there seems to be a disconnect between the rather lengthty excerpt and the headline...

The Boston Bruins made just such an offer to Bobby Orr near the end of his career. Unfortunately, Orr's agent was scumbag Alan Eagleson who never informed Orr of the offer.

WHY DO WE CARE WHAT A MAN IN HIS MOTHER'S BASEMENT THINKS, MR. PRESIDENT?

Since the deal was not accepted, the people who usually compute present-day value of contracts that include deferred compensation didn’t do the math, but as a rule of thumb I have used in such instances in the past, I think it’s safe to figure that the $30 million deferred would produce a present-day value of roughly have [sic] that amount.

well, Maf is Hard. So hard U gotta half ppl to do it for U.

[sic]

Why would an agent's compensation be deferred? Just put a reasonable, present-day value on it and the agent gets his usual cut. What's so hard about that?

there seems to be a disconnect between the rather lengthty excerpt and the headline...

You know how it is for professional journalists. Your editor chooses your title.

If you didn't RTFA, this is what Murray said:

Pujols owes St. Louis nothing. The Cardinals drafted him and sent him out to play. He did the rest. If anything, the Cardinals and their fans owe Pujols for his monstrous annual production and his most-valuable-player-like contribution to two World Series championships. Without him they don’t have those seasons.

The Cardinals, on the other hand, should not be blamed for failing to sign Pujols. They might have benefited from a more aggressive approach, but based on the dollars they offered, it’s obvious they were stretching their resources as far as they felt they could while making sure they had enough money left to sign the rest of the unsigned roster.

-- MWE

It’s possible that Friedman had reasons other than loyalty to stay where he is. Maybe he didn’t want to have to try to build another contender out of the mess that the Astros have become.

This, pretty much. I doubt "loyalty" had all that much to do with it. Tampa is simply a much better job right now.

If Friedman wants to be GM of the Astros, he can apply in five years, after they fire the new guy for not turning the team around by then.

Team ownership for active players is a slippery slope that I don't think the MLBPA wants to go down. The collective is weakened if the player has interests on both sides of ownership.

Look how quickly Michael Jordan has turned.

Also, I don't think that the player would save on taxes. If he gets stock as part of compensation, then he pays income tax on the value of the stock in the year he receives it.

Not to mention that since stock in MLB clubs isn't publicly traded, it would be very hard to decide what the precise value of said stock was when the player received it. There would also be the problem of him having to sell it quickly if he was traded or became a free agent.

The Cardinals, on the other hand, should not be blamed for failing to sign Pujols. They might have benefited from a more aggressive approach, but based on the dollars they offered, it’s obvious they were stretching their resources as far as they felt they could while making sure they had enough money left to sign the rest of the unsigned roster.

You might even go so far as to say they came up with an offer that sounded competitive, but really wasn't. $30 million deferred with no interest for 20 years doesn't sound like a proposal you expect someone to accept.

Look how quickly Michael Jordan has turned.

Yeah, he's such an arrogant selfish jerk now.

Pujols showed *NO LOYALTY AT ALL* to the Rays. Whaddabum...

I want to know where is the Cardinals loyalty to Ryan Theriot!

Yeah, he's such an arrogant selfish jerk now.

Michael Jordan fan, but...LOL!

Team ownership for active players is a slippery slope that I don't think the MLBPA wants to go down. The collective is weakened if the player has interests on both sides of ownership.

The biggest issue is that if they left, the team would have to buy out their share(so there is no conflict of interest), which means that it's a very large exit fee. A 3% stake in a team valued at $700 million becomes a $21 million buy out.

Agents would recognize this as a great bargaining position. Teams don't want to lose liquidity so they could easily be leveraged into much higher contracts simply because they can't afford not to do it.

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think any owner wants to have to deal with that potential, so I doubt it ever happens.

Not to mention that since stock in MLB clubs isn't publicly traded, it would be very hard to decide what the precise value of said stock was when the player received it. There would also be the problem of him having to sell it quickly if he was traded or became a free agent.

You could make it a post-retirement payment to get around some of these issues.

But it seems to me the real problem here is that you only get to do such a deal maybe once or twice. You can't go around giving away 5% of equity to every big name FA your team signs over the next 50 years.

Perhaps more realistic is a Hollywood type of approach where a player gets a cut of team revenue. Or an attendance clause.

Jordan hosed the union every chance he got when he was a player anyway, so he fits right in at the owners' golf outings.

You can't go around giving away 5% of equity to every big name FA your team signs over the next 50 years.

Bialystock and Bloom (and Madoff) beg to differ.

Also, I don't think that the player would save on taxes. If he gets stock as part of compensation, then he pays income tax on the value of the stock in the year he receives it.

Capital gains are taxed at a far lower rate than earned income.... shouldn't be, at least across the board, but are.

It's against the rules (MLB Rule 20(e)), unless approved by Bud, for very good reasons.

As SOLockwood pointed out:

There would also be the problem of him having to sell it quickly if he was traded or became a free agent.

This was exactly the case with Rogers Hornsby and the St. Louis Cardinals. Hornsby was given stock because the Cardinals were short of cash. When Hornsby was traded to the Giants after the 1926 season, principal owner Sam Breadon and Hornsby disagreed on the value of the stock. In order to keep the case out of the courts, the other NL owners made up the difference.

John McGraw owned a piece of the Baltimore Orioles, also a cash poor organization at the time which had no majority owner. AL President Ban Johnson wanted to move the team to New York. New York Giants owner Andrew Freedman was opposed to this idea and bought out enough of the shareholders, including McGraw, to become the Orioles' majority owner. He then sold most of the Orioles' good players, including McGraw, to the Giants and some of the rest to the Cincinnati Reds, owned by his friend John T. Brush. This lead to the Orioles being unable to field a team. Johnson took players from other AL teams and assigned them to the Orioles. The Orioles did move to New York and become the Yankees.

So having players as part owners has been tried, has not worked out well, and has been largely prohibited.

While looking this up, I ran across rule 20(a), which covers ownership of more than one team. It's not against the rule as long as the entity does own more than 5% of any team. So the New York Times can own small pieces of the Yankees and the Red Sox and George F. Will can own small pieces of the Padres and the Orioles (does he still?). These were obvious conflicts of interest which bothered me and it bothered me that Bud was doing nothing about it.