Albert Pujols could be the greatest player ever

[doug_tucker10]

[url]http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/lJF62[/url]

For what it's worth.. Albert is tied with Dan Brouthers for 7th all time on the OPS+ list for players with 7400 plus PA's.

[vernongene]

Best ever? bit of a stretch , but you can bet the Yankees are licking there chops as i type.

[rburgh]

If Pujols leaves, it will be for the Cubs, I think. Theo will want to make a splash, and they had a lot of salary come off the books this month.

If Albert comes into consideration as the GOAT, it will be because of counting numbers, not rate stats. Typically, guys slide down the OBP, AVG, Slg, and OPS+ leader boards as they age and stop putting up gaudy numbers year after year. But the counting numbers just keep piling up.

Assuming he plays until he is 42, which would be another 11 seasons, and assuming he puts up 10% less counting numbers across the board for that 11 year period, he will have, at the end of the 2022 season,

3939 hits (3rd)
864 2B (1st, current record is 792)
846 HR (1st, current record is 762)
2525 RBI (1st, current record is 2297)
2453 R (1st, current record is 2295)

Maybe he declines faster than that. Aaron at 31 had 398 HR (he would hit 357 more, just about a 10% decline) and 1305 RBI (he would get 992 more, almost a 25% decline). And Hank turned 31 in October of 1965, just in time to be a participant in the great offensive wasteland of the 2nd half of the 1960's.

It seems likely that Albert, if he chooses, will spend most of the rest of his career on teams with big-time offenses and big payrolls. I wouldn't expect his RBI rate to drop so madly.

[LMBombers]

[quote:dca8792430="johnnyblazers"]The level of talent was not as great as after integration. Cobb, Wagner were great players as well but the brand of ball played in dead ball and before that is not the same game played as today.[/quote:dca8792430]

No question there is more talent today than in Cobb's day but there are also twice the number of teams in each league which dilutes that talent.

There were 8 teams in the AL in Cobb's time and there are 16 teams in the NL today, not to mention and additional 8 teams in the AL. If you condensed all the best players in each league down to 8 teams each you would be eliminating a lot of great players. This is the extra talent pool of today's game.

What I'm saying is that the talent of 1908 era was only filling 16 teams. Today's extra talent is spread over twice that many teams which sort of offsets the "extra talent" argument to some degree.

[JohnnyBlazers]

Have to disagree. The Deadball players may have had a talent pool of only 16 teams and only the "best of the best" where playing at that time, but if we are going to determine who the best player of all time is, none from the era can enter the discussion. Just a totally different game has evolved from 1920 on when a lively ball was introduced and then again when the color barrier was broken in 1947. A good analogy can be made with Basketball. Bob Cousy is considered a great point guard. Can anyone honestly say that he would even be in the NBA today? No way. For his era he was great, but athletes, like sports, evolve. Pujols looks like a top ten player of all time considering the era he is playing in, the level of competition is much greater and the numbers he has compiled. Still Mays to me is the greatest with the Mick not far behind

[MtheB]

well, if we are going on what if....Sidd Finch was the best player of all time.
He was clocked at 11 MPH faster then anyone to date, and just because he refused to wear shoes or cut his hair, which prevented him from playing organized baseball, that shouldn't be held against him.

[Valen]

[quote:bd18d6d111]What I'm saying is that the talent of 1908 era was only filling 16 teams. Today's extra talent is spread over twice that many teams [/quote:bd18d6d111]
But the talent is being pulled from more than triple the population and countries from all over south america and Japan not to mention the color barrier. Clearly even with twice the teams the average talent is much higher today. To have stayed at the same level relative to the domain from which talent was available the number of teams would need to have tripled or possibly even quadrupled.

[PotKettleBlack]

I did some math on the Cubs ability to sign Albert for his asking price, and found them seriously lacking, or having to gut the youth of the team and filling with replacement level players.

Here's what Theo inherited:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tt7HjIernphaSrv4wMWdUYg&output=html

Lotta money to Soriano and Zambrano (who might not even play) - $38M
Be dumb to not reup Ramirez. - $16M (have to pay him $2 anyway, an no organizational player to fill his spot)
Dumpster is back for $14.
Pena is gone. That's $10M to sign Albert.
Garza gets a pay bump through Arb. Probably an extra mil - $7
Byrd is back for another $6.5
Option on Samargin-of-Error - $3.25
Marmol - $7
Soto into Arb - $4M
Marshall back - $3.1
Wood gone (his money pays the option on Samardzja)
Baker, Reed johnson probably gone
Hill >$1M
Wells ~$1M
DeWitt ~$.75
Castro $.50 (low service time, not arb eligible)
Plus $2m to Carlos Silva to pitch elsewhere, or not pitch elsewhere.

$72M before you reup Ramirez
$58 before you Reup the Domer guy
$54.5 before you settle arb with Garza and Soto
$43.5 before Wells, DeWitt and Castro.

$41 to sign:
1B, RF, a couple relievers, a couple starters, and some bench.
Shallow depth in their farm, means they can't plug in farm hands and be competitive.
So, Sign Albert at $25M and you have not much money to fill a lot of holes.

Oh, and Cubs ownership wants to reduce payroll somewhat.

Sorry Cubs fans, it is not going to happen for you.

-------------------------------

As an aside, you know where Albert might like to go? This is not on the radar, but Texas. Hitter park. Have a hole at First. Can move to DH in time. They become monstrously scary at that point (although awfully right handed).

[PotKettleBlack]

[quote:2a3a7ba2e1="Valen"][quote:2a3a7ba2e1]What I'm saying is that the talent of 1908 era was only filling 16 teams. Today's extra talent is spread over twice that many teams [/quote:2a3a7ba2e1]
But the talent is being pulled from more than triple the population and countries from all over south america and Japan not to mention the color barrier. Clearly even with twice the teams the average talent is much higher today. To have stayed at the same level relative to the domain from which talent was available the number of teams would need to have tripled or possibly even quadrupled.[/quote:2a3a7ba2e1]

There's also the discovery aspect. It was entirely possible in 1908 that the best pitcher was never discovered. The story of Jimmie Foxx's discovery is kind of apocryphal.

Today, I am reasonably sure that the best hitter is playing organized ball somewhere, and will blip on MLB's radar at some point.

The coaching, youth leagues, talent camps, video trainers, etc that people get today, imo, has raised the level of play beyond what was achievable back in the nineteen - oughties.

[AeroDave10]

There are at least four other major factors that make generational comparisons very difficult:

1. Ballpark dimensions - The parks of yesteryear were, for the most part, much larger than those of today. One obvious statistic that bears that out is the sharp decline in the number of triples. The change in ballpark sizes has positive and negative effects for both current and former players.

2. Relief pitchers - Nowadays, most pitchers only throw 5 or 6 innings before a series of relievers are brought in. Sometimes these relievers are guys who have a knack for just getting out righty or lefty batters. Regardless, pitching changes can have both a positive effect (generally relievers aren't as good as starters) and a detrimental effect (batters lose rhythm of facing starting pitcher).

3. Schedules and Traveling - Yes, in the times of Ruth and Cobb the players had to travel uncomfortably by train and routinely play doubleheaders, but they also only travelled among a handful of towns over half the country, had many more off days and never played at night time. Todays' players stay in luxurious hotels and travel swiftly by chartered airplanes, but they have to fly across the country and back and have fewer off-days.

4. Media exposure - The pressure of being in the spotlight can really get to some people (case in point, Roger Maris, who began to bald prematurely from the stress of the media's coverage of him), and the prevalence of the media has continually grown from the early 20th century to now. While this may be a boon for some people's careers, it generally seems that people prefer privacy and would like to just play the game and be left alone, particularly if any personal scandals haunt them.