Albert Pujols, the heart and hammer of the St. Louis Cardinals for more than a decade, will leave St. Louis and sign with the Los Angeles Angels, a person with knowledge of the deal told Yahoo! Sports. Latecomers to the Pujols derby, the Angels will pay him $250 million to $260 million over 10 years, a devastating turn for the Cardinals and a departure from past organizational philosophies for Arte Moreno’s Angels. Within minutes of reaching an agreement with Pujols, they did the same with free-agent left-hander C.J. Wilson. They won him away from the hyper-aggressive Miami Marlins, reportedly paying him $77.5 million over five years. Source:Yahoo
Rangers got hosed today. WOW. The people of Da Lou that are doggin Puljos for leaving for more money can stick it up their butt. Talk to your owner, GM, and money guys. Should have locked Albert up last Spring Training. They didn't, that was the end of AP's career in St. Louis.
yes, dubmike, i don't think pujols ever gave any indication that this was about anything other than money. if the cards would have ponied up the most money, i believe he would have stayed.
Are you really saying LAA is a bad destination for King Albert? It's a HUGE win for him. He gets big money, is on a team that will compete EVERY YEAR (The AL west sucks, let's be real here) and he can play for 10 more years with the whole DH thing in play. At the end of the day the man will hold RECORDS galore and be even more of a lock for the HOF with the numbers he has the chance to put up. BIG time win for Albert Pujols AND he gets a ton of money. Smart move. Would you rather him of went to Miami? That'd of been RETARDED!
You just have to look at Albert's regular season stats after the contract talks fell through to tell that he was on his way out, and I don't think anything that the team would offer would have kept him there (And I personally would have been outraged if they'd gave him the deal the Angels did, especially the no trade clause). I'd disagree about the first bit though, it's not like St. Louis was paying him peanuts and the benefits of being a well loved icon of a city is indirectly one of the reasons why you'd play professional sport. I wouldn't have minded had he gone to Miami, or even Boston or New York etc. but to go to a mediocre afterthought of a franchise like the Angels is a kick in the teeth, mainly because it's another reminder of human greed.
Ah, my bad, I forgot about the wall to wall coverage of the Angels, everyone buying and wearing their merch and massive fanbase.
bitter much ? 3/4's of the league gets less coverage than the angels. also - the angels are consistently in the top 5 in attendence for the entire league right along st louis. yep, definitely a lousy fanbase. to me an afterthought would be a team like the expos when they were in montreal and to a point still as the nationals in d.c.
He'll also be living in LA. Among some of the hottest snitches in the world. And epic weather. Not to mention a pretty damn good team assembled there already. He was going to make massive coin anyway. That wasn't the deciding factor.
