Ungenius

Why Would You Pay Pujols $250M Now?

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (ugh) scored big today, hauling in Albert Pujols for $250 million over 10 years.

This might be one of the worst contracts signed in MLB history. The Angels will undoubtedly spend the next 10 years basically paying Albert for his 11 years of service to the Cardinals.

Before we get started though, I want to be clear: despite being an Astros fan, and Pujol’s reputation for being an Astro-killer, I’m a fan. It’s practically beyond argument that he could retire today and be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and he’s supposedly only 31.

That supposedly is pretty big, though. His exact age has long been a matter of dispute, as Dominican trainers routinely falsify their players’ ages by 2-3 years to help MLB clubs maintain iron-clad team control of top prospects for a year or few longer than the CBA allows.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Albert truly is 31. He’ll be under Angel’s control, and on their payroll, through 2021, when he turns 41. Statistically speaking, we have three players - one from the Golden Era and two from recent history - who stack up as practical equals to Pujols; they are Jimmie Foxx, Larry Walker, and Ken Griffey Jr..

These three other hitters are the closest hitters to Pujols, in all of baseball history, and two of the three’s careers largely paralleled his career through the same ages. Foxx and Griffey’s career trajectories match Pujols’ quite startlingly, in fact. But what about Walker?

Through age 31, Walker has almost nothing in common with Pujols, but his career took off considerably after that point, so that by the time he retired in 2005 at age 38, his total career numbers nicely mirror Pujols’ career thus far. Honestly, Walker’s career didn’t seem very notable at all until he drove in 101 RBI in 1995.

The year he moved into Coors Field. Over the course of his career, he showed a startling park effect, posting a 1.068 OPS and 747 RBI at home versus .865 and 564, respectively, on the road. Pujols won’t have that benefit, so it’s probably safe to say that his career trajectory will continue along the Griffey and Foxx lines. More to the point, Walker was moving into one of the most notorious hitters’ parks in baseball history; at the very least, Pujols is moving from one of the more unfriendly modern parks to a slightly-unfriendlier one.

Of the three, clearly Griffey hung in the longest, retiring in 2010 at age 40. His best WAR after age 31 was a mere 2.0 in 2005, far off his career high of 9.7 in 1996. One might notice, in fact, that Pujols’ career high was 10.9 in 2003 and that he turned in a career low 5.4 in 2011. For those who don’t like newer stat models like WAR, Pujols’ 2011 featured career lows in hits, walks, doubles, RBI, AVG, SLG, and both OPS and OPS+.

But wait a second. Remember that Pujols might be 2 years older than records indicate. The numbers become even more startling against Pujols if you shift everything by 2 years.

Whether he’s 31 or 33, why would you pay $25 million a year for that?