Albert Pujols = God

[Absolutely]

I live in St.Louis, so I see him play every single night, the guy is a God.

He is single handedly winning game after game for the Cardinals. Aside from a few singles hitters batting around .300 there is nobody else on this team who can hurt you, and yet he's still crushing.

He came up tonight against the Red with bases loaded, and of course hits a Grand Slam, and then later when the game is tied again has a 2 RBI Double.

Triple Crown? I'd say 80% chance
RBIS - Up 7
HRs - Up 7
AVG - Down .008

Overall in MLB
#1 in Hrs
#1 in RBIS
#1 in OBP
#1 in SLG
#1 in OPS
#1 in Walks
#1 in Runs Scored
#4 in Batting Average

Gold Glove caliber, leads the team in Stolen Bases (10)
He's a freak, and he's theoretically "Clean"

[Aaron Burrito]

I was going to make a thread about him as well but mine would have been a little more negative.

Why is it that he gets such a free pass when it comes to PEDS?

From the Dominican, undrafted out of HS, went to community college, drafted in the 13th round and two years later wins the rookie of the year. Then wins two MVP awards and is the only player in MLB history to hit at least 30 HR in his first 9 years in the league.

And this year he's on pace to break Maris' HR record of 61 in a single year which no non-PED player has done.

So, why the free pass?

I'm not at all says he's taking something, I just find it odd that the issue never comes up.
Every person in the media says that they should have been more aware of what was going on in 1998 and after. Here is a guy doing the same exact things and not one person is a little bit suspicious?

I know they can't accuse the guy without any proof but doesn't the question at least have to be asked? He fits the profile perfectly.

Hell, even Raul Ibanez was catching shit for his performance this year.

[moegolden]

PEDs aside, I think that 61 home run mark is due to be (cleanly) broken, if only because of focused training methods and technology and ballpark sizes.

[Aaron Burrito]

PEDs aside, I think that 61 home run mark is due to be (cleanly) broken, if only because of focused training methods and technology and ballpark sizes.

If all McGwire was taking is andro then his 70 is fairly legit I guess but he hit 65 the next year. You'd think it would be a one year (career year) type thing.

Howard hit 58 in '06 and that seems legit.

I just saying, if the media thinks they should have been suspicious back then, shouldn't they be just as suspicious now? Especially after Manny got busted. Why does everyone assume all players are clean now?

[Absolutely]

A few things...
He's been incredibly outspoken about not taking anything, "Believe in me" etc.
(He doth protest too much?) Plus I think people want him to be clean, so the media isn't necessarily driving the issue. They have no evidence to go on anyway.

On this I'm not an expert, but obviously he hasn't failed any test that we know about, and I assume they're being tested (Like I said, I don't know how many times they are etc.)

About being undrafted, and going to CC: I chalk that up to the MLB draft being such a crap shoot. There are tons of people that come out of obscurity.

Finally, there has been no real spike in his performance.
He crushed his 1 year in the Minors (19 Hr/96RBI)
And like you said every single year 30+Hrs, 100+RBIS, 300 AVG

Unlike Ibanez who at 35 was on pace to hit more Hrs before the break than he ever has or whatever.

Plus Albert's been about the same size since 2000, gotten a little bigger, but he was 20(Wink Wink) when he came up in 2000.

[Aaron Burrito]

A few things...
He's been incredibly outspoken about not taking anything, "Believe in me" etc.
(He doth protest too much?) Plus I think people want him to be clean, so the media isn't necessarily driving the issue. They have no evidence to go on anyway.

On this I'm not an expert, but obviously he hasn't failed any test that we know about, and I assume they're being tested (Like I said, I don't know how many times they are etc.)

About being undrafted, and going to CC: I chalk that up to the MLB draft being such a crap shoot. There are tons of people that come out of obscurity.

Finally, there has been no real spike in his performance.
He crushed his 1 year in the Minors (19 Hr/96RBI)
And like you said every single year 30+Hrs, 100+RBIS, 300 AVG

Unlike Ibanez who at 35 was on pace to hit more Hrs before the break than he ever has or whatever.

Plus Albert's been about the same size since 2000, gotten a little bigger, but he was 20(Wink Wink) when he came up in 2000.

Remember that PEDs became huge in the late 90's, who's to say he wasn't on something since day one? That's why I pointed out the fact that he wasn't drafted out of HS and was a 13th round pick in college. Plus Being Dominican is a negative as well as it appears that PEDS are prevalent down there.

Again, I don't think he's doing anything but I do think it should be talked about. At this point it appears that a large number of players were talking something so I don't get why we now assume everyone is clean.

[Absolutely]

Remember that PEDs became huge in the late 90's, who's to say he wasn't on something since day one? That's why I pointed out the fact that he wasn't drafted out of HS and was a 13th round pick in college. Plus Being Dominican is a negative as well as it appears that PEDS are prevalent down there.

Again, I don't think he's doing anything but I do think it should be talked about. At this point it appears that a large number of players were talking something so I don't get why we now assume everyone is clean.

If he was on something since day 1, wouldn't he have to have kept that up for the last 9/10 years to keep his consistency? I think you'd be caught by now if you're doing something consistent for 9 years.

He came to the States in 1996, at 16.

Pujols displayed his hitting skill by batting over .500 in his first season at Fort Osage High School in Independence, Missouri, twice earning all-state honors. Pujols graduated from high school in December 1998. He attended Maple Woods Community College in the Kansas City area in spring of 1999. In his only college season, Pujols hit a grand slam and turned an unassisted triple play in his first game.[9] He batted .461 for the year.

I'm not sure why he wasn't more sought after in HS and College, I think I've heard that he was a bit of a fatty. But who knows.

[Aaron Burrito]

If he was on something since day 1, wouldn't he have to have kept that up for the last 9/10 years to keep his consistency? I think you'd be caught by now if you're doing something consistent for 9 years.

He came to the States in 1996, at 16.



I'm not sure why he wasn't more sought after in HS and College, I think I've heard that he was a bit of a fatty. But who knows.

Look how long A-rod was taking PEDs for. He admitted to three years of use and it's thought to actaully be five to six years. That is a valid point though. And yes, I believe I heard Albert was out of shape back then.

[Absolutely]

Here's an interesting article about Pujols and his draft situation.

"He was playing out of position and he was playing out of shape"
"Was suspected of being older than he claimed"
"Was undisciplined at the plate – a free swinger"
"Nor did he meet the run-and-throw standards scouts have been trained to seek"
"Described Pujols as "heavy legged," and observed that his throws often tail and sink as fingers are not on top of the ball.
(He was playing SS in College)
"Some clubs were discouraged by unresolved questions about Pujols' midyear move from high school to junior college, his real age and his residency status"


ST. LOUIS – In the prehistoric period before cell phones became commonplace and e-mail went wireless, Jay Darnell would send his scouting reports to the Colorado Rockies as circumstances permitted.

"I remember pulling into a truck stop and leaving a voice mail," said Darnell, now a national cross-checker for the Padres. "I told them, 'Just in case something happens, I think this guy is going to hit for a lot of power.' "

The guy was Albert Pujols. The advice was ignored.

Pujols is the slugger who slipped beneath baseball's radar, the greatest player ever selected with the 402nd choice in the June amateur draft. He signed his first contract in 1999 with the St. Louis Cardinals for $60,000 and might have been a bargain at $60 million.

Long before he led the Cardinals into the World Series, Pujols was recognized throughout the industry as the big one that got away.

More than any player in a generation, Pujols has forced scouts to reevaluate their methods, their priorities and their eyeglass prescriptions. The Cardinals' first baseman is the first player to hit at least 30 home runs in each of his first four big league seasons and he is only the third player to reach 500 runs batted in during so short a span. The other two were Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Not that the nation's scouts need to be reminded of that.

"For a while, I just thought I was hexed," said Dan Jennings, vice president of player personnel for the Florida Marlins. "I'd come in the room when he first got in the big leagues and it would be Pujols hitting a double, Pujols driving in a run. I'd say, 'God, I get the message.' You can make one bad decision and it will bite you forever."

Jennings was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays scouting director in the spring of 1999 when scout Fernando Arango started raving about this junior college shortstop in Kansas City.

Albert Pujols was known as Jose Pujols then. He was playing out of position at Maple Woods Community College, near Kansas City, and he was playing out of shape. Like many talented players with roots in the Dominican Republic, Pujols was suspected of being older than he claimed.

Nor did he meet the run-and-throw standards scouts have been trained to seek in amateur prospects. Darnell's May 14, 1999, scouting report, filed less than three weeks before the draft, described Pujols as "heavy legged," and observed that his throws "often tail and sink as fingers are not on top of the ball."

Yet with a bat in his hands, Albert Pujols was precocious and powerful. If you were paying attention, he held it.

"Guys that can hit are going to play," said Brad Kullman, director of major league operations for the Cincinnati Reds. "Our reports were that he had power and he was undisciplined at the plate – a free swinger. That's one of his strengths now – he's so disciplined."

Arango was on record early that Pujols would ultimately hit 40 home runs in a season. In his first four years in the majors, Pujols hit 37, 34, 43 and 46 homers.

"What I saw in him was tremendous athletic ability," said Arango, now the Latin American coordinator of the Milwaukee Brewers. "He just hit the ball with an impact that you didn't see every day. I went to a game at Maple Woods, and he hit two home runs and the sound off the bat sounded like cannon shots."

Arango's enthusiasm persuaded the Devil Rays to bring Pujols to Tropicana Field for a predraft tryout. The day, Jennings recalls, was a disaster. Based on his body type, Pujols was asked to perform in catching equipment, and reluctantly agreed.

"It wasn't very pretty," Jennings said. "Then we let him hit and he hit one ball in batting practice that went to the warning track, and no balls that went in the stands for a home run. He might as well have been Joe Smith. There was nothing that said this was a great player.

"We were blinded by our own eyes."

Arango says Pujols was fully capable of putting on a power show that day, but was primarily focused on scorching line drives. Less than a month after Arango's lobbying led nowhere, and the Cardinals were still able to pluck Pujols in the 13th round, the scout submitted his resignation.

"I was a little frustrated," Arango said. "Dan Jennings asked me the question if I left because of Pujols. To me, it was very simple. If I can't get a guy like that, even in the 10th round, maybe I should take a sabbatical from amateur scouting."

Herk Robinson, then the general manager of the Kansas City Royals, says the failure to find Pujols underneath his nose "may be the one that stings the most."

"Here's the kicker," Robinson said in an interview earlier this year. "We had someone in our engineering department here at Kauffman Stadium who actually lived with Albert for about three months. You can't get much more in your back yard than that."

Padres Scouting Director Bill Gayton, who was then with the Rockies, says some clubs were discouraged by unresolved questions about Pujols' midyear move from high school to junior college, his real age and his residency status. Looking back, a lot of due diligence never got done.

Gayton says the Pujols case reinforces the need to re-examine scouting decisions after the fact, to determine what one scout saw that another missed. Jennings says Pujols taught him to defer to his scouts when they are adamant about a player's ability.

"That was obviously the biggest mistake we made when I was in Tampa Bay," Jennings said. "If we had picked him in the ninth round, we'd look like geniuses."

Story by Tim Sullivan

[ceeps04]

I would not be surprised if it someday comes out that he tested positive in that 2003 anonymous testing year that got ARod and Sosa.

However throughout the history of baseball there are great players that came along that haven't use PED's that have had statisitically similar season. And I hate the fact that for the rest of my lifetime there will always be a doubt. Isn't it reasonable to think that someone can be as good as Mays, Mantle, Ruth, Dimaggio, nowadays... Why can't there be? Players are better in football and basketball, but its like people act now like there's a mythology, and those past players are the gods of baseball and there will never be anyone of that calibur again, and if there is someone comparable they must be cheating.

It sucks. The last 10 years have been tainted by roids and every player basically that joined the 500 HR club that played in this era is linked to steroids besides Griffey and Thome so it makes sense people are cynical. But I would like to think that I can die and say that I saw one of the true greats in the history of the game play and not think that possibility died in the 70's.

[lockjaaaaww]

Its just insane what Pujols is doing this season, he is the best hitter in mlb in my opinion.

[GorilaBoyNorton]

Pujols is great, he has great stats and all, BUT I don't understand why anyone pitches to him. Barry Bonds was NEVER pitched too (I'm not a huge Bonds fan, but look at his career numbers even with PEDs, WOW!) and these asshole dummy pitchers pitch to him. He's only got 28 international walks this year, that's just stupid. There aren't that many good hitters in that lineup. I know that one guy had a career year last year, Duncan seems like an all or nothing hitter and DeRosa will help them.

[Hoagie]

International walks?

[Absolutely]

Ha!
International Walks... Must have some tired feet. Wocka

Ludwick was the one who had a career year (.299/37/113)
But you're right, there is maybe 2 "good" hitters on the team at the moment.
Molina and Rasmus, and Rasmus doesn't get to play everyday b/c LaRussa is a cocksucker.
I would seriously walk him every single time he comes up, even with bases loaded. Ludwick/Ankiel/Duncan are not going to beat you at the moment.

[LBF]

He's only got 28 international walks this year, that's just stupid.


Is that when you go to third base instead of first??







As for Pujols....I'm a life-long Cubs fan and despise the Cardinals. Even I am amazed when Pujols hits. I think he's the best hitter in baseball right now, and don't see that changing much in the next few years.

[lockjaaaaww]

This season if God was a pitcher; he'd be intentionaly walking Pujols.

[moegolden]

Originally Posted by GorilaBoyNorton View Post
He's only got 28 international walks this year, that's just stupid.


Is that when you go to third base instead of first??


I think it's just from facing the Blue Jays on the road.

[GorilaBoyNorton]

LMAO shit, I can't believe I wrote international walks, ugh I feel like a goose.

[Hoagie]

Pujols pulled a Bill Buckner today.

[MilkmanDan]

Someone dragged Raul Ibanez at about 180 lbs I'm guessing into this?
Pujols - roids. Love the guy but will be the next big headline.

[Steam]

Saw Pujols live for the first time this past Thursday in the shit hole city that is Milwaukee and the guy is a fucking beast. His presence at the plate you can feel from the stands. I was disappointed that he didn't jack one out.

[Absolutely]

Pujols pulled a Bill Buckner today.

Yeah, I turned the game off today when that happened. After LaRussa threw in the towel in a 1 run game in the 7th.
Bringing in Wellemeyer in a 1 run game, hasn't pitched out of the BP in 2 years AND he's terrible.

Albert's Pace: 58 Hrs 157 RBIS
He's down .002 on the Average since I started this
Hanley Ramirez - .347
Albert - .337

[Aaron Burrito]

Yeah, I turned the game off today when that happened. After LaRussa threw in the towel in a 1 run game in the 7th.
Bringing in Wellemeyer in a 1 run game, hasn't pitched out of the BP in 2 years AND he's terrible.

Albert's Pace: 58 Hrs 157 RBIS
He's down .002 on the Average since I started this
Hanley Ramirez - .347
Albert - .337

You have to watch out for Manny. He just needs the plate appearances.

[Absolutely]

You have to watch out for Manny. He just needs the plate appearances.

You need 502 PAs, I think.
This season he's averaging 4.3 PAs per Game, 74 Games left
He's got 150, so he'd have to have 4.7 PAs a game from here on out.

I don't know if he'll qualify

[Eagle.007]

You're right. It is 3.1 plate appearances per team game. 162 x 3.1 is 502.2, they round down to 502. Manny will have great difficulty getting the appearances.

Pujols had a tough task, and a lot of pressure, essentially hosting the game last night. It is easy to see why he is so well loved in STL. The guy is incredible. He might very well go down as a top 5 all time hitter. It is a shame he has so little protection in that line up.

[NotSoFast]

Haha! His name sounds like "Poo Holes".

[fandango86]

I hate this Mother Fucker. I had the first pick in my fantasy draft and decided to take David Wright instead, thinking I'd be fine at 1B later in the draft. I got Berkman and Adrian Gonzalez, so I am in fact ok at First Base, but Wright is not hitting HR's in the Citi and Pujols is pretty much lapping the field this year. Fucking Cunt.

[Absolutely]

I hate this Mother Fucker. I had the first pick in my fantasy draft and decided to take David Wright instead, thinking I'd be fine at 1B later in the draft. I got Berkman and Adrian Gonzalez, so I am in fact ok at First Base, but Wright is not hitting HR's in the Citi and Pujols is pretty much lapping the field this year. Fucking Cunt.

First pick, David Wright?

[bradolson]

The truth about him will come out eventually. Cardinals fans are in denial, just like they were about McGwire.

[bb1mobile]

[Edward G Robinson] So, where's your messiah now? [Eddie G]

[25133WhooOoAH]

Sweep

[Wilmington WOW]

ha ha I knew exactly why this was bumped.

[Sct Ptersns Twn]

night night

[LBF]

It must suck for Pujols when the guys in front of him aren't getting on base. He sees no decent pitches.

[Absolutely]

It must suck for Pujols when the guys in front of him aren't getting on base. He sees no decent pitches.

True...
He did hit .300 with I think 2 RBIs, but the Cards really fucked me in the mouth this week.
A Boooo

[oandapartycock]

Meh, he's already got a ring and will have a handful of MVP's soon enough. Time for some new blood...

[Ballbuster1]

ha ha I knew exactly why this was bumped.
I was out at dinner last night and saw the score on my phone.
I just couldn't help myself...:icon_mrgr

[Steam]

Meh, he's already got a ring and will have a handful of MVP's soon enough. Time for some new blood...

Yeah, guys like Manny Ramirez.....

Uh....

What??

[Hoagie]

This is why I was glad the Cubs didn't make the playoffs. It's much more fun to watch the Cardinals shit the bed in the first round.

[DocSavage]

Even God can't hit homeruns after being walked to first.