Albert Pujols 2019 milestones season preview part 1

The Angels' aging designated hitter / first baseman / immovable object Albert Pujols has three years left on his contract, counting this one, and movement up the ranks in several major career statistical areas in front of him, with several possible all-time top five finishes and one or two top threes or better.

Let's focus on 2019 and see what might be possible by the end of this year, given his current stats and reasonable projections. In this part, I'm going to look at power-related states.

I'll start with home runs.

Albert currently has 633, in sixth place. If he hits a halfway reasonable 28 more, that puts him past Willie Mays into fifth.

Doubles? Pujols is currently 10th with 639. Depending on what we think is reasonable, he could move three or more slots up. Just 19 vaults him into seventh place, past Nap Lajoie, Carl Yastrzemski and Honus Wagner. If he hits 27, that moves him into sixth, past George Brett. And 30 would put him ahead of Craig Biggio into fifth.

RBIs is next, and Albert will move up two places for sure and very possibly three, from his current seventh place and 1,982. Just 15 puts him past Lou Gehrig and Barry Bonds into fifth, and three more gets him to the magic 2,000. A total of 94 ribbies gives him fourth, passing dead-baller Cap Anson.

So, in three big, big career statistical categories, Phat Albert could end this year in the top five.

One other stat is primarily power-based but also connected to total hitting, and that is total bases.

Pujols is currently ninth place with 5,652. A late-career challenging but not totally unreasonable 203 total bases puts him in fifth place there, too, passing from bottom to top Pete Rose, Babe Ruth, Alex Rodriguez and Ty Cobb.