Prince Albert Pujols, he reigneth

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

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?