Prince Albert Pujols, he reigneth

Just got in, don't see Pujols in the boxscore--what's going on?

looks like he's playing winter ball!

👀

Albert Pujols has been traded in the Dominican. He's expected to join his new team, @EscogidoBBClub, tomorrow.

Pujols, 41, has never played winter ball.

All @LIDOMRD games can be streamed on https://t.co/6sCCXzww2u. Info here: https://t.co/Hwm8hffTN4 https://t.co/scpdkPrih3

— Nathalie Alonso (@NathalieMLB) October 28, 2021

Describe this Albert Pujols steal attempt with one word 😂😂#Cardinals #STLCards #MLBTwitter

pic.twitter.com/1QjIwC9nML

— BetFTW (@Bet_ForTheWin) April 14, 2022

hot start has returned him to 100 bWAR

He should immediately retire.

Pujols' 36.00 ERA would supplant Josh Gibson's 21.60 (4 ER, 1.2 IP) if no other box scores of Gibson pitching are ever found. https://t.co/qRwyhRGF92

— Jay Jaffe (@jay_jaffe) May 16, 2022

prince albert at pnc park in pittsburgh:

97 G, .373/.447/.717, 32 HR, 32 2B, 92 RBI, 17 IBB

Ya, I’d probably walk him too

Poll-jols: if you could only pick albert or yadi for the role of running and pitching, who would you go with? here are both of their 2022 pitching lines so far, along with their sprint speeds

Pujols 1 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 0 SO, 2 HR (22.8 ft/s, 4th worst in MLB)

Molina 1 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 0 SO, 2 HR (22.6 ft/s, 3rd worst in MLB)

albert's ERA is 36.00 but his xFIP is just 12.33. similarly, while he may have a 32.10 FIP, his xFIP is a more reasonable 8.86. he only gets 33% GB%, but his FB/HR is 100%, and that can only go down.

yadi's ERA is also 36.00, which is better than mine would be, and his xERA is 10.48, which is probably better than greg holland's when he was it the Cardinals, or pretty close. Yadi's FIP is in the high 20s, and his 7.24 xFIP is is in the range where you can imagine a washed up old starter, 3 years past when he should have quit, hanging on in the minors and one of the bull durham people says something to him from that movie and he quits for good. so not bad!

also, i am worried about the health of the slowest man in the major leagues, martin maldonado, who is much slower (20.8 ft/s) than the second slowest player, in fact a full standard deviation (-4.1 z-score compared to second place's -3.0) lower than anyone else in baseball. that's like when the oldest person thinks this other guy he knows is REALLY old

yeah that walk is really killing albert’s pitching stats

He doesn’t even try to hold runners on, either. It’s like it’s a joke to him.

Still, I think he has the edge against Molina. He has more tricks up his sleeve, I think

10th guy to play 3,000 games.

albert had maybe his last monster game, last night. in Colorado, vs Kyle Freeman (LHP): 4 for 5 with a HR, a double, two singles, 2 runs scored, and 2 RBIs. by fWAR he is _IN THE POSITIVE_ at 0.1 fWAR for the year, with is late-era DH and first base defense offset by his 114 wRC+. The last time his wRC+ was above 100 for an entire season was 2016.

he was supposed to primarily lefties this season. Earlier in the year Oli Marmol, who is Pujols' son and manager, seemed to be deferring to him in way too many situations against righthanders. For the past few weeks, though, it's been a steady diet of lefties and it's put Pujols in a better position to succeed.

vs Lefties: 81 PAs, .357/.395/.614, wRC+ 173

vs Righties: 122 PAs, .170/.279/.311, wRC+ 75

only 2 months left on the Albert Pujols career. i was not optimistic, but he's not embarrassing himself and it's been really cool to have him back in the cardinals uniform. :)

at the moment he's at 99.9 bWAR, 87.1 fWAR

insane

a playoff season, all by himself

haha, even better! a team of replacement players would win about 52 games in a season, so adding career pujols would be like it would be like 152 wins (or a mere 139 by fWAR).

of course...this scenario cannot exist in time and space, but still! haha

what we need is compressed- super-career ted williams and albert pujols on the same team! finally, the vaunted 200 wins in a season record would be demolished!

albert had maybe his last monster game, last night

what a cynical bastard i am! he topped it today, in his very next game. 2 home runs, including a no doubter that put the game out of reach in the 8th. the kind where the outfielders don't move as it flies over their head. it warms my heart

the next albert pujols (?!?!)

👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/xXm8NGDSoe

— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) August 16, 2022

#690 today (pinch-hit grand slam)...What do you think--can he hit 10 in 46 games, KM?

i wish he could, but no, i do not think so. would be awesome if he does, obviously.

the number i'm thinking about more is 696, and i think he has an outside shot of that. he's definitely on a hot streak, when he's playing: 159 wRC+ in July, 262 (!!) so far in August. But that's across only 55 PAs in July, 24 so far in August. he's mostly getting played against lefties, and i support that because he is no longer good or ok against righties and it's getting close to playoff season.

696 is a-rod's total, of course. it'd be cool to see him tie or pass that up. if he does, it will be because he's on a continued hot streak. it'll be a great moment and cool end of career thing for him.

i think i used to care more about PEDs than i do now. still, i see pujols as the #3 legit home run king, behind aaron and ruth. if i had a HoF vote i would definitely vote for bonds (and clemens, and some others) who i think were good enough that they deserved it. but when it comes to the big counting stats records, fuck bonds and a-rod, you're off the list imo

the biggest crime of PEDs was not about cheating or the enjoyment of watching them play (it was amazing to see the big neck guys hit balls into rivers) it was about how they complicated the big counting stats and made an irritating conversation even worse

is joe jackson in the hall of fame? i would vote for him, pete rose, bonds, clemens, a-rod, and your mom

the hall of fame's mom i mean

feel like, down the stretch, there's gonna be at least 7 plate appearance in blowouts or just meaningless games where pitchers(/hitters) who don't care about their ERAs are just gonna groove him one to help him get there

so he's really only gotta get 3 for real

691!

Came to post...I like your theory about getting some pitches grooved down the stretch. They finish with six games against the Pirates; any ex-teammates pitching over there?

José Quintana. It'll all come down to the generosity of José Quintana.

another one tonight! by that, i mean, 2 tonight. the second just happened. maybe he will get 700? the more he crushes lefties, the more playing time he'll get vs righthanders, i guess

the diamondbacks fans just requested a curtain call. denied.

jose quintana is on the cardinals

Oops--read that trade in the wrong direction.

Anyway, if he can keep hitting two HR a game, he's going to make a run at Bonds.

In celebration of Albert Pujols (@PujolsFive) passing Stan Musial (@stanthemaninc) and becoming 2nd All-Time in MLB history in total bases, I have created a progressive timeline for All-Time Career Total Bases!

Huge congratulations to the @Cardinals legend on this feat! 🔥📈 pic.twitter.com/BXOLDyQcuS

— Greg Harvey (@BetweenTheNums) August 21, 2022

found in this prince albert piece: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/albert-pujols-is-enjoying-a-renaissance/

Pujols does it again tonight. 693. They've faced a lot of lefties recently (including tonight), so i expect things to drop off when it's back to mostly righties and he either sits or plays and sucks against righties. but man, he has made the absolute most of his opportunity against all these lefties. it's really been a feel good month for him, since the all-star break. he's not "not embarrassing" himself on terms relative to how bad the last 5+ years were, but he's just straight up crushing it. his two other PAs tonight were a 106 EV single off the wall and a 103 EV GIDP. he consistently hits the ball harder than anyone else in the game, when he appears. he just can't run. at all.

i also read today that he apparently had offers from at least 4 other teams, some of which offered more money and playing time. i'm glad that he chose to come back to St Louis, and i'm glad Oli Marmol is walking the very awkward line of a 36-year-old limiting the PAs of Albert to the ones where he's in a position to succeed

Cubs finally brought in a righty, and Pujols weakly grounds into another GIDP, looked frightened of the ball as it was flying toward him.

i have to say, this does set up a very dramatic Rated PG kind of family sports movie ending scenario. it's the playoffs. game 7. or game 3 of a wild card. whatever. last at bat. it's a right handed pitcher - Pujols completely sucks against them, even if he can still destroy lefties. everybody knows it. especially star right handed pitcher TJ Tornado, who hates children. Oli Marmol has a talk with Pujols in the dugout and calls him the big brother he always wanted. not the ones he actually had. not like Will. Don't do it for this guy, Marmol says, pointing the finger toward his chest. do it for this guy. and with that, Pujols and Marmol lift 4 arms up toward heaven and point. that's where god lives. but then he strikes out. can't win them all, read Job

Also tied Bonds tonight for homering off the most pitchers, 449. So he has to make sure he hits one more off someone for the first time.

There were only 30-35 pitchers in baseball when Babe Ruth played, and all threw 600 innings a year, so his victim count is very low.

Ya but after three years of that, most pitchers back then would just die and be immediately forgotten

On the flip side, they were rewarded with excellent baseball nicknames and a newfound commitment to chewing tobacco

Which was often tied to the quality of their moustache.

it would be kind of a grim but fascinating study to see how many players of that era ended up with tobacco-related disease

xp correlated with quality of mustache factor, of course!

albert's platoon splits this season:

vs RHP: 135 PA, .186/.289/.322 (.611 OPS)
vs LHP: 101 PA, .398/.436/.807 (1.242 OPS)

i'm not a scholar of platoon splits, but that seems pretty extreme! and yeah, nice job by marmol

*scholar of platoon splits walks in wearing a gigantic top hat*