:03:53","slug":"keep-albert-in-st-louis-why-pujols%e2%80%99-venture-into-free-agency-is-bad-for-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/3011","title":{"rendered":"Keep Albert in St. Louis: Why Pujols\u2019 venture into free agency is bad for the game"},"content":{"rendered":"

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My esteemed colleague and rival fantasy owner Griffin Phelps posted a few days ago that Albert Pujols<\/a><\/strong>\u2019 failure to sign an extension with the Cardinals was good for baseball<\/a>.\u00a0 Griffin\u2019s principal argument is that, at a time when baseball season is over but the other three major American sports are in full swing, the impending free agency of a talent like Albert Pujols will command the attention of a huge portion of the sports world.\u00a0 He\u2019s absolutely right about that.\u00a0 After all, while LeBron\u2019s \u201cDecision\u201d last July severely injured his reputation among fans, it did lend national attention to the NBA during the heat of summer, when everyone normally is focused only on baseball.\u00a0 A decision from Pujols, who some argue is the greatest player in the game today, would likely garner equal hype for baseball even without the charade of an hour-long ESPN special.<\/p>\n

However, while Griffin\u2019s argument undoubtedly has merit, I would like to go on the record as saying that I hope Albert Pujols remains a Cardinal for life.\u00a0 My principal reason for this is that the market for a player of Pujols\u2019 talent would be unlike anything ever seen before in Major League Baseball.\u00a0 If he is free to negotiate with all thirty major league teams, it is inevitable that one of those teams will give him a monster deal to end all monster deals.\u00a0 This may be good for Pujols, but I\u2019m not so sure it\u2019s good for Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n

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When thinking about the bidding war that will ensue, the term \u201cWinner\u2019s Curse\u201d comes to mind.\u00a0 For any non-student of economics, the Winner\u2019s Curse is simply a theory that at an auction, there will be many different values (in this case, 30) put on a commodity by the various bidders.\u00a0 Since the bidders are all major league GMs and therefore experts in the field, it is likely that the true valuation of the player lies somewhere in the middle of all of the values placed on him by all of the owners.\u00a0 Yet the owner who bids the most will end up receiving Pujols\u2019 services, and as such has probably overpaid, even for the greatest player in baseball.\u00a0 This owner might win the auction, but he could be a loser for it in the long run.<\/p>\n

The overvaluation of Pujols would cause problems for all major league franchises.\u00a0 For one, it would raise the salary ceiling for all future players in their negotiations with their teams.\u00a0 Salaries that are now judged against the maximum set by A-Rod\u2019s $250M deal with the Texas Rangers would instead be compared with Pujols\u2019s deal.\u00a0 This would raise the price of all free agents in the game, even those not in Pujols\u2019 class or even close to him.\u00a0 Anyone who believes this to be a crackpot theory should know that Tony La Russa is having similar thoughts<\/a>. <\/em>This increase would hamper the efforts of small- or middle-market franchises without deep-pocketed owners (like, say, the Colorado Rockies) to sign quality free agents or to retain players who are about to become free agents.<\/p>\n

When discussing the ingredients of a championship team, the importance of having deep pockets would increase, and as such, the importance of shrewd roster management and making the most of the resources one has would necessarily decrease.\u00a0 As a baseball fan, this is anathema to what I love most about our game.\u00a0 Though I am far more upset by the actions of the Pittsburgh Pirates\u2019 front office, which pocketed revenue from MLB\u2019s central fund and used it to turn a profit on a losing ballclub<\/a>, than I am about owners lavishing free agents with ridiculous money, it does frustrate me that, barring a change in ownership, my Rockies will never, ever sign a big-ticket free agent.\u00a0 If Pujols becomes a free agent, this frustration will only deepen.<\/p>\n

There are other reasons that I would like to see Pujols in Cardinal red for the remainder of his career.\u00a0 Not the least of these is that if Pujols remains in St. Louis, he will be revered as a hero for the rest of his days, but if he leaves for a monster deal and plays only very well instead of like the greatest player in the game, he\u2019ll be viewed as a disappointment.\u00a0 I would hate to see a player of Pujols\u2019 caliber booed by fans in his home ballpark, but I could easily picture Yankee fans booing him for not living up to a $30 million-per-year deal.<\/p>\n

However, putting aside my feelings about Pujols and the St. Louis organization, The most important reason that I\u2019d like to see Pujols remain a Cardinal is that his free agency will tip the scales of power in baseball even further toward the rich.\u00a0 And though the national media attention that a free-agent market for Albert Pujols would generate certainly could go a long way toward increasing baseball\u2019s popularity in this country, a further shift in power toward those with deeper pockets is the last thing baseball needs right now.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My esteemed colleague and rival fantasy owner Griffin Phelps posted a few days ago that Albert Pujols\u2019 failure to sign an extension with the Cardinals was good for baseball.\u00a0 Griffin\u2019s principal argument is that, at a time when baseball season is over but the other three major American sports are in full swing, the impending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1300,18,6,11,13,14],"tags":[21,428,1861,1864,1862,510,1196,1863],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3011"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3016,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions\/3016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}