Albert Pujols

Albert Pujols and Joey Votto are having monster seasons.  Not only are the sluggers leading their teams in the playoff hunt – the Cardinals are 1.5 games back in the Wild Card race while the Reds lead the NL Central – but Pujols (.321, 34 HR, 93 RBI) and Votto (.326, 31 HR, 90 RBI) are the top two National Leaguers in each of the Triple Crown categories.  Both have strong cases for the MVP award, but if either one wins the first Triple Crown since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, it would be awfully hard for the voters not to choose him as the league’s Most Valuable Player.

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nbsp; The six-time All-Star won a batting title at the age of 36, hitting a staggering .364 to edge Albert Pujols, who hit .357.  He is also tied for the most home runs in a season by a switch-hitter (45 in 1999; Lance Berkman accomplished the feat in 2006).  A little known fact about Chipper is that he and Paul Waner hold the Major League record for most consecutive games with an extra-base hit (14).  Chipper will join Waner in Cooperstown as soon as he is eligible.

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e all worthy of roster spots, but Votto should have been the NL’s starting first baseman over Albert Pujols, and it would have been a travesty had he not made it in the end.  Votto leads the NL in both On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage and is tied for the lead in home runs; if the season ended today, he’d likely be voted the league’s Most Valuable Player.  It’s too bad, then, that Votto went 0-2 and did not make an impact in the game.  (Each of the other first basemen on the National League side – Pujols, Ryan Howard, and Adrian Gonzalez – went 0-2 as well.)

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How ‘bout that?

How about Albert Pujols?  Picking up where he left off at the end of the 2009 season, Pujols collected four hits – including two home runs – on Opening Day.  The Cardinals slugger has been nothing but superhuman in the batter’s box; unless he suffers an injury, he will likely win his third straight (and fourth overall) Most Valuable Player Award.

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on to successful major league careers include active players Travis Hafner (31st round in 1996) and Albert Pujols (13th round in 1999), as well as Don Mattingly (19th round in 1979) and Hall of

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How ‘bout that?

How about Albert Pujols’s dominance in the NL MVP balloting?  Not only did he win by a wide margin, but Pujols claimed the award by unanimous decision – 32 first-place votes.  His numbers speak for themselves: .327 batting average, 47 home runs, and 135 RBI’s, good for third, first, and third, respectively, in the National League.  As if he weren’t contributing enough with the bat, Pujols helped his team on the bases, stealing 16 while being caught just four times.  He led the majors in intentional walks (with 44) and had twice as many as the nearest competition, Adrian Gonzalez, who finished with 22.  Around the majors, Pujols is both feared and respected.

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p>Pujols watch With 40 home runs and all the way up to 55 strikeouts, it doesn’t look like Albert Pujols will homer as often as he fans, but let’s take a moment to appreciate jus

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owing day, the A’s traded slugger Matt Holliday to the Cardinals, who now have protection for Albert Pujols.

How ‘bout that?

How about the Giants?  After beating the Pirates 1-0 in 10 innings on Wednesday night, San Francisco has shut out the opponent 14 times this season.  They have kept up the pace with Los Angeles and even picked up half a game over the last eight weeks, closing the gap between themselves and the Dodgers to seven games.  Thanks to a 34-15 record at home, the Giants are leading the National League Wild Card race.

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Pujols Watch

With 95 games remaining (a little under 60 percent) in the 2009 regular season, Albert Pujols is up to 23 home runs with only 25 strikeouts.  The closest the Cardinals’ slugger has come to having as many homers as strikeouts over an entire season was in 2006, when he finished with 49 and 50, respectively.  I’m not sure if he was the last man to do it, but Joe DiMaggio accomplished the feat multiple times, the last time being in 1948 when he hit 39 home runs and struck out just 30 times.  (Even more impressive was his 1941 season, when he clubbed 30 homers compared to only 13 strikeouts.)  If Pujols can do it, he’d be in pretty good company.  By comparison, the great Mickey Mantle, who hit 52 home runs in 1956 and 54 in 1961, struck out 99 and 112 times in those two seasons.

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How about Albert Pujols?  Just when you thought he was your regular superstar, he proves he is THE superstar.  A month into the season, Pujols is slugging an absurd .733 and has more home runs (11) than strikeouts (9).

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The NL is “stuck” with Lance Berkman, who’s having a heck of a year, instead of Albert Pujols, whom NL skipper Clint Hurdle had to hand-pick after fans passed on him. Pujols, for those of you who have been asleep since 2001, has been arguably the best hitter in baseball since then. And Ryan Braun’s a whiz with the bat—when he makes contact—but not such a great defender in left. Might you want to shift Nate McLouth, a reserve who normally plays in center, to right instead, since Nate’s OPS is 16 points higher even than slugger Braun?

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ne, that might make him an enticing trade commodity when Soriano returns.

The other injury was to Albert Pujols, one of the best hitters around. A friend emailed me about my Manny Ramirez paean a few days back to counter that Pujols was a far better hitter, and my response to him (both in the blog post and now) is that Pujols hasn't had the longevity of Manny, and is just starting to show the wear and tear of playing baseball every day. Pujols has been one of the top five hitters in baseball since he burst onto the scene in 2001, with 5 straight years of .300/.400/.500 ball (including four straight .300/.400/.600 years). That's only seven years, however, and Manny's been doing his magic consistently for almost fifteen.

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These are amazing numbers for their careers, and both should add on to them in the near future. Albert Pujols has some pretty eye-popping statistics, better than Manny, but he's only been doing this Superman act for half as long.

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Louis Cardinals players on the 2001 ballot, I suspect Albert Pujols was not one of them.  Mark McGwire was surely listed as the first baseman, and the other positions Pujols played when he first came up – third base and outfield – most likely had starters Placido Polanco, J.D. Drew, Jim Edmonds, and Ray Lankford on the ballot.  Pujols ended up playing in 161 out of 162 games that year and of course went on to win the National League Rookie of the Year Award.

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Louis Cardinals

How badly will Albert Pujols elbow problems affect his performance?

The fact that he is even attempting to play is incredible as the pain Pujols is reportedly feeling in his

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ty years ago, most players made so little they often had to get part time jobs in the off season.

Albert Pujols’ elbow continues to be a problem and he seems intent on playing through it. For those of you who read Buzz Bissinger’s 3 Nights in August, you know that Pujols suffered from elbow problems then and played through them even though he had to give the ball to some one else to throw in from the outfield. There is no doubt that he has a high tolerance for pain. At this point it seems that Tommy John surgery is inevitable, the only question is when. Tony LaRussa has implemented his own set of rules to protect Pujols as much as possible and delay surgery until after the season if possible. With the outlook for the Cardinals this season ranging from bleak to dismal, why not go ahead and get the surgery now? St. Louis is clearly moving towards rebuilding and it doesn’t seem to make much sense for Pujols to endure the kind of pain he must be feeling and risk further injury and potentially missing a significant portion of next season when the Cardinals might have a better shot at contention.

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gue, who will lead at what category, who will win the awards, and who are the flops.  Enjoy!1B Albert Pujols2B Chase Utlery3B David WrightSS Hanley RamirezC Geovany SotoOF Carlos LeeOF Alfonso SorianoOF Matt HolidaySP Johan SantanaSP Roy OswaltSP Jake PeavyCLOSER Billy Wagner or Bob Howry or Kerry Wood

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