Now, his performance last night in Game 3 of the World Series was nothing short of epic. Last night he was a phenom, hitting three home runs and becoming the third person to do so (Babe Ruth did it twice, Reggie Jackson did it once, as I'm sure you've been reminded repeatedly). He's great. He's the greatest Cardinal of my lifetime (I'm 22 and thus it's not even close) and one of the best players in Cardinals franchise history. But he's not the greatest player ever.
In light of his inspired Saturday night, Larry Bowa claimed that if he had Babe Ruth on deck, Reggie Jackson in the hole, and Albert Pujols at the plate, he would walk Pujols. Now that's just silly. I'm even willing to be pragmatic and say that Pujols is close enough to the Bambino that I would not consider walking Ruth to get to Pujols, but let's be reasonable. Albert Pujols is a really, really good player. He's a great player. He should make the Hall of Fame (I always hesitate to say he will make the Hall of Fame--all he needs is one unsubstantiated steroid allegation and it can all fall apart). But he ain't Stan Musial. He ain't even close to Babe Ruth.
For those of you who don't know just how good Babe Ruth is, let's just say you can't simply look at his numbers. 714 home runs is really good but it's not gargantuan on the surface. But consider his peers. In 1920, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs: an impressive total by any measure (it's more than Albert has ever had in an individual season). #2 in the league was George Sisler, himself a Hall of Fame player for the St. Louis Browns. He had nineteen. Babe Ruth nearly tripled the second best home run hitter in the American League. Pujols has never done this. Nobody has had this kind of dominance.
The most dominant player of my lifetime in baseball was Barry Bonds in the early 2000s (dominant not only in power numbers and whatnot, but dominant in that he had on-base percentages over .600 for seasons--that is not a typo). Bonds never came close to tripling the next highest guy. Bonds, often referred to erroneously as the greatest power hitter ever as a result of having the most home runs, had 1.28 times the home runs of Luis Gonzalez in his 73 home run season of 2001. In 1920, Babe Ruth had George Sisler beat by 2.84 times. Oh yeah, and Babe Ruth hit at least 54 three more times. Oh, and for what it's worth, Babe Ruth was also one of the best pitchers in baseball before moving to the outfield so that he could reinvent hitting more frequently. Basically, what I'm saying is that it isn't sacrilegious to compare Albert Pujols to Babe Ruth--it's just wildly inaccurate.
But anyway, Albert Pujols is awesome. And now everybody is freaking out about how much money he's going to make in the off-season and how Albert Pujols is going to cash in. Well, I hate to break it to everybody, but in spite of what the Jayson Werth signing may have suggested to you, MLB GMs aren't that dumb. It's not as though somebody was only going to offer Pujols $20 million and now after one game that total is up to $30 mil. Yesterday will have very little, if any, impact on how much Albert Pujols makes. He's been playing for eleven years--his resumé has been written.
As a Cardinal fan, it actually makes me a bit worried. Albert is going to cash in somewhere and I'm convinced that it will be in St. Louis--for way too much. Albert deserves to get paid more than A-Rod got paid a decade ago, but the important caveat is Alex Rodriguez didn't deserve 10 years and $252 million in the first place. Individual players matter because baseball is essentially a combination of a bunch of individual matchups, but one player doesn't matter that much. WAR enthusiasts (and I am one) will often point out WAR (of which Albert is routinely at or near the top, because he's a damn good player as has been established by basically any metric) and note something to the effect of: "Oh, Albert Pujols has a WAR of 10 and they won the division by four games; therefore, Albert got them to the playoffs." But what people often ignore is that 1. The money that would theoretically be saved on Pujols would be spent on something else which would improve WAR at other positions, and 2. There's generally other guys who make up for that total. If that situation happened and Holliday or Berkman had WARs of eight, didn't he also get them in the playoffs? That's not to say they're as good, because they aren't, but from a practical standpoint, it didn't matter. Pujols can't survive without contributions from other players just as they can't survive without him.
To test my theory on WAR, I looked at the eleven seasons in which Albert Pujols has played for the Cardinals. Of his seven playoff seasons, his WAR exceeded the team's margin of getting into the playoffs four times. Which is cool. But in how many of those seasons did he directly make the difference, even just in compared to the replacement level (for those unfamiliar with the concept, imagine a situation in which he's lost for the year and replaced by Mark Hamilton).
The four years where WAR>Margin were 2001, 2006, 2009, and 2011:
- In 2001, his WAR was 6.9 and the team's margin was 3, meaning he needed a WAR of 3.9 to keep them in the playoffs. Also with a WAR of 3.9 or higher that year: Jim Edmonds, J.D. Drew, Placido Polanco, and Darryl Kile.
- In 2006, his WAR was 8.3 and the team's margin was 1, meaning he needed a WAR of 7.3 to keep them in the playoffs. He stood alone.
- In 2009, his WAR was 9.2 and the team's margin was 8, meaning he needed a WAR of 1.2 to keep them in the playoffs. Also with a WAR of 1.2 or higher that year: Brendan Ryan, Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina, Colby Rasmus, Ryan Ludwick, Skip Schumaker, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Ryan Franklin, and Joel Piniero.
- In 2011, his WAR was 5.4 and the team's margin was 1, meaning he needed a WAR of 4.4 to keep them in the playoffs. Lance Berkman also did this.
I'm not saying Albert Pujols isn't the best Cardinal of my lifetime. He is. He is a fantastic player and I truly hope the Cardinals re-sign him. I'm just saying that the team will survive with or without him. The Cardinals had the NL record for World Series titles before he ever donned a Cardinal uniform and it will still be a proud organization once he leaves, whenever that may be. From a practical standpoint, think of it this way--Berkman goes to first, Craig plays in right, and how much worse are they? Craig had a WAR of 2.9 in limited time this year; theoretically this means we lose 2.5 wins. And we get Adam Wainwright back. And we have over $20 million to spend on upgrading the roster at large.
Yes, Cardinal fans. We are going to be fine.
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