First reported by Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports, Albert Pujols has decided to go West to the Los Angeles Angels for 10 years, and between $250 and $260 million. He gets a full no-trade clause. So much for this morning’s reports that Pujols was going to take his time. Brown says Pujols decided this morning.
Obviously the implications of the deal are numerous, and the impact the Cubs could be great. This will take days to process fully. Among the early reactions:
(1) No more Pujols on the Cardinals, obviously. The early guess is they’ll fill 1B with Lance Berkman. This is partly good and partly bad – that contract would have crippled them;
(2) 10/$250-260M with a full-no-trade clause is a huge, huge contract, and the price for Prince Fielder may have gone up;
(3) Pujols was always all about the money (just sayin’);
(4) Other moves might start shaking out soon; and
(5) The Angels are possibly going to have a young first baseman in Mark Trumbo, available for trade. They may also non-tender injured former first baseman, Kendrys Morales.
Again, there will be much, much more to say about this in the near future. But for now, the deal is done.
CJ WIlson to Angels as well
wow
You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!
Scary huh? Do u think their gm was lying when he said they had 15-20 mil to spend this year?
If true, then investigation into Disney ties must occur….no way does team have this much money or any hope of raising same…
Theo and Co will back wayyyy off Prince now, unless hes willing to go short term. If Morales is non tendered and healthy, that is the way to go. Dude can R A K E.
No one wants to give Fielder that many years, I forgot where I read it but Fielder and his agent are willing to sign a 6-7 year deal since no one wants to sign him for anything more than that.
Man nothing for three days and then boom goes the dynamite. Day 4 very interesting.
What’s next Angles move Pujols to third and get Fielder as a DH? It’s only 10 am and new is breaking out like crazy!
Fielder just got expensive. Is D Lee still wandering around the majors? Haha.
Honestly, if we don’t land a stud 1st baseman it wouldn’t piss me off to do another season of Derrek Lee and maybe platoon him with LaHair
DLee put up some sick numbers in his short time in Pitt. It wouldn’t be the worst move as a 1-yr stop gap..just sayin.
Apparently the Angels and Marlins are the only teams that showed up at the Winter Meetings.
Seriously!
Kendrys Morales won’t make it to non-tendering…there will be huge interest(assuming health is OK)….he should now be the Cubs number one target….
Why do you think there will be huge interest in a guy who hasn’t played since 2010? That’s not sarcasm – I’m curious.
I would think teams would be interested based on his production level in his first full season and before he was injured in 2010. He’s a 28 year old power bat switch hitter who is also affordable.
No way of predicting whether he will regain form, but it is worth the risk to me.
Seeing lots of speculation that the “mystery team” in on Albert was non other than the Sawx, and if they would have signed him, they’d have flipped Adrian Gonzalez to the Cubs. That would have been very nice.
yeah but for Garza is what I heard. of course, I’d make that trade in a heartbeat.
That was wholly and totally invented by Phil Rogers. It was a ridiculous suggestion, and he looks like a total fool for making it. That is, of course, just my opinion (posted it in the comments earlier).
Hopefully Lance Berkman has a down year at 1st leaving the NL Central open, Milwaukee can’t spend to keep Fielder since K. Rod accepted arbitration. C’mon Cubbies
My nightmare would be Fielder going to St. Louis now……
That would be all of Cub nation’s nightmare. I might jump off the Chicago River bridge if that happens…
I think the most important question about the Cubs future is when is our wgn /comcast deal done ?
Unfortunately that is signed through 2015, unless Theo and co can find a way out.
C. Pena to Cards would allow them relatively inexpensive fix to have enough $$$$ to then go after Marlins H. Ramirez…
there has been noindication that Ramirez is available.
Wrong. Espn reports that Marlins are “exploring trade options” for Hanley Ramirez.
thank you..I can defend myself but supporting factual comments always welcome
Do let us know when you plan on making one, mkay??
With Wilson and Albert signing, does this mean my Disney stock will go up?
see my earlier posts above
angels have also signed CJ wilson according to MLB.com wow…. nothing has gona chicago’s way… i know we wern’t big on him… but atleast the Marlins are hungary for BIG z now! logan morrison here we comee… hopefully..
Ok it’s official I give up. I really don’t think the cubs are going to do ANYTHING this offseason. I hope I eat my words but it seems after being on here everyday constantly hoping and checking that noone wants to deal with us. Getting dejesus is ok I guess but we have so many holes to fill and a farm system to build….the curse continues
I wonder if Pujols going to the Angels is going to make the Rangers really feel pressure to go after Fielder now…
As well as the Rangers may now feel more compelled to trade for Garza.
If the Angels truly just signed both Pujols and Wilson, the Rangers are going to need to make at least one significant move or I think the Angels will own that division next season.
So to summarize the offseason since Epstein came over:
1) We signed a lot of smart executives.
2) The new CBA completely cut our legs off before we could implement our plan.
3) We lost more net talent than anyone else in the Rule 5 draft despite the fact that we had the emptiest 40-man roster.
4) We signed the non-Asian Fukudome to a 2-year/$10 million deal.
5) Theo got a new house.
*sigh*
6) we’ll probably trade our only solid starting pitcher
7) we trade for Ian Stewart and sign Kuroda..
more sigh..
So EQ I guess the honeymoon is over for Theo and the boys with you, huh?
nah.. just trying to be funny.. I still have faith in them. just frustrated at the lack of excitement
Old cynicism dies hard.
But… um… yeah. The gravity of number two sets in more and more each day.
There’s an excellent poop joke in there somewhere. I’m thinking something with constipation.
Brett thank you for crediting when crediting is due. Looks like you stopped drinking the kool aid too. hard habit to kick as I can attest to…take it one day at a time and you will be ok
I’m the same I’ve ever been: observe, carefully consider, respond. It’s an every day process.
I’m mostly just cranky because I spent four days refreshing constantly contradictory Twitter feeds and rumor mill websites, only to have absolutely nothing happen for the Cubs.
i think many of us feel the same crankiness you are feeling…i am down right frustrated by the lack of movement at this point…but i still have to believe that theo and company know what they are doing…and they have some well timed moves to make…and they will find a way to make us competitive in 2012
None of the guys that have signed yet fit a need for the Cubs. Contrary to what many people on here think, the Cubs are in no position to be a legitimate threat to win the World Series next year. That’s not to say they can’t luck into a playoff poisition at 86-76 or something like that, but that shouldn’t be what we are going for. For all intents and purposes, Prince Fielder just went on sale this morning, Boras from the start was going to let Pujols set the bar and then start shopping Fielder, and is that first of the major free agents that would make sense for the Cubs. I don’t think a reasonable person would argue that Pujols, Wilson, Buerhle, Reyes, etc, especially at their respective ages and prices, were good options for the Cubs. Now with Fielder, Darvish, Cespedes, Soler, etc about to hit the market, I expect the Cubs to be more active. If Jim Hendry were here, sure we probably would have signed Wilson to 7 years, $120 million, made our team better for the next two years, and then have a 5 year, expensive headache, and we all would be pissed off. The Cubs “inactivity” has been refreshing. I’ll say it again as I’ve said it before, in my opinion you can’t truly expect to compete and rebuild simultaneously. You CAN however, sign young, long term free agents that will still be around and productive after a bad year or two, but none of those guys have really hit the market yet.
“None of the guys that have signed yet fit a need for the Cubs. ”
Quick. Name one person currently employed in the Cubs organization who has a better than even-odds chance of being a MLB average 1b in the next five years.
I agree with your overall point though. None of the guys off the board were at the tops of my wish list, especially at the prices they ended up commanding. I was honestly hoping for more trade activity by now, though.
I thought there would be more trade activity, but only after Pujols signed. I never thought he’d wait until Thursday to sign, though. Now we should start to see the trade talk heat up.
With the exception of Wilson, who signed for less than I thought he would, I agree. I’d like to think the Cubs had a competitive offer on Wilson at that price, but he probably would have gone to Anaheim anyhow. The Cubs are just getting started. We’ve probably got a month or so of rabid rumor-mongering to go before we have a really good idea what the Opening Day roster will look like.
We might have had an offer on Wilson, he did turn down over a $100 million from the Marlins to take $70-something from the Angels, so like you said, we probably never really had a chance.
I still think that ends up being a bad contract though.
Brett, This is gonna sound CRAZY. but now that the Angels have Pujols and CJ… i havent’ heard any rumors about Ramirez lately. (Aramis) Is it theoretically posible he returns on a Multi-year deal…?
he wants multiple years at big money, I saw no thanks
I saw no thanks too.
As far as getting Ramirez that wouldn’t be good either seeing that he is throwing a baby fit about moving off of short. After today I can see fielder going to st.louis and that really sucks for me seeing that I’m a life long cubs fan living in missouri.
Yea, I wonder about that too. If they have an extra 200 million lying around, why not?
Aram also looking for AL team…he knows his limitations in field…which AL team to take a chance?…unless he is candidate for NL/AL Houston too?…Also, would be too funny for him to end up across town with White Sox..
First time posting…superb website! First thing I read in the morning, just never had anything to say…My gf and I live right down the street from Angel Stadium…the Girlfriend is a huge Angel fan. While my previous anti-Pujols statements/biases have made her not excited for the signing (haha) I have been unsucessfully trying to convince her that it’s not a bad signing. Anyway, for what it’s worth, before the winter meetings, what we heard around here was that the Angels have had Trumbo practicing at 3rd base.
On another note I was at the game, right behind home plate when Morales went down. It was a pretty crazy thing to see the stadium all excited and happy after his grand slam and then silence. Ever since then, the feeling around here is that they’re over him. By the time the season gets under way, it’ll be two years since that game. The team kept giving dates for when he’d be back…ready by spring training of last season…he’d be ready by opening day…then nothing all season…had another surgery a couple of months ago and now they’re saying he’ll be back next season. While I understand people’s desire to sign the” Morales before injury,” I’m real hesitant to believe he can get back to form and imagine that it’ll take some time if he ever does. Dude hasn’t seen major league pitching in two years, kinda scary…
Welcome, C10. And thanks for the thoughts.
Lakers get Chris Paul, wtf Los Angeles!