Prince Albert Pujols, he reigneth

Will ground into his 400th double play this season, the first player to ever do so.

Was intrigued by the IBB, so I looked it up:

Bottom of the 8th, Angels down by a run; two out, Trout on first, José Iglesias on deck. Pujols had homered earlier in the game.

I don't know Iglesias at all (sorry Andy K), but in a small sample last year (142 AB), he hit .373. Seems like a terrible move situationally: Pujols has to homer again to put L.A. ahead, a double from Iglesias will do it. As someone on the MLB site put it, La Russa still has his head in 2011.

It worked, though.

someone said the walk was to get the 3rd batter in before pulling the pitcher.

xp pujols won't even score from first on a triple

more alarming is putting the tying run into scoring position, of course

Is the 3-batter rule for relievers still in effect this season?

It is

more alarming is putting the tying run into scoring position, of course

Yeah, should have led with that--especially with Trout on 2nd. Didn't think about the third-batter rule (because I've been so disengaged post-pandemic, I didn't even know it was in effect).

BASERUNNING
SB: Pujols (1, 3rd base off Cody/Trevino)

!!

A. Pujols homered (420 ft.) to deep left center

Lol

Nice bittersweet Pujols post by Posnanski today in The Athletic.

The Los Angeles Angels are releasing future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols today, per sources. Pujols is in the final year of his 10-year, $253 million contract.

— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) May 6, 2021

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Thursday, May 6, 2021 12:52 PM (two minutes ago)

i guess i will take this to Prince Albert Pujols, he reigneth but i really hope/expect that he will in a cardinals uniform for a few home games at the end

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, May 6, 2021 12:54 PM (0 seconds ago)

His reigneth hath ended.

pic.twitter.com/dBWkkFdkxV

— Old Hoss Radbourn(e) (@OldHossRadbourn) May 6, 2021

releasing him was a gift, i guess, because it allows another team to start a new contract with him, right? probably much less than the $24M/yr he was making before.

unless some other team really does want his services for the rest of the year (for PR value i guess), i think the cardinals wouldn't add him onto the team until either they're out of contention or they've made the playoffs. the NL Central is mediocre and he really would make the team worse. it's too bad the DH wasn't added to the NL in time, i think they would actually pick him earlier if it were possible

He's about 180 RBI behind Aaron--probably would have caught him if he'd split the difference between then and now the past few years. Released on Willie Mays's 90th birthday, the last guy he passed on the HR list.

yea Covid robbed him of his chance at 700

yikes, apparently he was voicing his displeasure after not being played yesterday (in some matchup that would hypothetically be good for him or whatever), then released today. sheesh. maybe he really does want to just join some other team for a few more shitty months. i still think that at the end of the season they will make the STL reunion happen for at least a night

kinda wonder what’s driving him now. more counting stats? he’s a guaranteed hall of farmer and he’s super rich. is he not embarrassed by hitting .198? does he think he’s a swing tweak away from returning to the production of ten years ago? does he just really really like playing baseball, even poorly?

more counting stats?

it seems so fucking dumb/petty, but yeah, i think he very much wants to hit 700 or something? that's 33 more *gulp*

I'm always interested in non-baseball-media attention to baseball--lead story on what remains of CNN's sports coverage.

While his career may end during a 2-game hitting streak, he was also 2 for his last 18.

I was actually surprised at low his slash this year was (.198/.250/.372), all career lows.
Bonds' age 41 slash was .270/.454/.545 in comparison.

I am kinda mad about this! it’s rude. drink the whole damn glass, halos

He’s lucky they didn’t do this a year or two ago.

Pujols' decade with the Angels:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml#2012-2021-sum:batting_standard

I'd be interested in seeing the list of players who would turn up in a Similarity Score match: 222 HR, .256/.311/.447, 108 OPS+. Just based on OPS+, here are some of the names you get:

Sid Bream
Jay Bruce
Tommy Davis
Vince DiMaggio
Ralph Garr
Dave Henderson
Elston Howard
Harvey Kuenn
Mike Lowell
Rico Petrocelli
Miguel Tejada
Rondell White

One thing he will probably just miss is becoming the fourth player with 6,000 total bases (after Aaron, Musial, and Mays; Bonds fell 24 short). He's at 5,955.

Albert Pujols played 1,181 games with the Angels and had 1,180 hits.
Erick Aybar played 1,220 games with the Angels and had 1,223 hits

Interesting HOF argument for Aybar.

pujols: 12.9 bWAR, one all-star appearance, $240m
aybar: 23.0 bWAR, one all-star appearance, $37m

lol i hadn't known that aybar's nickname was 'admiral'

The Dodgers have agreed to a Major League deal with Albert Pujols, a source told MLB.com's Mark Feinsand on Saturday. Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times was the first to report the news.

The club has not confirmed the deal.

Pujols, 41, cleared waivers on Thursday after being designated for assignment by the Angels a week prior. He hit .198 with five homers and 12 RBIs over 86 at-bats for the Halos before being let go. The future Hall of Famer sits at 667 career homers, 33 shy of 700.

https://www.mlb.com/news/albert-pujols-deal-with-dodgers

ok

the dodgers need...publicity? the slowest player in the league who expects to play every day because he's due?

this makes sense, the dodgers are famous for both having a lot of playing time available for terrible players and being a stupid enough organization to give a lot of playing time to terrible players

but whoever got him, good: my ultimate desire is for the cardinals to get him on the last couple days of the season, and that wasn't going to work if another team didn't pick him up in the meantime, because i really didn't want to watch him play from now until mid-october

Not a move I understand.

also, in terms of PR value, i think the fans around los angeles are probably pretty good with how much they've gotten to see him play over the last half of his career?

Scenarios, including the Karl Malone Scenario:

https://www.mlb.com/news/albert-pujols-dodgers-scenarios

thing about scenario 7 (the one where pujols gets on a hot streak and is decent again) is that it would lead to scenario 7b (pujols decides to play one more, shitty, year with the kc royals or something)

teams are vaguely interested this year because they can have him for nothing; next year he'll be lucky to get a minor league contract with a spring training invitation. i don't see him playing for $1m plus incentives

oh of course, that does make sense. in that case, i root for him to either rule one more time or to completely suck and say goodbye with the cardinals for a few days

Is he famous for being a nice clubhouse guy? It’s good to have nice clubhouse guys around.

2021, pre-trade: 92 PA, .198/.250/.372, 70 wRC+
2021, post-trade: 71 PA, .269/.310/.522, 130 wRC+

his rolling 15-game wOBA is the highest it's been since 2016 (which was also the last year he put up positive fWAR).

https://i.imgur.com/iscRYe1.png

senior circuit

I can fix him

Albert Pujols is the 4th player to reach 6,000 total bases in his career.

The other players to reach the mark are Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, and Willie Mays.

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) July 6, 2021

his OPS+ with the dodgers is still positive! 106! first time over 100 since 2016. of course his defense drags his overall value back into the negative, even just considering his time with LA, but

sad