Phat Albert

[Frayed Knot]

Not that his doings will have anything to do with the Mets this winter, but he may wind up with a division foe or with a division foe of his current WS champion team, or maybe even somewhere else so it should be interesting to watch.

From the USA Today piece posted in the general purpose FA thread:
The Miami Marlins are intent on altering the direction of their franchise, and took the largest step in that direction late Monday night by offering Albert Pujols a 10-year contract, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the negotiations.
The offer is worth in excess of $200 million, which is more than the nine-year, $195 million deal the Cardinals offered Pujols at the outset of the 2011 season and an increase over their previous nine-year offer.

The Cardinals have scheduled a meeting Tuesday afternoon with Pujols' camp, in which they could increase their last offer. They have made it clear they want to keep Pujols. But it's not known how willing they are to budge from the original offer.
The Chicago Cubs are also in the Pujols sweepstakes. General manager Theo Epstein declined to confirm the Cubs made an offer, but the two sides have held a meeting.




So Albert turns 32 in January and is coming off the worst (by OPS) season of his 11 year career.
Now 'worst' with Albert is a relative term
OPS/XBH 2008 -- 1114; 81
2009 -- 1101; 93
2010 -- 1011; 82
2011 -- 906; 66
but, still, would you want to give $20mil+ thru age 41 to a guy heading in that direction?

[metirish]

Crazy money and crazy years, just like the Arod deal is looking so smart with several years left so will this one.

[Fman99]

Must be nice to root for a big market team.

[Edgy MD]

Market, shmarket.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

"Shmarket" is the place where teams don't make offers to players they ostensibly wish to retain?

[Fman99]

I buy all my corn at the Farmers' Shmarket. Fresh!

[seawolf17]

To Anaheim for ten years, sez the internets. Wow.

[Frayed Knot]

A look at the ghost of Albert's future (courtesy of Tom Boswell from the Wash Post a few days ago)

Charting the careers of baseball's best 15 hitters (as per career OPS+): Ruth, Williams, Cobb, Gehrig, Hornsby, Mantle, Musial, Foxx, Thomas, Mays, Aaron, DiMaggio, Ott, Frank Robinson, and Manny Ramirez
- That group turns out to average through their age 31 season an OPS+ of 170 and 1,612 games played
- By a nice coincidence Pujols, now that he's through his age 31 season, sits with an OPS+ of 170 and 1,705 games (Boz also notes that if you take away military service for several of the early group they also would have averaged right about 1,700 games each)

So the bottom line is that Albert prior to age 32 was almost identical to the average of the all-time best 15 hitters at the same point in their careers.

So what happened next?
- Well, an OPS+ of 154 for the composite group starting with the year they turned 32 ... down a bit more than 9% from the first portion of their careers although still quite good
- But the problem comes with the next figure which showed them averaging only 944 games played from age 32 to the end of their career.
IOW, they collectively hit about 90% as well but for less than 60% as long/often.

Now there is lots of variation among that group and it's impossible to tell where Pujols will fall ... but of course a large part of the problem with a lengthy contract at his age is that you don't know at what part of the spectrum he'll fall.

* Ruth was fairly consistent until near the end. 1st half 212 OPS+ (Two Fuckin' Twelve folks!!) with 1,350 games played vs a still-great 199 and 1,153 starting at age 32, although in his case his 1st half numbers were kept down by him being a part-time player while on the mound.
* Musial also played nearly as many games after turning 32 (1,502) as he did before (1,524) while seeing his OPS+ fall only from 172 to 144
* Mays, like Musial, played a long time and generally stayed healthy and productive: 159/1,534 per vs 151/1,453 (here's the part where the sports-writer puts in the line about how embarrassing he looked in the '73 WS)

And while it could be argued that a couple guys, for varying reasons, really brought the average way down ...
* Gehrig: 1,538 games played vs 626 after age 31 (for obvious reasons)
* Foxx: 1,834 vs 483 (he drank ... a lot)
* DiMaggio: 1,111 vs 625 (various injuries)
* Ott: 2,015 to 715 and Hornsby: 1,689 to 570 (not quite sure of the details for those two)
... Babe, Ted & Willie, along with Aaron (1,806 to 1,492) were still the only ones whose 2nd half games played were within 25% of where they were in their 1st.

Mantle: 1,740 to 661
Thomas: 1,371 to 951
Robinson: 1,786 to 1,022
Manny: 1,612 to 944
Williams: 1,273 vs 828 (he had a military call-up during in both halves of his career)
Cobb: 1,805 to 1,229



IOW, Good luck Angels, you just may need it.

Edited December 13, 2011 by Guest

[Frayed Knot]

PLAYER	OPS+ thru 31	OPS+ post-31	GAMES thru 31	GAMES post-31
BABE RUTH	212	199 (-6.1%)	1,350	1,153 (-14.6%)
TED WILLIAMS	193	187 (-3.1%)	1,273	828 (-35.0%)
TY COBB	185	145 (-26.1%)	1,805	1,229 (-31.9%)
LOU GEHRIG	183	166 (-9.3%)	1,538	626 (-59.3%)
ROGERS HORNSBY	177	168 (-5.1%)	1,689	570 (-66.3%)
MICKEY MANTLE	177	156 (-11.9%)	1,740	661 (-62.0%)
STAN MUSIAL	172	144 (-16.3%)	1,524	1,502 (-1.4%)
JIMMIE FOXX	170	129 (-24.1%)	1,834	483 (-73.7)
FRANK THOMAS	169	136 (-19.5)	1,371	951 (-30.6%)
WILLIE MAYS	159	151 (-5.0%)	1,534	1,453 (-5.3%)
HANK AARON	157	151 (-3.8%)	1,806	1,492 (-17.4%)
JOE DiMAGGIO	157	152 (-3.2%)	1,111	625 (-43.7%)
MEL OTT	157	150 (-4.5%)	2,015	715 (-64.5%)
FRANK ROBINSON	156	149 (-4.5%)	1,786	1,022 (-42.8%)
MANNY RAMIREZ	156	150 (-3.8%)	1,383	919 (-33.6%)