People don’t always earn the money they make. Here is an example. I work for Best Buy. I’d say I work my sorry carcass off. I put in 50 to 60 hours a week and come home drained. During the Super Bowl we ran an ad featuring Ozzy and Beiber. In that 30 second ad, those guys probably made more than I will make in 10 years COMBINED. Discouraging? Um, yep!

I have thought about this a lot during the last couple of weeks and the latest Albert Pujols contract talks have got me thinking about the money that players earn. Now I am well aware that they make this much because it is a percentage of the revenue and teams can afford to pay it. I’m also not here to whine about how much they make, but I think this contract negotiation could be huge for the trends of those salaries.

I don’t think there is any debate, or at least any sane debate, that Albert is the best player in baseball. If I’m running a team and could pick any guy for the next 5 to 7 years I would take him every time. I think the tricky part of Pujols’ contract extension is what to pay him.

Ok, obvious, but it’s still pretty tricky. Why? The Yankees have set a precedent over the last few years to way over pay players. Last year 4 out of the 5 top paid players were on the Yankees (A-rod, CC, Jeter, Teixeira). I would want Pujols over all of those guys and so would any team or GM.  Because of their enormous salaries, NO offer for Pujols should be below what A-Rod makes.  Fair or unfair, ridiculous or not, Pujols has earned that kind of money.

These contract talks are so interesting because St. Louis can’t afford to pay him 30MM over 10 years.  That is a third of their annual payroll. I’m not sure any team is going to be able to pay him that much. So, will he take less than that?  Will any team offer more?  I’m not sure they will. If they don’t, I believe salaries in baseball may have reached their cap.

This could have a serious ripple effect throughout baseball. And this becomes huge when the Giants try to sign the likes of Cain and Lincecum.  As the system is right now, they would have every right to ask for 20+ million because of the contracts given to Zito, Santana or Sabathia. However, the Pujols contract talks could play into this big time. Although salaries will remain exorbitant, perhaps this will help keep things in check for a while.

Or not. Now that I have written this into the web, St. Louis will probably offer him 35 million for 15 years.

(-JS)