NEW YORK (AP) - Albert Pujols officially joined the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday when Major League Baseball and the players’ association confirmed the terms of the first baseman’s 10-year contract and agreed its guaranteed value is $240 million.
The deal was reached four weeks earlier on the final day of the winter meetings and took nearly a month to complete. There are three separate agreements.
The team and Pujols will enter a 10-year, personal-services agreement following the playing contract’s expiration or Pujols’ retirement, whichever is later, a deal that will pay $1 million annually. But because it is contingent on Pujols actually working for the team, it is not considered guaranteed money for the purposes of baseball’s luxury tax.
High-payroll teams such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are likely to examine that structure closely and may emulate it in future agreements.
There also is a marketing agreement that will pay Pujols for milestone accomplishments. The player will receive $3 million for 3,000 hits and $7 million for a record 763rd home run. He currently has 2,073 hits and 763 home runs.
Including all three agreements, Pujols could make up to $265.75 million over 20 years. That includes $875,000 in possible award bonuses each year for accomplishments such as Most Valuable Player, World Series and league championship series MVP, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger, and making the All-Star team.
Like C.J. Wilson’s $77.5 million, five-year contract, which also was agreed to Dec. 8, Pujols’ deal is heavily backloaded. His 2012 salary will be $12 million, down from the $16 million he made last year in the option year of his contract with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Pujols salary increases to $16 million in 2013 and $23 million in 2014, then rises $1 million annually until he makes $30 million in 2021, when he will be 41.
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