Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCatDaddy
So it sounds like we pretty much agree. He didn't take the money because he needed more money to buy "Yachts" or whatever else is sprewed. He just wanted to be rewareded to be recognized as the best player in the game and probably rewarded for playing out his contract in a respectable way. He felt slighted by the Cards offer and lack of desperation to get him signed and when someone came along that "rewarded him" he jumped on it.
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I think that's fair.
I don't believe Albert was really worried about starving. But Albert sees "money" as "respect".
My problem with that rationale is that he used raw numbers to translate it. If I'm worth $100 and I offer you $90 to be my business partner, I'm sinking 90% of my net worth into you - in other words I'm 'respecting' the hell out of you. Meanwhile, if I'm worth $1,000 and I offer you $100; the raw totals are that the 2nd guy is giving you more money, but only staking 10% of his worth in you. I'd say the first guy 'values' you more.
There's no question that the Cardinals would have extended themselves
significantly further than the Angels over the course of their respective offers. The Cardinals are halfway through a television contract (6 years left on it) and aren't in a market that allows for $150 million/season deals, so they don't have the TV revenue stream the Angels do. They've already sold their Pujols jerseys and Pujols season ticket packages; so there's no real massive bump in merchandising revenues (and unlike the Angels, who have shown a willingness to change jerseys every decade, they aren't ****ing with the Birds on the Bat just to sell some more laundry).
They have a debt load of over $200 million from the new stadium. They have maybe 1/2 the revenue capacity of the Angels yet they came to within 80-90% of the value of the Angels contract. Further, they did everything they could reasonably do up front to get him his high AAV contract. Suddenly said attempts form the basis of his discontent over purportedly being 'low-balled'...
His willingness to equate money to respect without even attempting to dig deeper into it annoys the hell out of me. In the end, he was just another guy that jumped at the high bidder.
It's just become a massive, heaping load of childish, petty bullshit from a narcissist who's value now approaches over 1/2 of a billion dollars for playing a kid's game through his 40s. And then to give us this shit about God guiding him to Anaheim and have his wife speak for him....ugh.
Just be gone, Albert. I'm done with you.