Major League Baseball star Pablo Sandoval, an integral cog in the San Francisco Giants’ World Series-winning team, has left the team and signed a five-year contract with the Boston Red Sox estimated to be worth $100 million.
Buster Olney, a senior baseball writer for the nation’s leading sports network, ESPN, tweeted November 24 in response to the deal: “Really surprised that Pablo Sandoval would leave SF when the offers from Boston/Giants were almost identical.”
K. Sean Packard, director of tax at Octagon Financial Services, which specializes in financial planning for professional athletes, wrote in Forbes on November 24 that he suspects that Mr. Sandoval chose the Red Sox because the contracts were not identical once taxes were factored in. After accounting for state income taxes, the Giants’ offer would need to be at least $7.6 million more than the offer from the Red Sox to truly match if Mr. Sandoval will live in his team’s home state.
From CalTaxReports.