Pujols and the new manager

[hangin n wangin]

3 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

It doesn't matter if Pujols should or shouldn't be the starting first baseman.  The fact of the matter is, he is.   

That's my main problem. Everyone knows he is shit, but it's tolerated and he will keep getting the playing time.

[hangin n wangin]

12 minutes ago, Barrett said:

All you have to find is a 1 WAR player and he is better than Pujols. 

You find a 0 WAR player and he's better.

[floplag]

18 minutes ago, Barrett said:

All you have to find is a 1 WAR player and he is better than Pujols. 

Do we have one at the position?  No.  
Im not defending him guys, but youre throwing on the scrap heap, its not gonna happen 

[floplag]

13 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

You have it backwards.  The contract actually isn't really a problem (other than that money could have been better spent).  The Angels can afford to have some large contracts. 

The real problem is he sucks.

Perhaps, but the real problem is that we dont have a better option at the position. 

[floplag]

13 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

His production has already taken a sharp decline.  Right now, he's a well below average starting first baseman in the major leagues, and his numbers continue to tail off at a rate consistent with his age.  Right now, Jose Miguel Fernandez has to at least be a comparable option.  He won't offer Pujols' over the fence power, but he will log more doubles.  He'll hit for a higher average and get on base more than Pujols as well, though admittedly Pujols still appears to be a pretty decent defender at 1B and Fernandez is really just learning that spot.  

If Thaiss and Walsh continue to develop, they'll be better options than Pujols by the midway point of 2019. 

So it isn't as if Pujols should be the starting first baseman.  That concept is very debatable, and even if he should be the starting first baseman, the duration of that is certainly in question.  That probably shouldn't be the case any longer than a month or two. 

But you are right that it's all for naught.

It doesn't matter if Pujols should or shouldn't be the starting first baseman.  The fact of the matter is, he is.   

Perhaps true, hopefully true, but not true today and still a what if. 
Im not suggesting anything else, in fact i myself said till someone pushes him, right now noone is. 

[floplag]

11 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

He's our best option (and even that's extremely debatable at this point) because the Angels have done nothing to fix it. It's a professional business. Deals get eaten all of the time. Next year will be the third year of terrible production from him, unless we're believing the knee surgery is going to magically cure him. Enough is enough. He's had his chance. This isn't a tee ball tournament where all the kids have to play. This is a professional sport and he's been given 7 out of 10 years to prove himself. And I think 7 years is enough to see the contract was putrid and didn't work. Move on.

And the time period to bow out gracefully for Pujols has ended already. It's ugly and only going to get uglier.

Or perhaps there are more dire needs elsewhere?  
There is also politics involved, this isnt some random guy thats going to get DFAd no matter how bad you want it to happen 

[hangin n wangin]

4 minutes ago, floplag said:

Or perhaps there are more dire needs elsewhere?  
There is also politics involved, this isnt some random guy thats going to get DFAd no matter how bad you want it to happen 

I understand he isn't going to be DFA'd and I don't care if he is or not. The money is as good as gone whether he is in the line up or out or off the team all together. But he makes our team worse... so I wan't him out of the lineup and to be a bench player. 

I understand it's not going to happen, which brings me to seriously question the decision making of the organization. Don't know who it's on. Don't really care. But it's a problem.

[floplag]

2 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

I understand he isn't going to be DFA'd and I don't care if he is or not. The money is as good as gone whether he is in the line up or out or off the team all together. But he makes our team worse... so I wan't him out of the lineup and to be a bench player. 

I understand it's not going to happen, which brings me to seriously question the decision making of the organization. Don't know who it's on. Don't really care. But it's a problem.

Well one need only read these forums to know what the obvious plan is, to wait till Thaiss or someone is ready enough to pressure them to make a move.   By then its likely time, i think even Albert knows that.  Hes going to get his 1-2 more years to ride off into the sunset, how much he plays over that time will be determined by his health and how soon the kids are ready.  This is the decision, that much is fairly obvious isnt it? 

[Angel Oracle]

The real issue for 2019 will be when Pujols hits anywhere above 6th in the order.   Well, that and him getting anymore than 20 DH starts and anymore than 80 1B starts.

If they have a .700 OPS guy in the MOTO, they have some serious issues.

[Second Base]

Also, I'm not sure it's really worth the ink to talk about Albert hurting the team.  I mean if we figure the average starting 1B is worth 2.4 wins above replacement and is only hitting .267/.353 with 29 DB and 26 HR, and Pujols' numbers stretched across a full season fall short in most areas except HR and RBI....then we gotta figure Pujols actively only costs the Angels 2-3 wins per year.  

So the difference between the Angels with Pujols and the Angels without Pujols is a mediocre team versus a mediocre team.  Now if the Angels were only a win or two away from the playoffs every year, then yeah, Albert Pujols would need to be gone because he'd be the most glaring deficit.  He'd be the difference between October baseball and going home early. 

But as it stands, Albert Pujols isn't the difference there.  And you know what?  By the time the Angels are actually only a win or two away from being a playoff team, Pujols will be out of the picture by then (2020).  I know he wouldn't willingly retire but he truly were the difference, then Eppler would make the change. 

As long as the Angels aren't winning, it's best to avoid the drama of replacing him.  Just let him play out his career and pretend everything is fine until they're forced to confront that reality.  But hopefully Pujols takes himself out of the lineup before that happens. 

[red321]

What to do about Pujols, and how to handle it, is probably one of the biggest challenges the next manager will face. While it's easy on a message board to say...just bench him or get rid of him...reality is it's not as easy at that. How the new manager handles it, and how Pujols reacts to it, has the potential to cause significant clubhouse issues. Unfortunately I also thinks this comes to a head this year as Ohtani should be the primary DH, regardless of who is on the mound which means almost all of Pujols ABs will need to come from him playing 1b. If he's physically unable to play the field, but feels "healthy enough" to DH, or feels that he should be splitting time between 1b and DH to protect his legs...there's the potential for problems to occur. I think it's already been established that Pujols isn't guaranteed 3rd or 4th spot in the lineup, so that is less of an issue.

Again...easy enough to message board or talk radio to just tell Pujols to shuddup...but this will be an early test for whomever takes over the reigns and will also go a long way towards telling us how Pujols is going to deal with his continuing decline.

[Dtwncbad]

6 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

Also, I'm not sure it's really worth the ink to talk about Albert hurting the team.  I mean if we figure the average starting 1B is worth 2.4 wins above replacement and is only hitting .267/.353 with 29 DB and 26 HR, and Pujols' numbers stretched across a full season fall short in most areas except HR and RBI....then we gotta figure Pujols actively only costs the Angels 2-3 wins per year.  

So the difference between the Angels with Pujols and the Angels without Pujols is a mediocre team versus a mediocre team.  Now if the Angels were only a win or two away from the playoffs every year, then yeah, Albert Pujols would need to be gone because he'd be the most glaring deficit.  He'd be the difference between October baseball and going home early. 

But as it stands, Albert Pujols isn't the difference there.  And you know what?  By the time the Angels are actually only a win or two away from being a playoff team, Pujols will be out of the picture by then (2020).  I know he wouldn't willingly retire but he truly were the difference, then Eppler would make the change. 

As long as the Angels aren't winning, it's best to avoid the drama of replacing him.  Just let him play out his career and pretend everything is fine until they're forced to confront that reality.  But hopefully Pujols takes himself out of the lineup before that happens. 

I never like using WAR in this context.

I understand this supposed to be how the number is used, but I can't get there mentally with it as literal.

Sometimes actual wins and losses end up from when things "click" or when they don't "click". .  

My personal opinion is upgrading a player by 2-3 WAR could mean (could) 10 more wins.

This is why I think you relentlessly pursue the best lineup and never fall into the trap of "Oh well he is only 3 WAR worse and they are not 3 wins from the playoffs."

[Troll Daddy]

So if you build a team that produces 100 WAR ... how many games will you win in a season

[m0nkey]

4 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

So if you build a team that produces 100 WAR ... how many games will you win in a season

One billion

[Second Base]

11 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

I never like using WAR in this context.

I understand this supposed to be how the number is used, but I can't get there mentally with it as literal.

Sometimes actual wins and losses end up from when things "click" or when they don't "click". .  

My personal opinion is upgrading a player by 2-3 WAR could mean (could) 10 more wins.

This is why I think you relentlessly pursue the best lineup and never fall into the trap of "Oh well he is only 3 WAR worse and they are not 3 wins from the playoffs."

Well even if you ignore the WAR and just go off of standard production, we can still see he's hitting 20 points lower and getting on base 70 points lower than the average starting 1B. 

[Barrett]

2 hours ago, floplag said:

Do we have one at the position?  No.  
Im not defending him guys, but youre throwing on the scrap heap, its not gonna happen 

What's not going to happen? I said as much. I said that Pujols will not be sitting and that he would be at 1st. Not because of how good he is, but because of his contract. Even if we have someone better which we more than likely do. There is zero possibility that Pujols sits if he is healthy enough to play.

[floplag]

3 hours ago, Dtwncbad said:

I never like using WAR in this context.

I understand this supposed to be how the number is used, but I can't get there mentally with it as literal.

Sometimes actual wins and losses end up from when things "click" or when they don't "click". .  

My personal opinion is upgrading a player by 2-3 WAR could mean (could) 10 more wins.

This is why I think you relentlessly pursue the best lineup and never fall into the trap of "Oh well he is only 3 WAR worse and they are not 3 wins from the playoffs."

WAR either has value, or it doesnt, context shouldnt change that.  

[Docwaukee]

3 hours ago, Troll Daddy said:

So if you build a team that produces 100 WAR ... how many games will you win in a season

145 wins. 

a team of replacement players would have 0 WAR and get to about 45 wins.  theoretically.  

[The Ghost of Bob Starr]

9 hours ago, hangin n wangin said:

Arte should have no say in baseball decisions anymore after his Pujols and Hamilton debacles. He needs to listen to the baseball experts. Arte is the reason were in this volcano of hell with Pujols.

And the experts need to go Pujols and present him with a paper showing him his OPS (.700), his OBP (under .300), and his WAR (under 0). Better yet, make it a power point with some nice graphics.

Pujols is dog shit and we're trying to win here and him being in the line up at 38 years old isn't helping the team anymore....at all. 

Old yeller has rabies and we're still trying to keep him in the f*cking living room. 

He should be listening to AW.com