SocraticGadfly: Pujols' likely end lines

August 12, 2022

Pujols' likely end lines

As we look at the career of Albert Pujols, aka Phat Albert, aka The Machine, and his announced retirement after this year, although he has said he doesn't care about counting marks, where will he end up?

He almost certainly falls short the 17 homers to tie Alex Rodriguez let alone 21 to hit 700.

He'll almost certainly possibly pass Willie Mays for career total bases, and likely maybe also Cardinals icon Stan Musial, leaving him second only to  Henry Aaron. He'll remain third behind Aaron and Babe Ruth on RBIs. (I started working on this post not too long after the Cards signed him, with plans on publishing it in May. I've had plenty of other stuff to run, and thanks to Sports-Ref banning me [eat me] and FanGraphs slouching toward professional-writers-only Gomorrah, have dropped interest in baseball blogging. Meanwhile, we've seen Pujols in the clown car of position players pitching, not once but twice, and as for his batting, suck worse than he did last year with the Angels before they released him, despite only platooning this year, as he did with the Dodgers. Hence, the updated language, with the crossouts of the original. Also below.

Currently 12th in hits, he'll likely possibly pass Eddie Collins and Paul Molitor into 10th.

And, that will be about it on big moves. 

One of them will be interesting.

What if the date when Pujols is expected to pass Musial on total bases is a Cardinals home game? How will the team celebrate it?

Meanwhile, the Cardinals fight to hold on to a lead in the anemic NL Central, where it looks like the division winner will be the only team to advance to the expanded postseason.

BUT? He's shown a stellar new career as a reliever.

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