Albert Pujols wins Sporting News Award (update)
TOWER GROVE — Gathering award-season momentum, Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols was elected as Sporting News’ 2008 Player of the Year in a vote of 314 fellow players, the magazine announced Wednesday morning. To capture why Pujols was selected over other major leaguers, like Ryan Howard or Josh Hamilton, the magazine turned to the baseball person who knows him best.
His biggest fan. His boss.
Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.
“He is the classic complete player,” La Russa writes for Sporting News, in an edition that will reach bookstores and newsstands tomorrow. “I’ve never had a player who has a better attitude and understanding about why you’re in uniform. It’s a competition. Albert comes to the ballpark and he gets ready for the competition and to contribute in a complete way.”
Albert Pujols wins second postseason award in as many days.
Earlier this week, Pujols received the Players Choice Award as the NL Outstanding Player, and he is a finalist for two more Players Choice awards that will be announced this week. One of those is the Player of the Year award. The other finalists for that award are Manny Ramirez and Cliff Lee. While there was growing discussion about Ramirez’s candidacy for the NL MVP — especially aftering supercharging the LA Dodgers to a division title after his arrival — there was considerable sentiment that Ramirez, like Milwaukee ace CC Sabathia, would lack support because they didn’t spend the entire season in the National League.
Pujols chief competition for the award seems to be St. Louis native Ryan Howard, who led the majors in home runs and RBIs while also powering the Phillies to the NL East title.
Pujols numbers are known by heart now. He finished second in the league in batting. He hit 37 home runs and drove in 116 RBIs. He had 114 at-bats with runners in scoring position. He topped the majors in slugging percentage. Yadda. Yadda. Yowza. He is also a favorite to win his second Gold Glove at first base.
In a release from Sporting News editor Jeff D’Alessio, Sporting News states that Pujols “is on a trajectory to finish his career among the best to play the game.”
It continues:
At age 28, he has more homers (319) than Hank Aaron did at that age (298), a higher career batting average (.334) than Mickey Mantle (.307), more RBIs (977) than Frank Robinson (896) and more hits (1,531) than Lou Gehrig (1,350).
“You don’t want to disrespect other people, so to me, if you say Albert will be in the conversation of the greatest players to ever play the game, that’s enough,” La Russa writes for the magazine. “He doesn’t have to be the best, or two or three. All you need to know is, when you have that conversation of the greatest players of all time, Albert Pujols will be one of the guys you talk about.”
Pujols wins the Sporting News award for the second time in his career, and it is the eighth time a Cardinal has won the award since 1944. As far as Cardinals, only Stan Musial and Pujols have won the award more than once. The previous Cardinals to win it:
1944 … Marty Marion
1946 … Stan Musial
1951 … Stan Musial
1964 … Ken Boyer
1971 … Joe Torre
1974 … Lou Brock
2003 … Albert Pujols
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
Even without all of the great numbers that he has, he is the greatest player to ever play the game for he knows exactly WHO is responsible for his greatness and he never fails to thank HIM after every play that he is involved in, successful or not……..
Guys, I think we’re working a little too hard to disprove Wade’s point. Let’s keep it simple.
314 MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS just voted Pujols the best player in major league baseball for the 2nd time in his 8 year career. Jason Bay doesn’t even merit consideration.
That sort of says it all, doesn’t it?
Uderstandable how someone from Pittsburgh would have such a limited knowledge of baseball.
“wade wrote: Pujols is deff one of the best players in the league but here is a list of players who are just as good if not better
Manny, Ortiz, Bay, ARod, Sorino, H Rameriz, Reyes, D Lee, Crawford, Hamilton, Howard, Wright, Pedroia, Youk, Tex, Vlad”
from SI.com Oct 1 2008
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/joe_posnanski/10/01/posnanski.pujols/index.html
Perhaps there were once genuine grounds for debate about Pujols’ talent. Not anymore. He is, in my mind, the best player in baseball, and I don’t think that anyone approaches him. OPS+ is a pretty good statistic — it takes a player’s OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) and compares it to the rest of the league. A 100 OPS+ is exactly average.
Over the last five years, here are the Top 5 players in OPS+.
1. Albert Pujols, 173
2. David Ortiz, 154
3. Chipper Jones, 153
4. Alex Rodriguez, 153
5. Manny Ramirez, 152.
So, well, that’s not especially close. OK, so you can look at runs created, Bill James’ invention that basically measures how many runs a player, um, you know, created:
1. Albert Pujols, 756
2. Alex Rodriguez, 682
3. David Ortiz, 671
4. Lance Berkman, 646
5. Mark Teixeira, 627.
So, that’s not really all that close either. Maybe you’re old school. Maybe you don’t like these newfangled statistics. Maybe you prefer batting average.
1. Albert Pujols, .335
2. Ichiro Suzuki, .332
3. Vladimir Guerrero, .323
4. Matt Holiday, .319
5. Todd Helton, .315.
And so on. He has the best on-base percentage the last five years. He has the highest slugging percentage the last five years. He has the most total bases, the most extra base hits, the most times on base. And this year, despite missing a few games, he probably had his greatest offensive season. With offense down all around baseball, the guy hit .357, walked 104 times (while striking out 54), banged 44 doubles and 37 homers, scored 100 and drove in 116. There are any number of advanced stats — Value Over Replacement Player, Equivalent Average, Isolated Power, Offensive Win Percentage and so on — that show Pujols was the Usain Bolt of baseball this year.
That seems to be a trend: Many baseball fans just don’t seem to think about him. Pujols’ greatness is so easily apparent — he hits, he walks, he hits for power, he plays outstanding defense at first base, he makes winning plays just about every day…….And maybe that gets to the heart of why he’s sometimes overlooked. Maybe he’s so good it’s boring. Maybe Pujols’ greatness, like a plane landing safely, doesn’t make the news
FIVE YEARS is a long time period, so once again Wade the question comes back to HOW is Pujols overrated? What is the measuring stick and how do all those players you say are as good or better rank compared to Pujols with the same measuring stick?
Albert you simply the bset I have ever seen , You are El Hombre Thanks for being a Cardinal and If DeWitt and company dont lock you up to a LIFETIME contract They are CRAZY!!!!!!
Religion is the opiate of the masses.
Oh, and on the baseball front, Pujols is only 28? Yeah, anyway. Either he’s 32 or in 2003 he was juicing to the gills. He’s about 80% the size he was then - and no, he’s not leaner now. Too bad his biceps tendon got shredded from his steroid use. I was in Chicago for the ‘03 All-Star game and watched him rip dingers to all fields in the derby - amazing. Now, he rarely, if ever gets a ball out the opposite way. They just fall on the warning track. Even when he pulls them out, they aren’t the moon shots they once were. So, juicer or older, but definitely one or the other.
Any PROOF of either of your accusations there Richard?
No?
What a surprise
Wade is just an idiot ignore him. He knows nothing about baseball.
Yes, Albert is the complete player. I have a paragraph in my book Baseball(My Opinion), about Albert being the best complete player in MLB right now. In my truthful estimation he out shines A Rod in every respect and especially when it comes to chemistry with teammates. I think all you baseball fans out there would really enjoy my book, try it , you’ll like it !!!!
You are all just being biased because you are fans of the guy. I have watched a lot of baseball in my day and the thing with Pujols is that he puts up these monster numbers in the most meaningless situations. For example his team will be winning or losing by like 5-10 runs and he will hit some garbage homers. And in the late innings of close games, forget about him. He might as well not even be in the line up.