What to expect from Albert Pujols next season?

[70runner]

Given his tendency to pull everything, combined with foot speed in the slug range, he's become the AL GIDP leader.  Since this doesn't get better with age (whatever it is), I expect more GIDPs, erasing Trout or Calhoun too often at 2B.  I also expect more nagging injuries, the kinds of things that happen when old, heavy, slow guys try to play MLB.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

What to expect from Albert? He will report to spring training saying that he feels great, his injury problems are behind him and he is looking forward to a great season. He will then spend at least two weeks on the DL with some vague malady and his production will continue to sink.

 

At least we have him locked up, so we don't have to be fearful of any of our rivals stealing him away.

[Butcher'd]

I don't feel optimistic. I think the over/under on his OPS watch should be something like .775...which is really sad and pathetic considering we're entering year 4 of a 10 year deal to a first baseman

[Docwaukee]

There are no comps for what Albert is doing.  Thru his first ten seasons he was an inner circle guy.  There has never been a player that I can recall to do what he did for the first ten years of his career and then drop off so drastically.  

 

Even though one can speculate that his sharp decline could be related to an age discrepancy, even if he were a couple of years older than stated, all of the other inner circle guys were productive. well into their late 30's and beyond.  Could it be a combo of age and not having 'enhancements'? Maybe.  

 

But what I see more than anything is stubbornness.  Every player loses a little over time but the very best of them learned how to make up for it in other ways.  They recognized what they could and couldn't do and evolved.  

 

One of the most telling things to me is that his k rate last year was about on his career avg, or at least very close.  Yet his BB rate has steadily declined now to the point where it was about half his career avg. last season.  

 

Ever since he has been a halo, he has made a tremendous number of weak outs and his BABIP keeps going down.  

 

I would like to see him acknowledge that there are pitches he used to be able to square up that he no longer can.  I would like to see him let those pitches go and become more selective.  

 

Even if his power isn't what it used to be, an additional 20-30 walks would make a huge difference.  It would also make it so pitchers would approach him differently.  Yet even without that, if you take his 2014 numbers and subtract 20 outs for 20 walks you get the following:

 

actual:  

.272/.324/.466/.790

 

with 22 more walks ( to give him 70 instead of 48)

.282/.356/.466/..822

 

Frankly, I feel like his slg would go up as well because if he layed off certain pitcher he would actually hit more xbh.  but I would take an ops of .820 from him nonetheless.  

[QuinlansMinion]

If he had an .800 OPS next season I would still take it.  There are a lot of guys who get massive contracts and dont even give you that kind of production, we have had two of those in recent memory (Wells and Hamilton).

 

Still though its a pipe dream but I wish we could put a truly dominant bat behind Trout.  I look at the success the Red Sox had by having Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz batting 3rd and 4th.  If we could bat Trout 3rd and put a dominant bat behind him, I dont think we run into any terrible scoring droughts like we did against the Royals.  

[katrinab]

I am optomistic. It will be the first season where he comes into spring training healthy and not rehabbing from injuries. Im excited to see how he does in 2015

[dimitrig]

The Machine:

 

[Guest]

I don't see him hitting over 28 hr ever again.

i agree