Cost vs. Worth

This week in sports, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim gave Albert Pujols a contact worth over $250 million dollars for the next ten years of his life. While the Angels came away with the top free agent prize of the MLB off season, they weren’t the only ones interested in capturing the St. Louis Cardinal’s prize possession. In fact, it was the Miami Marlins who were the first to come up with the idea of offering the aging first baseman a big money, long term contract but they eventually pulled out of the deal. Ultimately, both teams thought of Pujols as a high caliber player who would no doubt enhance their ball club but in the end it wasn’t the Angels vs. the Marlins but rather cost vs. worth that sealed the superstar’s fate.


It’s common practice to look at the ideas of cost and worth when it comes to economics. Cost is the price of something and worth is the value of that object to you. Basically, it all comes down to the question, is the value of the item worth the price that you have to pay for it? In regards to the aforementioned example, Albert Pujols is a lot of things including a great baseball player, a power hitter, a face of a franchise, and a potential savior for a struggling team but he is also 32 years old. In baseball years that makes him middle aged and heading towards the twilight of his spectacular career coasting down the road to retirement and his spot in Cooperstown. Ten years is a lot of time to invest in a player. In the end, ten years and millions of dollars is a worthwhile investment for an American League team and their ability to use a designated hitter but in the National League where there is no designated hitter option, the contract becomes much more of a gamble for an older player.

Ok, so now to my point. Just like every off season, baseball has once again become all about who’s going where and who’s going to get what. As I watched teams, one by one make the decision if the cost of a player is worth what the player in question will give them during the length of their contract, I started to really think more about ideas of cost and worth. Are you worth what you would cost?

Recently, I found myself in a cost vs. worth situation of my own. If you think about it, our lives are a lot like baseball. We are the ones managing our own franchises and it’s our responsibility to maintain our teams. It’s important to field a team full of players who will give you the best chance to win. One wrong player can destroy team chemistry. For me, I traded a player who was a club house cancer in a previous off season. Last I heard, he was thriving on his new team and even though my team was struggling for a while to find a replacement for this player, things were actually beginning to look up. Now the option to bring this person back onto my team has come up and I’m not really sure if the cost is worth it.

You see, this particular player would have a totally different function on the team this time around. He would be a much smaller piece to the overall make up of the organization but would he be happy with the diminished role he would have to play? And of course there was the question of how much his presence on the team would affect the great team chemistry I have right now.  If my past experience with this player taught me anything, it’s that he’s not a cheap gamble either. In the end, just like the Miami Marlins and Albert Pujols, I decided the cost of this player would not be worth it.

Sometimes you have to look at the hidden costs that people bring to the table. In their heyday, they may have been a great player but are they past their prime? Can someone transition to a new position to be a team player or will they always hang on to what was just because they consider themselves to be superstar status? In the game of life, we are always looking to win the series, hoist the trophy and call ourselves the world champions and that means we have to be careful who we allow to play with us. So draft your players wisely, pursue worthwhile free agents, make your trades, and let’s get ready to play ball because a new season is just around the corner.

"Life will always throw you curves, just keep fouling them off...the right pitch will come, but when it does, be prepared to run the bases." - Rick Maksian