Prince Albert Pujols, he reigneth

http://images.45cat.com/ike-and-tina-turner-its-gonna-work-out-fine-london.jpg

Passed Jimmie Foxx on the HR list today, will pass Mantle soon. In other news, a shadow of his former self.

23 hr now. He's been a pretty impressive shadow lately, against all odds and prognostication.

Apr 6 to May 16, 2015 34 games 29/130 16 r 6 hr 14 rbis 18k 9bb .223 .277 .392
May 17 to Jun 24, 2015 36 games 43/135 30 r 17 hr 33 rbis 9k 14bb .319 .391 .741

I think Thomas without the walks is ending up being a pretty apt analogy offensively although everything I see kinda indicates he's still keeping his strong defensive skills (which obv Thomas never had). As long as you don't look at the contract, he's still got value.

aren't the angels uber rich anyway?

They are, but even so I'm sure they wish they were paying for Pujols 2000-2009 not the current incarnation.

He seems to have turned a bunch of doubles into home runs--his doubles are down from '14 and '12 almost in lockstep with the HR surge. Otherwise, he looks to be the same player he's been since arriving in California. Which is fine. He should be able to bulk up his career numbers at a reasonable level of performance for the next few years--3000/600 again looks very reachable, 2000 RBI probably.

40th hr

trout doubles, pujols homers :/ go Rangers!

agreed with the angels four years ago today

only six to go

He's been worth around 13 WAR over four years with the Angels, so at $7M/win or whatever the going rate is on the open market, he's earned his salary.

He had a .300 OBP last year and probably will be a marginal hitter by the end of his contract, but he's not been terrible. Though he still might have the worst contract in baseball considering the years and $ value still owed.

he fell off so badly in the second half of '15 I wonder if he's actually done for real this time tho

.249/.324/.416, 101 wRC+, 0.1 fWAR

only 5 and a half left to go

ouch. i didn't realize it had gotten that bad or that there was still 5+ years on that contract

Depending upon how much stock you put in the 40 HR last year, he's in his eighth year of almost uniformly straight-line decline. WARs, starting in 2009 (his career high): 9.7, 7.5, 5.3, 4.8, 2.3 (injury year; pro-rated for 155 games), 3.9, 3.1, 0.4 (also pro-rated for 155 games).

His worst nightmare turns out to be...R.A. Dickey: including an 0-3 tonight, 13 AB, no hits, no walks, one sacrifice fly. (Kluber, too.)

so R.A. has that going for him.

not too difficult to get albert out these days

it was a good run

http://i.imgur.com/Zury8rd.png

his career arc at this point kinda reminds me of griffey jr's

pujols probably more consistently great at his peak, but yeah. doesn't have griffey's injury excuses, either

13 seasons with at least 25 homers and 100 RBI

it's a shame (you know, apart from the money) that he's signed to such an absurd contract that he's become a joke

because good lord he hit some baseballs

eh, he earned that contract, Angels were foolish if they thought they were getting more than 3 decent years out of him

This could be Cabrera's 12th such season if he picks up the pace a bit in RBI. Never thought any contemporary of Pujols' would surpass his basic slash stats, but Cabrera might.

Pujols: .309/.393/.573
Cabrera: .321/.398/.561

(And just so nobody complains)

Trout: .306/.402/.558

Cabrera still has to tack on three extra years of decline, though, so maybe not. And of course, that's two great fielders and one guy with no defensive value.

Pujols hasn't remained otherworldly, but he isn't aging too bad for such a big built guy. I can't see why any of these clubs sign anyone for a 10 year guaranteed contract, but if you are going to do such a deal a guy like Pujols or say Votto are probably the better type of players to invest that much cash and time. Hamilton's long deal was the one that was really stupid, as the guy was an injury risk beyond the off the field issues.

The big thing to me is that the Angels minor league system completely fell apart and they had a couple of tough injuries with their young pitchers. Their pitching has been their weakness the past few years even last year when they won a bunch of games.

This could be Cabrera's 12th such season if he picks up the pace a bit in RBI. Never thought any contemporary of Pujols' would surpass his basic slash stats, but Cabrera might.

Pujols: .309/.393/.573
Cabrera: .321/.398/.561

(And just so nobody complains)

Trout: .306/.402/.558

Cabrera still has to tack on three extra years of decline, though, so maybe not. And of course, that's two great fielders and one guy with no defensive value.

― clemenza, Friday, August 26, 2016 10:55 PM (yesterday)

wow, i just checked and the two have just about identical career wRC+. i figured even with pujols's disastrous last few years he would still have him beat

that said despite cabrera being arguably one of the best...5-7 RH hitters ever, pujols has already attained inner-circle status and cabrera will have to have a bonds-like finish to his career to sniff that

miggy has yet (i think) to single-handedly destroy a pitcher's career the way pujols did with brad lidge

or bartolo did with james shields

Albert this season kinda proving how empty the RBI can be, statistically speaking:

.238/.276/.363
5 HR
5 2B
12 runs
30 RBI (2nd in AL)
-0.3 WAR

it takes a lot to go from the best player in MLB to the worst but he's trending well...

only 4 more years left on his contract. after this year.

was he an actual "questionable birthday" guy or was that just good ol'-fashioned racism?

his ISO is .125, woof

looks like he's going to end up generating around +10 WAR over his 10 year contract

http://www.sbnation.com/2011/11/21/2577356/how-old-is-albert-pujols

ah, 2011:

Well, if you squint hard enough, you might catch a glimpse of early decline in his numbers. His OPS+ has decreased every year since 2008. But I wouldn't want to make too much of that, because he's still playing at a superstar level, and really, who needs statistics when you've got a lot of rumors and hearsay evidence?

proving how empty the RBI can be, statistically speaking

Phrased that way, absolutely agree: "can be," not "is." If you look at the rest of the combined-leagues RBI leaderboard, it's one guy, Travis Shaw, having a good year, and nine other guys having very good to great years, including Zimmerman, Harper, and Goldschmidt (a couple in Colorado, mind you). And there's no mystery to Pujols' bogus total.

Grand slam:

http://m.mlb.com/video/v1462152183

More productive than Thome when he hit his 600th, less productive than Sosa.

thome never sucked as bad as pjuols does now!

damn he's on pace to score 49 runs

$500K per run

Thome's last two seasons were split between four teams; I didn't look carefully enough--you're right, he was mostly pretty good except for his Orioles line.

Ben Carsley, BP:

"Thanks to his milestone 600th homer on Saturday, Albert Pujols has now spent more time trotting around the bases than Mike Trout has spent on this earth."

.230/.275/.382, 74 wRC+, 5.9 BB%, -1.2 fWAR

only a little over 4 seasons to go on his contract

his career fWAR is back down to exactly 90.0, so he's probably going to end down in the 80s unless he improves

gonna get real ugly

yr alltime GIDP leader

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/albert-pujols-grounded-into-history/

hey, he's in good company!

1 pujols
2 ripken
3 pudge
4 aaron
5 yaz

a lot fewer PA than most of them; he can get to 600 DP perhaps

353 GIDP means 706 outs, so 26 games worth of outs by himself.

609th HR ties Sosa

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/albert-pujols-is-the-worst-player-in-baseball/