Albert Pujols - Reds

[Former Reds GM (Patrick)]

11: 16m

[Deleted]

According to our League Spreadsheet, and to Cot's, Pujols appears to be a free agent entering 2011. Doesn't he require an RFA tag instead of a Franchise Player tag?

[Astros GM (Kris)]

Pujols is not a FA in real life. The Cardinals have a team option for $16M that they are obviously picking up. Reds posted this salary since it is more than likely his final number before the season starts. However, if they sign him to an extension before the season starts, Reds will get the first five years of that new deal.

Regardless, no one is ever forced to use a RFA tag instead of a franchise tag for a FA. If that player is a FA in real life at the time, so be it. The team assumes his real life contract once he signs one before the season begins. They just don't have the cost certainty of knowing the contract before tagging that player.

[Deleted]

Ah, I didn't understand that. Didn't know option years applied in our league. No one said a person was "forced" to use an RFA tag. Just that's what would be needed to keep him if the FP tag didn't apply.

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

Perhaps, the rules are not perfectly clear on that, but when it says that option years are not included (for the franchise tag), it's really only refering to future years, not the current year.

And yeah, it really only matters what the player's real life contract is by the start of the regular season. And things can certainly change between then and the tags deadline.

[Deleted]

Ok, this is very confusing. Cause technically, 2011 is a future year. So using Pujols as an example, tell me if I'm understanding this correctly - at the moment, Pujols is a Free Agent in both MLB and here in MKIA. AND, per his MLB contract with the Cardinals, he has an option, that if picked up (and that's most likely), THEN he'll be considered to have a contract for 2011? Maybe even an extension?

Well how does this work for our league? This is the most important point! Cause what if the Cardinals have not picked up his option by the time we do our Unrestricted Free Agent draft? Does that mean Pujols goes into the FA pool for MKIA? That the Reds would effectively lose Pujols? That doesn't seem fair.

This is confusing, and needs some clarifying. Because if options are allowable in this league, then the option years must be stated as part of a players printed contract on each of our pages.

[Former Reds GM (Patrick)]

In 2004, Pujols was signed to a contract that ended in 2010 with an option year for 2011. When this league was started sometime around 2006, his real contract was used, sans option year (as is the rule in this league, no option years).

Pujols is a now a free agent in this league even though the Cardinals exercised their option on Pujols a few months back ( sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5656257 ). Just as with any FA, I have to place a franchise tag or RFA tag on him to retain him.

Don't get caught up on the name 'franchise tag'. All it means is you get that free agent at his real-life contract, whatever that may be on opening day. A franchise tag can be placed on any FA, regardless of whether he's a FA or not in real-life.

Pujols is now signed to a 1 year contract in real-life. I've placed a franchise tag on him so I get him at the 1 year, 16m and if he signs a long-term extension before opening day, I get that too. If this hypothetical extension had an option year for, say, 2018, I would not get that.

Hope that helps!

[Deleted]

Ah, ok, well that clarifies things. Cot's does not reflect that the extension has been signed. It just shows the $5M option. Thanks for clearing this up.

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

Yes, if you look at Pujols on Cot's (the last line item under his most recent contract), you will see that the Cards exercised the 2011 option back in Oct:

* St. Louis exercised $16M 2011 option 10/6/10

However, that really doesn't matter for this league. What actually matters is what his contract will be by opening day -- it may still just be the exercised option of $16M for 2011 or could be a giant new extension at $30M-plus/year (or whatever else).

[Deleted]

I clicked on the Opening Day payrolls, where it shows team payroll in a grid format. Exercised option is not updated there, so it appeared that it had not been exercised

[BK Dodgers GM (Man)]

If you're looking at Cot's "opening day payroll" for 2010, you should expect to see that as of opening day 2010, not 2011 -- and the 2011 option was not exercised yet at that point.

I don't see anything else listed explicitly as opening day payroll for 2011 though I do see a similar kind of table for "2011-2016 obligations" (right below the list of opening day payrolls), which has Pujols' updated salary for 2011 (via exercised option) -- presumably, this table will become the opening day payroll table for 2011 when we actually reach opening day.

In general, you're best off checking the actual details listed for each particular player since those payroll tables include (prorated?) bonuses and option buyouts (and whatever else), which can be misleading for at-a-glance lookup. We only care about the player's real life base salary for this purpose. Also, you may find other relevant/useful details that way, including date of signings, which may be important particularly for franchised players (since it's very possible that a player signs a new extension too late to take effect for our purposes).

[Deleted]

cool, thanks guys