Those Days Are Gone Forever? (Albert Pujols' Future...)

The easy and obvious answer is Wally Joyner. But I don't know. I do wish players--classic second-guess coming up--would stop for a second sometimes before leaving what appears to be a perfect situation so they can make $25 million a year instead of a paltry $20 million.

Do you think it's impossible he'd be performing precisely this way in St Louis? or are you saying he'd be less derided if he was?

i would guess that his relatively subpar recent performance (in albert terms) has more to do with playing through chronic injuries than anything else. he was not popularly perceived as injury-ridden during his last few years with the cards because he was still playing 150+ game a year and reliably slashing .300/.415/.600. but there were frequent references to the pain that he was playing though, foot problems, knee problems. attending cards games in those years, it was common to see pujols lumbering slowly down the first base line on an easy pop out, almost appearing to be limping at times. but somehow he kept playing through it.

i haven't been following him as closely the last two years, of course, but it seems like that injury has gotten worse, or perhaps his advancing age is making it harder for him to play through it as effectively. it looks like he needs to get some sort of surgery and miss a bunch of games, and i'm sure that since he's got the pressure of living up to the really stupid contract (from the angels' perspective) he doesn't want to do that.

I'm saying that switching teams and (especially) leagues introduces a lot of unknowns. He was venerated in St. Louis, and was coming off his second World Series win in six years; I think he would have just kept on going as before had he stayed.

On the other hand...1) You can clearly see decline in 2010 and 2011, before he left, and 2) no one's ever waved $25 million at me, so an extra few million may be harder to turn down than I realize.

Like I say: second-guessing.

i think for many guys like pujols -- who still seems to have a chip on his shoulder from having been a 13th-round pick -- it's not *exactly* about the money itself as it is about perceived respect. he thinks he is the greatest and making the most $ is a marker of that, and it is a slight to him that the cardinals did not offer the most $. although i guess he *did* decide that less money and an ntc was a better deal than working for jeffrey loria. good call.

anyway i'd suppose wally joyner, at least for a couple years, but it could get ugly. he apparently refuses to sit? which hey <3 u albert ripken but this season appears lost for the angels and maybe if you got healthy that would be a better thing. he barely made it around the bases after his homer on wednesday.

also, ~marine layer~

Albert's going to be "34" early next season and I think age and nagging injuries are going to make his contract look vv stupid indeed. Maybe not Hamilton-stupid but potentially close.

Then again big papi looked like toast at certain points and now he's been at peak era form for a couple seasons now.

isnt pujols hurt this year? he looks like he's moving p gingerly whenever he's baserunning

he's been hurt for at least 5-6 years now

it's supposedly a similar injury as the one that ended dimaggio's career early.

The more I thought about it, I'm not sure who else I had in mind with the idea of bad karma when you chase a big contract mid-career. I'm sure there are examples where that applies, but the ones I thought of didn't really fit. Griffey declined rapidly, but--setting aside the reason why, the injuries--his exit was memorable because he took less money so he could sign with the Reds. Then there are guys like Ramirez and A-Rod, who went on to win World Series with the Red Sox and Yankees; even though Manny's numbers declined somewhat in Boston, the two championships make his time with the Red Sox the high point of his career*. So I may have veered a bit off course there. The original question, Albert's future, still applies.

*that Taiwanese home run call I posted the other day excepted

Plus, um, A-Rod left Texas via trade...don't mind me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79YUknp1T7I

Pujols' foot is really bothering him, and he's limited to DH duty as a result, the LA Times reports. "I'm dying," Pujols said Sunday. "It's hurting real bad." The team hopes to have him play through his plantar fasciitis until he cannot tolerate the discomfort.

that's from a few weeks back

I think this could get really ugly. If it was just a matter of getting surgery and a few months off to rest, he'd have done it during the offseason.

Pujols might have hit a frank Thomas/ Griffey injury wall I guess. Thomas was able to have some good to great seasons in years subsequent to his initial uninterrupted run of greatness (cf his epic MVP runner up season in, I think, 2000. Plus his several seasons scattered about here and there.) but pujols' decline seems a bit more alarming, it's injuries coupled with other issues imo. Not saying he's going to suck but the cards dodged a bullet.

While I am sure there is part of Albert Pujols that wants to keep playing every day, I think at some points as these injuries pile up, it may just be time for him to take a month off and get healthy. This might just be his totally lost year and if the Angels are out of it, which they already are, it might be prudent to just shut down the machine and let him heal and work on getting stronger.

Big Papi, Jim Thome and the Big Hurt both looked kind of washed up at one point and came back to put up some good numbers, so I think it is entirely possible Pujols can return to something close to what he was.

i think for many guys like pujols -- who still seems to have a chip on his shoulder from having been a 13th-round pick -- it's not *exactly* about the money itself as it is about perceived respect. he thinks he is the greatest and making the most $ is a marker of that, and it is a slight to him that the cardinals did not offer the most $
― mookieproof, Saturday, June 15, 2013 2:26 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is exactly it. there was a piece on pujols a while ago in which it was revealed that he gives most of his cash away to charities anyway. I think it's just one of those things where, say you're working at a place for $60k/year, then you find out the newer and less experienced employees are getting $65k, of course that's going to bother you even if you were perfectly happy with 60. given the real competitive nature of these guys it's not surprising at all. The Angels are a big market team willing to spend lots of cash and gave Pujols a significantly better offer than the Cards. I don't think his struggles have anything to do with that.

The author of this somewhat specious proposition has temporarily withdrawn it for lack of corroborating evidence (without, mind you, being convinced he wouldn't have been better off staying in St. Louis).

In other words, if Pujols has been fighting an injury (which seems obvious from the comments here and elsewhere), maybe St. Louis might have been a better situation for him to take the time off he needs; it seems reasonable that after signing a huge contract with a marquee team, he puts extra pressure on himself to stay in the lineup.

Anyway, he just knocked in Trout with a line drive to center, so he's all better now.

Cards definitely wouldn't have been better off. They definitely got more bang for their buck signing Carlos Beltran the past couple of years.

Even without beltran's (and allen craig's) performance over the last year, signing pujols through his age 44 year would have been a mistake. I wonder if this will mark the beginning the end of the era of signing players to massive 8-10 year contracts for the 30-38 age years?

Eventually, probably, but big-name free agents have mesmerized GMs and owners since day one (thinking of the Angels signing 29-year-old Joe Rudi in 1977--$2 million for five years, huge at the time--based on...what?), and my guess is they'll continue that way for a while. Every now and again, one will turn out pretty well, and that'll be enough to keep them mesmerized. Smart teams like the Cardinals who get it will thrive.

The beginning of the end, probably.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1092275/index.htm

as long as revenues keep going forever up, (certain) teams will be willing to barter the future for the present, though some will do it better than others.

it seems like revenues should stop going up at some point, but who knows when or how it will play out. it's tough paying for the back half of a guy's 30's.

This might just be his totally lost year

Albert in June:

.319/.386/.556

with all the TV money that's coming in I think a lot of GMs just don't care about what's going to happen in 5 years (when they may not have their jobs anyway)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

It's crazy to see how decent his June #s looked 3 weeks into the month (Dr. Morbius' post on 6/21), only to fall off a cliff promptly by the end of the month.

He's getting owned by lefties, can no longer hit a fastball for power, increased K rate, decreased BB rate, barely-average on-base, sub-average slugging, tremendous loss in bat speed and foot speed (1 SB out of 2 attempts), almost every statistic you can think of is in free-fall decline.

WAR is the most frightening: after averaging roughly 8.0 WAR in his first 10 seasons, then 4.0 for the past 2 seasons, is barely positive this year: 0.4.

I can't imagine how relieved the Cards are that he declined their offer... The Angels owe Albert over $200M over the next eight and a half seasons.

i had a feeling he'd decline quickly, but i never thought he'd be in the conversation for...

"the worst contract of all time"

Jesus, those are Yuniesky Betancourt numbers!!

I wonder if this will mark the beginning the end of the era of signing players to massive 8-10 year contracts for the 30-38 age years?

Next big test looks like Cano, who'll be 31 in October.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20130814/robinson-cano-yankees-free-agent/?sct=mlb_t11_a2

no one learns anything.

why would it end? those contracts aren't given out in a vacuum, they're given out because every decent free agent is a walking bidding war and there's no limit to what they can spend. there are always going to be GMs that do whatever it takes to get certain players.

The only very small defense I can make for whoever signs him is that I imagine his decline will be more gradual than the big-dollar slugger. Compared to Pujols, it's lower risk/lower payoff (as great as Cano inarguably is).

But they will overpay.

It's a seller's market. Most of the big bats are already locked down. There is some pitching available and usually bunches of bullpen arms, but the big signing spree across MLB has most of the HR hitters under contract.

There are top tier starters getting similar deals too, but I think that is always more of a crap shoot as it seems pitchers seem to get hurt more often anyway. It doesn't take a lot of injury to all the sudden to drop some guys from heat to hittable either.

teams that would have interest + ability to sign cano: yankees, dodgers, tigers, maybe angels (keep going arte) . . . is that it?

would love the yanks or angels to commit 200 mill to cano's steve buechele years.