Breaking Down Pujols' Salary Per Plate Appearance, Hit, Home Run

Albert Pujols has reportedly rejected the St. Louis Cardinals' latest offer to resign the All-Star first baseman. In so doing, Pujols supposedly won't revisit negotiations until the end of the season when he could become a free agent and sign with any team willing to become the highest bidder.

How much money are we talking about here? Speculation has it that Pujols wants to earn at least as much money as baseball's highest-paid player, Alex Rodriguez, who earns $27.5 million. By comparison, Pujols will earn $16 million this year playing for the Cardinals.

Numbers that big are difficult to put in perspective, but let's try to comprehend the loot based on Pujols' on-field statistics over the past three seasons -- 2008, 2009 and 2010. The chart below breaks down Pujols' pay per statistic under his current pay and a presumed new contract of $30 million per year that would make him the best-paid athlete in baseball.

As you can quickly see, your take-home pay this year suddenly seems a hell of a lot smaller.

An even simpler way to look at Pujols' salary is to break it down by a 162-game season. Each time Pujols suits up for the Cardinals this year, he'll earn $98,765. Next year that per-game pay could jump to $185,185.

This is not to suggest that Pujols should be blamed for the runaway salaries of baseball's best players. Still, it's hard to believe that Pujols, his children, his children's children, their children, could ever spend all that dough.