Why The Cardinals Should Pay Pujols

The fact that the St. Louis Cardinals didn't sign Albert Pujols to a new contract before the season started is ridiculous.  Since first being called up in 2001 he has been far and away the best player in the league and has had one of the best 10 year stretches in baseball history.  If he continues on his current pace he may end up breaking a number of records and could possibly go down as the best to ever play the game.

So why didn't the Cardinals give him an extension?  Because the contract extension Pujols wants is for 10 years and $300 million.

Now I understand that conventional wisdom says you don't pay any player $30 million a season no matter how good they are.  And you definitely don't give a 31 year old (he may actually be older) a 10 year contract. But Albert Pujols is anything but conventional and if St. Louis was smart they would have given him his extension and here's why:

Albert Pujols IS the St. Louis Cardinals

Albert Pujols was drafted in the 13th round by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1999 and made his major league debut with them in 2001. Since then he has become synonymous with the Cardinals.  He is the face of the franchise and one of, if not the most, recognizable faces in all of baseball.  He is the National League Derek Jeter (except without all the dating of high profile celebrities and jealousy of Arod).  Ask any random person to to name 5 baseball players and he would no doubt be on every persons list.

The man is a franchise player and is one of the most marketable athletes today due to his amazing on field skills as well as his sparkling reputation off the field as a humanitarian and a family-oriented individual.  According to Major League Baseball Albert Pujols has the #3 best selling jersey behind only Arod and Jeter.  He also has sponsorship deals with Nike, Gatorade and Milk which bring extra exposure to the team.   

But his impact on the Cardinals goes beyond advertisements and jerseys.  He is a pillar in the St. Louis community and works with many charities and foundations to help raise money for a number of different causes.  In 2005 he, along with his wife Deidre, founded the Pujols Family Organization which is dedicated to helping people with down syndrome as well as their families.  He also helped in an effort to bring an MLS team to the city. 


The man is an icon in the city of St. Louis and rivals the great Stan Musial in terms of his legacy with the community and the team. Not many players spend their entire career with one team anymore and it would be a shame to have to watch Pujols play for another team and then possibly enter the Hall of Fame not wearing the Cardinals hat.

So if Pujols leaves who do the Cardinals market as their franchise player?

Adam Wainwright is out for the season due to Tommy John Surgery, Chris Carpenter is a solid pitcher but he's hardly bringing fans to the ballpark, Colby Rasmus is emerging as a star but not in the same mold as Pujols and Matt Holliday hasn't exactly lit the world on fire since signing his massive contract which leads me to...


The Cardinals Aren't Exactly a Small Market Team

In 2010 The Cardinals ranked 12th in terms of overall team payroll spending nearly $94 million.  In terms of the National League they were 6th behind only the Cubs, Mets, Phillies, Dodgers and Giants.  Since owner William DeWitt Jr took over the team in 1995 the Cardinals have shown a willingness to spend money in order to compete.

St. Louis has the money to spend on players as evidenced by the 7 year $120 million contract they gave to Matt Holliday in 2010  It would be tough to sell to the fans that Pujols will be leaving the team for financial reasons when you just spent $120 million on an average left fielder.

Plus compare the contract Pujols wants to some of the other big time first basemen around the league.  In 2010 there were 5 first basemen that made more than Pujols, they were Mark Teixeira ($20 mil), Ryan Howard ($19 mil), Miguel Cabrera ($20 mil), Todd Helton ($17.75 mil) and Justin Morneau ($15 mil).  Albert Pujols is better than all of those guys and deserves to be paid as such. I mean Todd Helton is making more than Albert Pujols that's just not right. 

Pujols is homegrown talent that has been consistently terrorizing the record books and piling up awards for 10 years which brings up another point...



The Age Argument

One of the biggest concerns people have with this deal is the length of the desired contract.  10 years is a long time and Pujols is already 31 (he very well might be older than that however as determining the age of some Dominican players has proven difficult in the past) so by the time the contract expires he will be 41.

I can understand the validity of this argument as most athletes decline with age and very few baseball players are productive in their late 30s and early 40s but this is Albert Pujols we are talking about.  The man is a model of consistency having never hit less than .312 and never hitting fewer than 32 home runs in a single seasons.

He is just entering the prime of his career and should have realistically 6-7 more years of "best of all time"  baseball before he tapers off into being just great.  He has never played less than 143 games and plays the least psychically demanding position in the game plus first basemen tend to have longer careers than other position players.

Plus looking at the rate in which salaries are going up and the way mediocre players are being overpaid (Jayson Werth) by the time 2016 rolls around paying $30 million for Pujols might seem like a real bargain.

These are all solid points but they fail in comparison to my last point which I feel is the strongest:


It's Albert Pujols

Seriously this man is beyond a beast.  His career numbers and accomplishments are crazy and he is by far the best baseball player in the world.  He is a constant Triple Crown threat and one of only a handful of guys I watch where I assume every time up he is going to hit a homerun.  But his stats really speak for themselves.

Here is his career line: 1900 hits/408 HR/1230 RBI/.331 AVG/.426 OBP/.624 SLG

*He is the leader among all active players in AVG, OBP, and SLG

By the way he is also a 9x All-Star, 3x MVP, 2x Gold Glove Winner, 6x Silver Slugger Award Winner, 2x Hank Aaron Award Winner, 2001 Rookie of the Year and oh yeah he won a World Series for the Cardinals in 2006.

How valuable is he to the Cardinals?  In terms of WAR (wins above replacement player) he has ranked 1st in the NL for 6 straight years.  last year his WAR was 7.2 meaning he alone was worth 7 wins which means without Pujols in 2010 the Cardinals would be a sub .500 baseball team.

He is a 1st ballot Hall of Famer and if he continues at his current pace may go down as the best hitter in the history of baseball but I completely understand why the Cardinals wouldn't want to keep him around.

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UFC 127 Predictions

Looking at the card for tomorrows UFC pay per view has me thinking just one thing: other than BJ Penn there is no one here the UFC wants to see fight for a title.  Just look at these fighters and how unmarketable they are and see what I mean.  Do you think the UFC wants to see Jon Fitch win and possibly get a shot at the welterweight title and GSP? The answer is of course not because Jon Fitch is the most boring fighter on the planet who admits to "grinding out opponents." How do you market a guy to fans when he admits to not trying to finish people?

Fitch isn't the only fighter the UFC doesn't want to see succeed though.  Jorge Rivera and Chris Lytle are both too old to have much more of a career in the sport and neither would make a great champion. Dennis Siver and GST (not spelling Sotiropoulos every time) are both excellent fighters but Siver doesn't speak English and GST doesn't like dealing with the media as evidence by his recent interview with Ariel Helwani.  Michael Bisping has potential but it seems everyone outside of the UK hates him and he has still yet to beat anyone of note.

Anybody who thinks I'm wrong needs to take a step back and look at who GST is fighting.  This is a guy who has won 8 fights in a row (7 of them in the UFC) and instead of being put in the title picture or being given a legit title contender the UFC gives him Dennis Siver?  Don't get me wrong Siver is a legit fighter and is no push over but when you list off the top 10 lightweights in the UFC does he make the list?  His biggest wins are Spencer Fisher and Andre Winner who aren't exactly elite level fighters. 

The UFC makes these fights for a reason and its easy to understand why.  They are running a business and trying to sell a product.  In order to sell that product to more people you need charismatic champions that you can market and none of these guys, with the exception of BJ Penn, fight that description.  I can tell you right now that I would not spend money on a PPV that was headlined by Michael Bisping or GST.

Having said that I am really looking forward to the fights tomorrow.  They should all be exciting and the fact that "the cookie" from Shoeless Joe's will be involved makes the anticipation almost unbearable.  Here are my predictions:

Kyle "KO" Noke (18-4-1) vs. Chris "Kamikaze" Camozzi (14-3)

Both of these guys came into the UFC via The Ultimate Fighter Season 11 and both are undefeated since the show finished.  Noke is from Australia and will have the fans support which, along with his advantage in terms of experience, should be the difference in the fight.

I don't think Noke has such a superior advantage that he will be able to finish the fight but he is an all-around better fighter and I think he will pull out the decision (hopefully the only decision of the night).

Prediction: Noke via Decision


Chris "Lights Out" Lytle (30-17-5) vs. Brian "Bad Boy" Ebersole (46-14-1)

This fight was supposed to be Lytle vs Carlos Condit but Condit got injured and so Ebersole has stepped in. If I were Lytle I would be pretty pissed because a win over Carlos Condit moves him up in the rankings (although as I stated above he has no chance of a title shot) while a win over Ebersole does little to help his momentum.

The only upside for Lytle is that Ebersole has had over 60 professional fights and has never fought in the UFC before so he should have no problem finishing him and possibly collecting another fight of the night/knockout of the night bonus.

Lytle will be turning 37 this year so I don't know how many more fights he has in him so its kind of sad that one of his last has to be against such a jobber like Ebersole.  This fight should stay on the feet and whenever that happens it is always a safe bet to pick the former professional boxer.

Prediction: Lytle via TKO


George Sotiropoulos (14-2) vs. Dennis Siver (17-7)

 Poor GST.  Even if he beats Siver he is still 2-3 wins away from a title shot.  I love how the UFC does this. They pick a great fighter like GST and stick him against a guy that he is clearly going to just walk over and outclass and try and build up enough hype that eventually you say to yourself "yeah I could see Siver pulling this off."  Its a tactic they use all the time with whoever is fighting Anderson or GSP. They make you think the opponent has a chance and then they get dismantled and you kick yourself for ever buying into the hype.

GST is filthy on the ground and he has shown that he can stand long enough to eventually get the fight to the ground. Siver is primarily a stand up fighter and he loves to throw that spinning back kick to the ribs.  I like Siver but in this fight he is above his pedigree and GST is going to use the hometown crowd going nuts to propel him to victory.

The only real question GST has to ask himself is whether he wants to take Siver's arm or his leg home with him?

Prediction: GST via Submission




Michael "The Count" Bisping (20-3) vs. Jorge "El Conquistador" Rivera (19-7)

This is the fight I am most looking forward to and its not because I am a Jorge Rivera fan.  I hate Michael Bisping.  Hate him.  When Dan Henderson knocked him out and then hit him with that vicious cheap shot I had a smile on my face that could not be wiped off for weeks.  To this day it remains one of my top 5 sports memories ever.  It was magical.


Never has a fighter been more overrated than Bisping.  People always talk about how he is so good and how he has knockout power.  I have yet to see this "power" people speak of.  Since he has been in the UFC he has never knocked anybody out.  I have seen every one of his fights and can never remember him hitting someone with a big punch that sent them to the floor.  He swarms guys and finishes them with punches but he doesn't knock people out like an Anderson Silva or Shane Carwin.  He is a big piece of shit that talks too much and can't back it up by beating anyone of note and don't dare try and say Akiyama is a noteworthy win.


So here is hoping that Bisping circles into the power hand of Rivera like he did with Henderson. He does like to circle to his left and at least once per fight he gets tagged with a big right hand. So my fingers are crossed Rivera can do that to him tomorrow and finally put a stop to all of this 'Bisping as a contender crap.'




Prediction: Rivera via KO (don't think it will happen just want it to sooooo badly)





BJ "The Prodigy" Penn (16-7-1) vs. Jon Fitch (23-3)

Before writing my predictions I like to check some of the major MMA sites and see what their experts think is gonna happen.  Every single person said the exact same thing "Fitch via decision." And that's probably what's going to happen because there is no one in the UFC that is better at dragging people to the ground and holding them there while not inflicting damage than Jon Fitch. Gray Maynard has tried to take the title as "WrestleFuck" king but to his dismay Fitch just keeps on laying and praying.

Since entering the UFC Fitch has been in 14 fights.  10 of those have gone to decision including his last 8 in a row.  The guy just doesn't know how to finish people and to be honest I don't think he wants to.  He just loves getting in the cage and wrestling for 15 minutes.  Maybe it reminds him of his college days and he is constantly trying to regain his youth.  Who knows?  All I know is that its boring as shit.


Yet people continue to defend him and say he is the #2 welterweight in the world.  If he is so damn good why didn't he finish Ben Saunders, Mike Pierce, Akihiro Gono or Chris Wilson?  If he is so talented and dominant why can't the guy put anybody away?  It's not so much that he doesn't finish fights its that he doesn't even try.  He is so content to sit in the half guard and rain down weak punches and hammerfists to the point where the guy on the bottom is more annoyed than hurt. Its just so hard to watch.


Fitch usually uses his size to control fighters because when he steps in the cage he is usually at 185-190 but now that he is on this new vegetarian diet he is said to be walking around at 173 so maybe that might be something to keep an eye on.


With BJ Penn it always comes down to the same question: which BJ shows up?  Is it the BJ Penn that walks through people and then licks blood off of his gloves or the BJ Penn that seems like he wants to be anywhere but in the cage?


BJ has better stand up than Fitch and his BJJ is world class so there are ways Penn can win. If he can avoid the take downs (which he is great at) and keep the fight standing, he wins.  If he can force Fitch to make a mistake on the ground, he wins. So BJ does have a chance to win this fight and I really hope he does because if I have to watch Jon Fitch lay on somebody for 15 minutes I am going to snap.


Prediction: Penn via Submission


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Don't Call it a Comeback

Finally the Sports Informer has come back to blogging! (2nd biggest comeback this month)

"Oh my God! Oh my God! That's James Choleras' music!!!!"

So rather than spending time explaining why I stopped writing and then explaining why I came back I figured I would just jump right back into sipping haterade on everyone and generally just doing my best to bash those that are far more successful in life than myself.

The only problem is what topic do I pick for my triumphant return to the shores of Fistiana? There's so much happening in sports right now. There is of course the looming NHL trade deadline that needs to be addressed at some point.  Maybe I could write about Milos Raonic and how he has made tennis relevant in Canada or how Tiger Woods was beaten down in the opening round of a match play event this week and no one seemed to notice/care.

I could write about the NFL draft but then again I have never heard of half the guys projected to go in the 1st round.  I mean how many people can honestly say they watched even one second of potential top 3 pick Da'Quan Bowers playing this year?  Without looking where did he go to school and what position does he play? I would write about the potential lockout in the NFL next year but I don't have a law degree and thinking of life without the NFL generally makes me depressed. 

So that leaves the NBA and the 2 trades that went down this week that changed the entire landscape of the entire league in a span of two days.  Seems like a fitting topic as this week at work all I did was sit on ESPN and read updates and analysis on these deals.

First there was the massive 3 team trade that sent Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups and Corey Brewer to the New York Knicks, Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov a 2011 1st round pick and two 2nd round picks to the Nuggets and Anthony Randolph and Eddy Curry's expiring contract and massive man breasts to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

**Please note that any that refers to the lead up to this trade or anything occurs afterward as "Melo Drama" is a douchebag and deserves to be called out as such.

Some people were saying that the Knicks gave up too much to get Melo.  I could not disagree more. Felton for Billups is a pretty big upgrade as far as I'm concerned.  Even though Billups is older Felton was never thought of as a long term solution as he was more of a bandaid until 2012 when Deron Williams and Chris Paul became available so the Knicks win there.  And the offense of the other 3 players can easily be replaced by Anthony and Brewer. As the saying goes you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelet.

The Knicks got themselves a superstar and now have 2 of the top 10 players in the league. The only problem I have with this trade is that the Knicks let the negotiations drag on for too long which allowed the Nets to jack up the price to get Anthony.  If they had acted sooner they may not have had to add in Mozgov or some of those picks.

As for Denver I think they made out alright.  They got some solid players with good contracts and some picks to help rebuild the team and they definitely fared better than Cleveland and Toronto who both lost superstars and got the poo poo platter in return.

That said the Nuggets didn't make out nearly as well as the Jazz who randomly traded away franchise player Deron Williams to the New Jersey Nets for Devin Harris, Derrick Favors and a couple of first-round draft picks.  That is a solid haul for 1 player and provided the Jazz do their scouting they could be right back in mix in the Western Conference in a year or two.

This move was a real shock to me. When Jerry Sloan stepped down as the head coach a few weeks ago it was reported that he did so because he was feuding with Williams.  Various people reported it as a 'its either him or me situation' with Williams being the one kept.  Even Williams himself was shocked and apparently pretty pissed off about the whole thing

Then again if I had to be the point guard for the Nets I would be pretty pissed as well.  If you check their roster you will see right away that they are not a talented team.  Aside from center Brook Lopez (who is actually regressing this year) there isn't a single player on that team worth passing the ball to. They aren't talented and they have a lot of bad contracts that are going to be hard to unload so even though Williams is on the team right now he could choose to not resign leaving the Nets royally screwed.

The biggest story from this week though is how these 2 massive trades shifted the balance of power in the NBA from the West to the East.  First there was Amare and to a lesser extent Carlos Boozer and now Anthony and Williams.  All the talent is going East.  Of the 12 Western Conference All-Stars from last week only 10 are still on a Western Conference team and that number should continue to shrink because Chris Paul is 100% going to play for the Knicks.

LeBron, Wade, Howard, Anthony, Williams, Amare, Derrick Rose and Bosh.

The landscape for the league has shifted dramatically and no longer is the East a 3 or 4 team conference. The talent pool in the East just got deeper at the expense of the West. 

If you smeeeeeeeeell what the Sports Informer is cooking!

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