Albert

[Beninator]

Anybody following the recent Pujols contract negotiations? I have been glued to twitter and I am not a Cardinals fan. After all is said and done, I think that Albert remains a Cardinal.

[sousaman2089]

If he does go down and play for the Marlins, he'll hit his 300th home-run in a stadium with 3,000 fans.

It seems as if he will decide sometime today. Well, if he learned anything from LeBron, he'd decide today. The reasons why Miami is in the thick of it seems to be
1. Money
2. Close to the Dominican
3. Marlins promising to make him a god in the large Latin population of th Florida and all the neighboring islands
4. Playing infront of crowds that are smaller then the crowd at last nights Bradley game.

St. Louis only offers
1. A returning World Champion team
2. Great offensive talent around him
3. Great pitching staff (that is world's better then Miami's)
4. A minor league farm system that has the top two pitching prospects.
5. The love and admiration of what is consistently called the greatest baseball town in America.

[Da Coach]

I agree the odds are heavily in favor of him returning to the Cards where he is idolized. However, it's possible this negiotiation could drag on a bit as he leverages one offer against the other. In the end, the amounts being offered are so large, there isn't enough difference for him to give up what he has in St. Louis. Can anyone spend that much money in a lifetime?

[BradleyJD]

Couple of things...

Pujols is the best player in baseball, no doubt.

There is no way he is worth 10 years or $200+ million.

He won't play 10 more years. I doubt he plays more than 5 or 6.

Therefore, whoever signs him is over paying.

I think the Cards are almost forced to try and resign him because of his place in their history and city. But do you really want to be paying a then 36-41 year old player 20-30 million a year for what will be declining production???

The Marlins are moving into a new park with a new name and new players. I am sure with Reyes and possibly Pujols that place would be packed. That said, the Marlins are also crazy to mortgage their future with a player who can't possibly be worth this kind of money.

[Da Coach]

The Marlins are moving into a new park with a new name and new players. I am sure with Reyes and possibly Pujols that place would be packed. That said, the Marlins are also crazy to mortgage their future with a player who can't possibly be worth this kind of money.

I am not sure I can agree with this last part of your assessment. Baseball just doesn't seem to sell well in south Florida. The new park is nice and will help, but how much and for how long? Also, the location of the new park is in an economically depressed area of Miami, and it might be difficult to get some of the older fans to go there. And though the team won't say how well new season ticket sales are going for 2012, the rumors are that they are not selling nearly as well as the owners expected. Thus the "show" of a spending surge at the winter meetings to try to coax new fans to piny up for long term commitments.

http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Marlins-Rays-set-sights-on-2012-ticket-sales111411628

Well see how the new park turns out. One more issue is the finances of the new stadium. Even the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating, and it could get ugly. -

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/02/2529191/feds-open-sec-probe-into-miami.html#ixzz1fRQpKTpR

If past attendance numbers are any indication, it will not be easy to draw new fans to the new stadium. The Marlins won the World Series in 1997 in the 5th year of their existence, and only drew an average of 29,000 that season. And within 2 years they were down to 15,000 a game, and by 2002 they were drawing only 10,000 per game-

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/marlins3.shtml

They won the World Series again in 2003, but by then the fans didn't seem to care as much and their average attendance was only about 16,000 per game in 2003 for a world champion team!

And this past summer, recall that the Marlins played a game with an unofficial headcount of 347 fans in the stadium. This says a lot about the number and quality of dedicated true fans in the Miami market-

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/347-fans-Hurricane-Irene-wipes-out-Marlins-atte?urn=mlb-wp17025

I just don't believe they will ever be successful in that market. And I suspect Pujols and his agent are smart enough to know this. Would he want to sign with an owner who could be bankrupt in a few years?

[BradleyJD]

I don't think Pujols will sign there.

I do think the Marlins COULD be successful in their new park, ONLY if they had a loaded line-up with a Pujols, Reyes, Johnson, etc. They would also have to be winning.

But your points are true too. It's not an easy market. Florida has too much to offer. Look at Tampa's attendance or the Jaguars in the NFL.

[BradleyJD]

Looks like he is staying

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/07/report-albert-pujols-likely-to-return-to-cardinals/related/

[BradleyJD]

Another look on whether or not the Cards should even want Pujols back?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/tom_verducci/12/07/winter.meetings.wednesday/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a2

[Beninator]

Couple of things...

Pujols is the best player in baseball, no doubt.

There is no way he is worth 10 years or $200+ million.

He won't play 10 more years. I doubt he plays more than 5 or 6.

Therefore, whoever signs him is over paying.

I think the Cards are almost forced to try and resign him because of his place in their history and city. But do you really want to be paying a then 36-41 year old player 20-30 million a year for what will be declining production???

The Marlins are moving into a new park with a new name and new players. I am sure with Reyes and possibly Pujols that place would be packed. That said, the Marlins are also crazy to mortgage their future with a player who can't possibly be worth this kind of money.

My thoughts exactly regarding Pujols. I would rather take a chance on Fielder than Albert. This isn't a knock on Albert, but I think that Prince offers more of a chance for production during the contract. The player that intrigues me is Yoenis Cespedes. As your article stated, he is truly a lottery ticket, albeit a very expensive one.