Furcal Returns for Two Year Deal

The St. Louis Cardinals made a move I was expecting and signed veteran shortstop Rafael Furcal to a 2 year contract worth $14 million. The price was reasonable as I had predicted a seasonal salary of about $8 million. This acquisition supports the "realistic outcome" I theorized in my post on Friday. Check it out if you haven't read it yet.

Furcal is not a terrible baseball player, but he is a rather high risk at this price. He used to be a major threat on the bases who would steal 20+ bases per season. Now his greatest threat is to land on the disabled list for most of the season. He played in fairly unabbreviated seasons for the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers from 2002 through 2007, but has averaged only 92.5 games per season since 2008.

I understand the Cardinals did not want to give Jimmy Rollins the five year contract he desires. Not signing Rollins also allows them to avoid talking to Dan Lozano for a second time, which is probably ideal after their failure to sign Albert Pujols. I have a tendency to avoid confrontation, so I would have done the same thing in their situation.

This acquisition almost certainly indicates Ryan Theriot will be non-tendered. If they continue with the "realistic" route, then I'm willing to place a bet on seeing Nick Punto, Darren Oliver, George Sherrill, and Carlos Beltran pop up in Cardinals rumors.

Pittsburgh Pirates Offseason Outlook

I provided a followup piece to the Pittsburgh Pirates Report Card for Mr. Bill Ivie on Baseball Digest. It was actually published on December 1st, so it is lacking the latest information regarding their acquisitions of Erik Bedard, Nick Evans, details on the Rule V draft, etc.

http://www.baseballdigest.com/2011/12/01/bd-off-season-outlook-pittsburgh-pirates

The website was removed. The article can now be found here: Pirates 2012 Offseason Outlook

I apologize for the delay, but you can believe it's been a crazy week with the winter meetings and all.

Please go check it out if you've not already. Thanks for reading!

The Cardinals Nest Egg

Albert Pujols is gone. That's yesterday's news. As the St. Louis Cardinals management, bloggers, and fans move forward, we can only wonder what looms in the future.

Once again I am extremely depressed there is not a resource with 40-man payroll projections similar to Pirates Prospects. The best option for general bloggers like me is to combine Cot's Baseball Contracts with MLBTR's Offseason Outlook. It's not pretty, but please cut me some slack.


The Cards currently have approximately $80 million allotted before any arbitration agreements or including anyone with less than three seasons of service time. If you include my rough estimates with MLBTR's decision to tender Kyle McClellan and Jason Motte, then their payroll increases to just over $90 million. Derrick Goold reported this from the winter meetings in Dallas: "Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said the Cardinals will be targeting a $110 million payroll for 2012. John Mozeliak said not having Pujols as a part of that doesn't adjust the payroll downward." If this remains true, then they should have about $20 million worth of Pujols Fun Bucks to help repair the team.

MLBTR also suggests Skip Schumaker and Ryan Theriot are non-tender candidates, but there is no telling who the Cards will keep now that Pujols is off the roster. MLB Depth Charts indicates they should be shopping for a first baseman, shortstop, and left-handed reliever. They also want an extra outfielder to cover for Allen Craig while he is on the disabled list and provide backup for Jon Jay, or vice versa. It is extremely doubtful they will look at anyone in the catcher, third base, or starting pitcher market as they already have some of the best available locked in for next season. For the sake of trying to provide a balanced argument, I wanted to create a list of the best free agents still available who may be desirable to the Cardinals and sorted them by their WAR from last season with a value of one or greater.


I do not necessarily agree with acquiring a first baseman as they already have Lance Berkman and Craig who are both capable of playing first as well as a corner outfield position. The Cards also have prospect Matt Adams who most recently played AA ball in 2011 and will likely be promoted to AAA this year, which should allow him to be ready for his MLB debut either later next season or in 2013. Now that Albert is out of the picture, I want Adams to make a clean entry to the Major Leagues as soon as he is ready.

My desire to leave first base open eventually led to a small debate with my girlfriend's brother who feels we should sign Prince Fielder. He noted his first choice would have been Jose Reyes and I would have agreed with him had the Miami Marlins not beat us to the punch.

Eric Seidman from FanGraphs talked about Rafael Furcal, Jimmy Rollins, and Carlos Beltran as his preferred free agents. Rollins is the ideal candidate of the three with modest defense at shortstop and has been consistently healthy over his career, but it may be an awkward experience to speak with another Dan Lozano client and the Philadelphia Phillies may want to keep him. Beltran is aging quickly even though he is only 34. He may do well to fill in for Craig, but I would not want to see him in center field. Seidman also contemplates several trade targets in J.J. Hardy, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Alexei Ramirez. Any of these guys would be great acquisitions for shortstop, but I am wary to see what would be asked in return.

Michael Barr from RotoHardball speculates the Cardinals should achieve the same number of wins next season even with the loss of Pujols. Berkman shifts to first base, Craig plays right field full-time, and Adam Wainwright returns as the staff ace. He touches upon the same possibilities at shortstop as well as Beltran, but mentions the rumor of shopping Kyle Lohse and Jake Westbrook. If they are able to unload one of them, then they could pursue Roy Oswalt. This is extremely unlikely as both pitchers have full no-trade clauses in their contracts. If it were possible, I would have been a bigger fan of granting Mark Buehrle's wish to come to St. Louis.

Personally, I hope they take an adventurous approach and acquire Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes or an international free agent from Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. Cespedes is an outfielder who could play center field full-time while Jay fills in for Craig until he returned from the disabled list. If not him then Beltran, Michael Cuddyer, Coco Crisp, or Josh Willingham would be more typical selections who could provide more depth to their outfield.

The more urgent area to fix is their middle infield. The market for second basemen is quite scarce, so it may be wise to bring Nick Punto back for at least another season unless they decide to experiment with Craig or Cuddyer at second. It would be great to see them sign a player like Munenori Kawasaki at shortstop, but I recall reading he only wants to play for the Seattle Mariners with Ichiro Suzuki. Otherwise Rollins, Furcal, or Ronny Cedeno are the only other legitimate choices.

The list of free agent left-handed relief pitchers is ancient, so I hope they decide to trade for somebody or get creative. Perhaps they could convince a left-handed starting pitcher from Japan to convert to the bullpen (Wei-Yin Chen, Tsuyoshi Wada), which is unlikely unless they opted to considerably overpay them. If somebody forced me to pick from the free agent pool, I would pick either Darren Oliver or George Sherrill.

I cannot accurately foresee their salaries, especially those supposedly arriving from overseas. The "fantastic" projection is almost certainly overpriced and quite an unrealistic expectation from the Cardinals front office, though it would be quite exciting. I would expect the "realistic" estimate to fall within the $110 million parameters, but it would cause our roster to be aged and brittle. Without further ado here are several variations of the Cardinals 25-man roster: current, fantastic, and realistic.


Current/Projected 25-man Rosters. New acquisitions in rose.

Pujols Has Flown the Coop

Albert Pujols will be in the Hall of Fame some day. When that day comes, the St. Louis Cardinals will retire his number and so will the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (formerly known as the Anaheim Angels, formerly known as the California Angels, and formerly known as the Los Angeles Angels).

The Angels signed Pujols to a $254 million contract over 10 years and includes a full no-trade clause. I honestly did not expect it after Albert repeatedly stated in the past his desire to be a Cardinal for life like Stan Musial. The Miami Marlins created some pressure, which made me quite nervous. The Marlins backed down from their previous offers on Wednesday, which relieved my tension and I eventually fell soundly asleep.

Allow me to provide foreshadow by tweaking a memorable quote from Futurama:

"Ooh, the jedis Cardinals fans are going to feel this one."

Albert Pujols at the 2008 All Star Game, via Facebook

I was a little restless in bed Thursday morning and decided to check Twitter only to find the news. I first saw it mentioned by ESPN and SportsCenter, then Twitter exploded with further depressing news.

Bob Nightengale: The #STLCards actually had only the fourth-largest offer to Albert Pujols, behind the #Marlins, #Angels and the mystery team.

Buster Olney: Agent competition always fascinating. Pujols gets $254 million... Just a little over A-rod's $252m. Never a coincidence.

Jenifer Langosch: Albert Pujols is going to miss those guaranteed yearly visits to PNC Park. He has a .376 average, 29 HRs and 85 RBIs in 89 games there.

Of course, unless you were hiding under a rock and only read my blog for some reason, then you know the Angels did not stop there. They also signed former Texas Rangers starting pitcher, C.J. Wilson, to a $77.5 million contract over 5 years, which includes a full no-trade clause over the first two years and partial in the last three. If you were shocked by the Marlins giving $191MM to three players, then the Angels paying two guys $327.5M would have given you a heart attack. It was slightly humorous when I read the Marlins actually had the high offer submitted for both players, yet they decided against them.

ESPN Stats: Angels signed Wilson & Pujols for $327.5M. KC, TB, PIT, SD, CLE, ARI and FLA owed a combined $327.8M to their opening day rosters for 2011.

MLBTR: Albert Pujols Signing Reactions

STL: Fear The Red: The Five Stages of Pujols Leaving

The Cardinal Nation blog: It’s ok. Just don’t insult us, Albert. It was about the money.

Viva El Birdos: The End of an Era: Pujols to Sign with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Pitchers Hit Eighth: Pujols Signs With Angels, Gets Free Disney Passes!

C70: Devastation

I-70 Baseball: Farewell

stltoday.com: A message for Albert the Machine from Stan the Man

stltoday.com: Bob Gibson on Pujols: 'He should have been a Cardinal for life'

I am not bitter or upset, though I am a little depressed with a now dated Pujols jersey. You would expect I would be desensitized from this behavior as a Pirates fan, but alas, I am not. I actually never owned a baseball jersey until I moved to St. Louis because I did not want to pay for a custom jersey, then have that chosen player leave. So much for that.

I trust this was the best decision for Albert and only wish it would have kept him in a Cardinals uniform. Cardinal nation may be frustrated, sad, angry, or some mixture of the three, but this blogger hopes he does not forget his 11 years in St. Louis because we will not forget him. I will continue dining out at Pujols 5 as long as it remains open and would gladly welcome him back to St. Louis, whether or not he wears Cardinals red.

Further analysis and speculation will come over the next few days.

The Miami Marlins and Lucrative Spending

I preemptively answered this question asked by my sister's boyfriend regarding the Miami Marlins on Monday:

Hey Ryan,
I wanted to get your thoughts on the Marlin's new acquisitions in Jose Reyes and Heath Bell.

Hi Neil,
I think Reyes will be a good pick as long as he stays healthy and Hanley Ramirez actually agrees to shift to third. Bell is still one of the better closers, but he's on the decline. Their offense/defense looks good now, but pitching is still a major question mark. Who knows how much cash they have left now, if any.

They must still have a wad left in the wallet as they apparently raised their offer to Pujols. Why him and not Mark Buehrle, Edwin Jackson, or C.J. Wilson is beyond me.

I normally do not cover the Marlins, but I wanted to make an educated response when I was asked about their latest developments. This normally would not be an issue, but I was frustrated when I could not locate a blog or similar resource which projected the Miami Marlins 2012 payroll. Pirates Prospects has spoiled me, which led me to crunch the numbers on my own using Cot's Baseball Contracts and arbitration estimates from MLBTR's Offseason Outlook.


The list isn't perfect, but cut me some slack since this isn't one of my dedicated teams. This estimate initially showed $84 million allotted to their roster next season, then the Marlins just had to sign Buehrle to a 4 year, $58 million contract. This tentatively increases my projection to nearly $99 million unless his contract is This increases my projection to slightly over $90 million after discovering via MLBTR that his contract is back loaded like Reyes.

Of course this does not include the 10 year, $220 million offer to Albert Pujols that would have averaged $24 million per season, though it reportedly fell through before the Buehrle signing. Regardless of what was previously said, it does mean they have spent $191 million on three players in one week. It doesn't stop there. Apparently the Marlins still have an active offer out for Wilson and are now pursuing Prince Fielder.

What is going on in Miami? Check out their payroll over the past few years from Steve the Ump.

Marlins Payroll vs. Other MLB Teams, 2000-2011

The Marlins have consistently been a Major League Baseball team with a below average payroll. They have never crossed the seasonal average, though came relatively close in 2005 with $60MM only to begin the following season at a mere $15MM. That was the lowest payroll for a MLB team since 2000.

When will it end? At this rate the sky's the limit. $100MM? $120MM? $200MM?
Given Jeffrey Loria's sudden emulation of the late George Steinbrenner, I would not be terribly surprised.

Where did they suddenly get this money? Possible revenue share hoarding.

I am not going to question where this money came from, but I do wonder if they have the right people managing their finances. If this is actually money they had (wrongly) saved from revenue sharing or accumulated from other means, then so be it. If this is money they anticipate to generate in the future from the new stadium and new free agents, then that is a dreadful thought. When the new stadium fails to attract new fans, then there will be massive budget cuts. Perhaps this is why the Marlins refuses to offer anyone a no trade clause in their contracts.

It's possibly an escape plan from future financial emergencies, but let's hope the Marlins do not need to resort to using it.

Update #1: Wilson signed with the Angels and the Marlins are not interested in Fielder. Will the spending stop?

Update #2: Buehrle's contract is back loaded like Reyes, which reduces their 2012 payroll projection to ~$90MM.