Not that I needed an announcement, but there was a brief spell last night when Albert Pujols wife had declared this next season, the last of his illustrious career. She did her best to walk back later, as this is how these things tend to happen.
But this is the easiest 2 + 2 in baseball. Pujols is 41 years old and this is the last year of the gigantic 10-year contract he signed with Anaheim / Los Angeles. It has been five years since Pujols was a decent hitter, and nine since he was a star. It’s hard to imagine any team that is offering him much of anything in 2022. Maybe a secondary league contract and an invitation to spring training, but it’s the best he can hope for if he wants to continue playing.
It’s hard to remember for many baseball fans that Pujols was the game’s most feared hitter in a decade. This is the product of modern sports these days, where players are better known for their contracts than for what they did on the field, especially if they go to the bathroom long before the deal ends. There is no way to avoid it, even in a sport like baseball, which supposedly does not have a salary cap. The Pujols contract prevented the Angels from doing much in the past few years, like finding a real ace or letting Shohei Ohtani be a full-time DH or the huge amounts of shuffling they had to do when Pujols was no longer able to play (which was practically on arrival). But it is not as if Pujols were to depart from any part of the rest of this contract. It is still paying $ 30 million this year. And he certainly did not force the Angels to offer him that contract. Work pays what it pays.
It is very foggy to remember the seasons when Pujols reached 0.330, along with 40 homers and, even so, eliminated in less than 10% of his ABs. It looked like he could reach the base whenever he wanted, and he probably could if he didn’t have to hit for strength, which he did regularly.
The thing that fans should remember most about Pujols’ heyday is how he never seemed deceived, never out of balance. He never stretched for a shot, he was never in front, and his stridel swing always seemed perfectly balanced and heavy between the two legs. It was as if he knew. Probably because he did. I know from experience – many afternoons watching him beat the Cubs mercilessly – that the ball sounded different from his bat than any other player. It was a blow. Not a crack, but a thud. The sound of a pitch actually dying on your stick.
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Pujols was also one of the smartest players – he stole the bases at the exact moment when the pitchers fell asleep and was the most boring thing in the world. I almost needed stitches when he predictably, regularly, did this against Carlos Marmol to bring yet another explosion of defense for the Great Red Enemy. He was also more than an acceptable first baseman when he finally landed there after seasons on the third and on the left.
He is the holder of the Hall of Fame, although it is difficult to think of another player in the Hall who spent most of a decade being a detriment to his team. Willie Mays as Met is always used as a symbol or metaphor, but he only stayed there two years and did 158 OPS + at 40. It was a long and hard fall, that’s for sure.
Pujols’ second act is the ghost / bogeyman story that all GMs are told as children, and why almost all of them are afraid to hand over a contract to anyone over 30.
Control your budget or Pujols will cost you your job.
Your first act deserves more than that, but that’s how it works.
As expected, the president of Mariners Kevin Mather had to fall on his sword yesterday after saying all the quiet parts at a rotary club meeting. There was no other way to end it, although the speed is a small surprise.
It’s still comical to hear Mariners president John Stanton claim that Mather’s comments don’t “represent our organization’s feelings about players, team and fans” when he was, you know, the president and was setting the policy for organization. If he had been completely dishonest, the story would have been different. At least when it comes to keeping prospects low and not starting contract clocks, we know that is what most teams want to do. We know that the TV deals kept them afloat during the pandemic.
The Mariners will hope that Mather’s resignation will be enough for everyone and that the new guy has the good sense not to disclose the team’s secret files. Will there be any institutional change? You can forget that. That’s how baseball works now. You simply must not draw attention to this.