Albert Pujols reveals unexpected NL team nearly bailed Angels out of horrible contract

Back in 2011, when the Los Angeles Angels signed slugger Albert Pujols to a 10-year, $240 million deal, it was no secret that other teams were interested in his services, but Pujols recently revealed that one team offered him $315 million, but he turned it down.

Pujols did not say which team offered him this money, but he did say the team was about an hour and forty minutes from the Dominican Republic. It wasn’t too hard to connect the dots and realize that the Marlins, then the Florida Marlins, now the Miami Marlins, were the team offering Pujols all that money to come to South Florida.

Looking back, the Angels have to wish Pujols had accepted that deal. Pujols only made one All-Star team while he was with the Angels and just generally struggled compared to his time with the St. Louis Cardinals. 

Pujols never lived up to his huge contract with Angels

From 2012 to 2020, Pujols hit .257/.312/.448 with 217 home runs and 771 runs batted in. Those numbers aren’t atrocious by any means, but the Angels paid him all that money hoping he could be a transformational player for the franchise. He was not.

Compare that to his first tenure with the Cardinals from 2001 to 2011. He hit .328/.420/.617 with 445 home runs and 1,329 runs batted in. Those are insane numbers, and while that was partly during the steroid era, although Pujols denies taking steroids, the Angels certainly thought they were getting that version of Pujols rather than the watered-down version they ended up getting.

Maybe they could have used that money on different players who could have made the roster much deeper. The Angels had Mike Trout for all those years and only got him to the playoffs once, so one can’t help but wonder how things would have been different if they spread that money out and didn’t just flush it down the Pujols drain.

Even though Pujols did not have the greatest tenure with the Angels, there was speculation that he would become the manager of the club this past offseason. Ultimately, that did not work out as there were disagreements over his contract, but maybe somewhere down the road, Pujols could manage the Angels.

Kurt Suzuki is on a one-year deal, and with the way this season is going, he may not get a second season. The Angels may also have a new general manager, and perhaps that person will be more willing to work with Pujols than someone like Perry Minasian.

If Pujols does become the skipper, maybe the least he could do is take a bit of a discount salary-wise to make up for how much the Angels overpaid for him while he was a player.

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