Albert Pujols's Megadeal with Angels Fails to Account for 62% Cost-of-Living Increase

Doubtless the biggest baseball story of the offseason, longtime St. Louis Cardinal slugger Albert Pujols reached a megadeal with the Los Angeles Angels under which he will earn $254 million over 10 years, according to a recent article by Yahoo! Sports writer Tim Brown.

Pujols, who had spent his entire 11-year career with the Cardinals, was an icon in St. Louis. "To Today's St. Louis he was its Musial, it's Gibson, its Hornsby," Brown noted of the three-time league MVP.

According to Yahoo! Sports, in 1,705 games as a Cardinal, Pujols achieved a career batting average of .328, with 2,073 hits, 445 home runs, 455 doubles, and 1,329 runs batted in; his fielding percentage was equally impressive at .992, with 13,144 putouts, 1,409 assists, 1,292 double plays, and just 115 errors.

"After a month-long search for wealth and happiness, … Pujols will not return to the only organization he's known," Brown wrote of the iconic nine-time All-Star. "The contract value," Brown reported, "is the second ... highest in baseball history, behind the contract Alex Rodriguez signed with the New York Yankees in 2008 ($275 million)."

Ironically, however, Pujols will be less wealthy under his $254 million megadeal with the Angels than under a proposed $210 million contract reportedly offered by the Cardinals to keep Pujols in St. Louis.

According to CNNMoney, the cost-of-living in Orange County, California, home to the Los Angeles Angels, is 62% higher than in St. Louis, Missouri. Housing, in particular, is 226% higher. What's more, if Pujols decides to live in the upscale town of Laguna Beach or contiguous Newport Beach, his cost-of-living in those municipalities will far exceed the Orange County average.

Comparing Pujols's proposed contract and megadeal, a person earning $21,000,000 annually in St. Louis, Missouri, must earn $33,962,389 a year in Orange County, California, just to maintain the same standard of living.

In sum, then, for Pujols to get a better contract from the Los Angeles Angels than the St. Louis Cardinals, he needed to secure a deal for nearly $340 million over ten years.

Pujols and his agent came up short by roughly $86 million.

Sources:

Albert Pujols: Career Stats, Yahoo! Sports
Gabe Lacquez, "Albert Pujols: A shock for St. Louis, a jolt for baseball," USA Today.
"How far will my salary go in another city?," CNNMoney
Tim Brown, "Pujols agrees to terms with Angels on landmark deal," Yahoo! Sports