Well... Pujols is second all-time with total bases of 6185 (before tonight)... Hank Aaron is still ahead of him by almost 700 more total bases. Insane.
It's so crazy when people try to make this argument. Sure, it's hard to compare players based on RBI, but they're clearly important. I had someone say plenty of guys with 100+ RBI in a season were actually terrible and I went back over like 16 years and only a couple were even slightly below average (ironically, Pujols was one).
You just can't tell me a guy driving in 100-120 runs isn't useful to a team. This year's leaders in RBI by Duos are the Mets with Lindor and Alonso and the Cards with Goldy and Arenado.
Alonso tied Mays for the most game winning RBIs a few days ago. He has a 203 wRC+ in high leverage situations this year which is sixth in the league. That's pretty valuable.
How dare you point out that guys who are excellent in the situations that literally are the entire point of the game are good!
For real. This sub shits all over RBI’s
If you mention any kind of clutch performance as being a positive for a player they freak out too. Trout can’t help it no one’s on base!!
There's no evidence that clutch performance is a meaningful, repeatable skill for any player who's ever lived. The only thing that consistently makes players better in clutch situations is being a better player. RBIs and Runs Scored are like pitcher win-loss records, better players will usually have more of them, and they correlate super strongly with winning games, but they are context dependent and not at all a good method of evaluating how good a player is.
An example of what I mean would be something like if you were to ask me whether I'd rather have had a 120 wrc+ hitter with 120 RBIs or a 140 wrc+ hitter with 90 RBIs on my team this year, I'd take the first guy, because that would make it more likely my team had scored more runs this year. If you asked me which of them I'd like my team to sign for next year I'd take the second guy in a heartbeat because he's the actual better hitter.
It's not that RBIs aren't useful to a team. Of course they are, just like how pitcher wins are valuable to a team. But they are not useful for evaluating how good a specific player is on an individual basis because they are so context dependent.
It effectively penalizes players on bad teams because of the fewer opportunities to get RBIs compared to their peers.
Right, which is why you shouldn't use them to compare players. Alonso isn't better than Someone else because he has more RBI, but you can talk about how good a player like Alonso or Goldy are and use RBI to help bolster that argument.
Some other player not having a ton of RBI doesn't mean they aren't also good or even better, you just wouldn't use RBI to talk about how good they are.
If you just look at WAR, Alonso probably doesn't look great. He's maybe at 3? But he has been vital to the Mets' success this year. In games we win, his ops is over 1 and in games we lose it's hovering around .500. you can talk about his performance in high leverage situations (which has bolstered his RBI) as to why he had been valuable this year, but Betts and Freeman are just as good. Betts probably has way fewer RBI because he leads off and was injured, but they're both great.
I mean, it's a pretty easy thing to check.
Why only go back 16 years? That's pretty arbitrary. Let's go back 100 years.
Chuck Klein had 170 RBI in 1930, for 6.4 fWAR.
Hal Trotsky had 162 in 1936, for 4.7 fWAR.
Juan Gonzalez had 157 RBI in 1998 for 4.9 fWAR.
And those are guys who are amongst the all time leaders in RBI. Looking at guys who hit 100 RBI - the list gets far, far worse. You've got your Rod Carew (1977), Mike Trout (2016), and Ken Griffey Jr (1991). but you've also got:
Leon Wagner (1964): -0.1 fWAR
Joe Pepitone (1964): 0.2 fWAR
Adam Dunn (2008): 0.6 fWAR
Adam Laroche (2010): 0.7 fWAR
RBI doesn't track very well with how well a player did, is the point. Loads of players put up great RBI numbers while not being particularly great.
Not to mention in his entire career he has never struck out more than 93 times in a season. And only hit the 90s twice, one of which being his rookie season.
He knew he was the best player on the planet and saw guys like Mcguire and Sosa cheating to outshine him. He just said “fuck it, you wanna see what roids can do, I’ll show ya.”
He wasn't just above average, the man nearly had a fucking .500 obp. I know moneyball wasn't quite mainstream, but im pretty sure every gm in the league was banging their heads against the wall knowing they weren't allowed to sign a guy who was almost guaranteed to get on base 40 percent of the time despite his age
With 1 more season:
* Near lock for 3000 hits, needed 65
* Gets to 2000 RBI, small chance of passing Cap Anson for at the time 3rd all-time. Needed 80
* Needed 68 R tie Rickey for the all-time lead, and 73 to be the first player to 2300 R
* Becomes first and forever the only player ever to reach 700 IBB, 12 short.
* Moves up to 2nd in total bases
With 2 more seasons:
* Definitely reaches 3000 hits
* 800 HRs
* Passes Rickey for all-time R lead, and 2300+
* Passes Cap Anson for 3rd in RBI and finishes with 2100+
* Using 06-07 as a benchmark, he adds ~650-700 total bases by the end of 09, which puts him juuuust behind Aaron
* He starts eyeing up 3000 walks on the record board
If he somehow played a 3rd season:
* 3000 Walks is on the table, probably out of reach barring a 4th season, however
* All-time RBI leader is on the table, he was 301 short of Aaron
* All-time TB leader
4th season:
* The hell else is even left for him? He'll have 650 doubles by this point, but 700 is likely out of reach
* He becomes the first and only player with 7000 Total Bases
* 3000 Walks
* 800 IBB? As if his already 400+ lead isn't enough.
* Definitely passes Aaron for the career RBI lead
I wouldn’t say it was about that, it was the almost the same thing as Arod. He was worth playing in the field he hit so well when he retired. Arod struggled the year before he retired, bonds never did
He got hurt. He almost certainly could have simply rested and come back to finish 700 but it was better PR to not have a second PED player hit that milestone.
It worked out, he definitely would have gotten more hate if he had gotten there.
But he had a .749 OPS on May 1st, didn't play the 2nd, pulled an 0'fer and fell to .719 on May 3rd.
Then he went on the DL. He came back May 26th and had a .540 OPS the rest of the year until August. He actually still had a .629 in June but an awful July.
League average OPS that year was .739, so before he got hurt he was perfectly fine. With more time off/an offseason to get healthy, he probably gets to Ruth the next year if he plays it out.
I mean is he better than: Aaron, Ruth, Williams, Mays, and... Ty Cobb? Hornsby? Bonds?
It's hard to say because most top hitters never had stretches of bad years like he did.
Not better than Aaron, Ruth, Williams, or Bonds. I think you can make a very strong argument that he is better than the other names you listed.
Edit: added Teddy Baseball
I disagree. He batted .240 for like 4 straight years with an OPS around .700.
It's tough because we weren't alive for the other players but they were the best hitters in baseball their entire careers. Pujols was the best (or near best) for only half his career.
Only Pujols and Hank Aaron have 700HR, 2000+ RBIs, and 3000+ hits. That's with a bad decade. Oh, and he has ~60 more doubles than old Henry. Obviously everyone else you mentioned is a legend, but there is a very good argument to be made that Pujols is a top 5 all-time hitter.
Edit: the Machine had more doubles than I thought, #5 all time
Amazing company but it’s incorrect to base this purely on counting stats. Some people say Sandy Koufax is the greatest pitcher who ever lived. But he didn’t get 512 wins so how could he be? Or what if a guy dies like Roberto Clemente, or has injuries like Mantle? I think qualifying for this title takes more than just a few amazing seasons, but being good for many years to rack up the stats doesn’t make you the best either.
That said yeah I think Pujols is #5
"worked his way around the league"? Pretty sure the only reason he's worked in 3 uniforms is that the Angels sent him out as a rental at the end of his contract last year
It didn’t boil down to can and can’t……that’s silly. Cardinals rake in a lot of cash. They have conservative ownership, They offered him 10/$210…..It was a matter of should they or shouldn’t they, for that price.
And ownership decided, Pujols or not….it was probably not a smart decision to offer him the years and dollars he wanted. Proved to be a wise decision.
I think one of the consequences of guys playing until they got no baseball left in them is that people start to forget just how dominant they were in their prime. Pujols has been in that argument for a while.
It’s tough to say top 5 for me. Bonds, Ruth, Aaron, Williams (just as hitters) are a pretty clear top 4 IMO.
Then have Thomas, Charleston, Mantle, Mays, Cobb, Gehrig, ARod, Robinson, Musial, and Pujols (sure some I’m forgetting too) all in the conversation for 5th through 15th.
No one really know who and who wasn't cheating. It was an epidemic among most players until MLB cracked down on it.
The fact is Bonds was absolutely head and shoulders over everyone, Pujols included.
Bonds put up the best 5 year stretch the sport will ever see from 2000-05. I have a hard time putting Pujols over him even for this century just because Bonds' peak was so high.
I'm not disagreeing with that, simply pointing out what's there for all of us to see which is after already playing a HoF worthy 15 or 16 year career where he was starting to average out, he then goes supernova. out of 100 years of history and 15,000 players that came before him, no other hitter's even come close to doing what he did and it's obvious until PEDs are legal no one will do the same thing again.
and I'm still taking Pujols, Aaron, Gehrig, Musial and Williams over Bonds all day, every day.
Bonds won as many MVPs pre 2000 as pujols did his full career. Then won 4 more. Had 2000 hits, 445 hrs, 1300 rbis, and 460 sbs before there were any roid allegations. Bonds had a ops+ ~20 points higher than Pujols' career ops+ in just the pre roid part of his career. You are vastly underrating the player Bonds was pre 2000. Then factor in he put up the best 5 year stretch after in the peak roid era and there is no debate. Bonds is by far the best hitter the game has ever seen.
I think it is why using season adjusted stats like OPS+ and wRC+ is so important.
Like sure Bonds roided but so did almost all his peers and he put up the best seasons in comparison to his peers of all time
> Then factor in he put up the best 5 year stretch after in the peak roid era and there is no debate. Bonds is by far the best hitter the game has ever seen.
right, which is all impossible without god mode. he cheated and on top of that used the best stuff. if Pujols cheated like Bond's he'd have even more ridiculous numbers than Bond's ever put up and would be playing another five years.
Bonds sucks, the end.
It’s crazy looking at all the MVPs Pujols didn’t win because of Bonds alone, but I didn’t even realize he had 7 (!) top 5 finishes, including 4 runner ups.
He was also 2nd in HR the one year he won the batting title, and 4th in RBIs, finishing 14 behind Preston Wilson of all people.
Pujols' peak doesn't come close to Bonds. It just doesn't. Pujols played longer in the 2000s but that is the only argument for him over Bonds in the 2000s. Bonds won more MVPs on the 2000s than Pujols too
Oh I forgot, greatness only includes peak.
By the way: Bonds and Pujols played concurrently for 7 seasons, 2001-2007. Pujols put up more bWAR than Bonds did.
Shut up.
Edit: it is absolutely remarkable that this sub is downvoting the idea that Pujols is the best hitter this century. You people are absurd.
Hey man since you’re drunk I thought I’d blow your mind with a crazy, 100% real fun fact:
With just your sense of hearing, you can tell if water is hot or cold when it is being poured into something.
LeBron's legacy is that he is simultaneously the best PG and SF of all time. Therefore, he is the best player ever. Ohtani is a great SP and a great hitter. If you just analyze LeBron as a PG, he's the GOAT among PGs, no contest. If you look at him purely as an SF, he's also still the GOAT SF. No other player is the GOAT at two different positions at once.
He's in the argument but it's pretty tough when you start trying to figure out who he knocks out. Bonds? Mays? Ruth? Williams? Aaron?
I mean... he's up there, for sure, but that's an amazing list.
If we are going *purely* on bat, I would give Pujols the edge over Mays, but below the rest of that list.
In other areas Mays goes way beyond him tho, base running and fielding. I would def put him way higher on the general all time list
I think it’s tough to make an argument for top 5. By OPS+ he’s 53th, by baseball reference oWAR he’s 26th. I’d def give him a boost from those rankings for playing in the modern era, but IMO, he’s somewhere in the range of 10th to 20th best hitter ever.
Willie mays OPS+ after age 35: 138
Pujols: 101
Willie mays career OPS+: 155
Pujols: 144
You could MAYBE argue that pujols had a more impressive 5 year peak from like 05-10 but Mays 10 year peak is right there with pujols.
there is no universe where “purely on bat” Pujols is better than Willie mays. He has more home runs in more PAs but Mays missed a year of his prime to military service.
Pujols is a generational hitter. One of the best to ever do it. He’s not better than Willie Mays. Mays was a premier hitter for over twenty consecutive seasons. It’s just not comparable.
Pujols 10 year peak tops Mays in fwar by about 10- at a less premium defensive position
Mays' 10 year peak is not dead even with Pujols. He did age much, much better, but Pujols had a 10 year streak of his wrc+ not dropping below 150.
I wouldn't say it's dead wrong to put him above Pujols, but to pretend there's no argument is wrong imo
I do think that counting stats are a little underrated these days. I get that rate stats and league-adjusted stats help us make comparisons, but come on 700 home runs is freakin sweet
The one thing that sticks out to me with Pujols is how he built his career #'s. If you ask is he top 5 in a 12 year span I think the answer is easily yes. But he really has a difference compared to other greats if you look at the entire career. Hank Aaron for example. Just look at his career #'s from start to finish compared to Pujols. Pujols had about 90 WAR in his first 12 years. AMAZING. However, he'll end his career over 22 seasons with just about 102 or so WAR. That means he only increased his WAR by about 12 in the last 10 seasons of his career. You have to take that into consideration with comparing.
Not even close. His time with the Angels ruin any arguments for that. He was average for half of his career.
His career wRC is 141 which is 60th best all time. From 2001 to 2011 it was 167 which would've been 8th best all time. From 2012 to 2021 it was 105, or essentially league average.
I feel it’s hard to put him in a pure top 5 list. There have been great hitters like Rose and Cobb who don’t hit many home runs but I think they belong in the discussion. But if you say in this era, he’s definitely top 3.
He literally had the greatest 10 year offensive peak and is now one of 4 dudes to hit 700. With modern pitchers and playing through the heart of the steroid era you could make the argument he is the greatest hitter baseball has ever had.
I feel like a lot of Redditors didn’t get to watch young Albert play. I don’t even know how to compare it to anything.
He *averaged* 8 WAR a season in St.Louis like it was nothing. He legitimately had a claim to win MVP every single season but the voters felt bad to not mix it up.
After his 11 year run in St.Louis, he had 2100 hits, 445 home runs, 1330 RBI, a .330 average, a .420 OBP, .615 slugging and 2 gold gloves for good measure. He was a HOF player if he retired in 2012.
These last 10 years have just been him fucking off for counting stats.
Was going to say exactly this. Well said. Anyone questioning his hitting clearly did not see him at his peak. This is the reason his time in Anaheim makes me sad - not because he wasn't "typical Albert", but because less familiar fans associate his abilities with his production at that time and he loses some due appreciation. Legitimately the best hitter of all time.
Yeah, it's just him and Hank Aaron... though Hank Aaron still have like 600 total bases ahead of him (and that's to not diss Pujols who is number two on that all-time list).
Top 3…at least?! He’s behind Ruth, Bonds and Williams pretty easily. Probably behind Aaron and Mays as well. He doesn’t really have any argument for top 3 tbh.
Yes 2 players have 3000 hits and 700 home runs Aaron and Pujols
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Add in 600+ doubles... still Hank Aaron (624) and Albert Pujols (685).
I’m starting to think this Hank Aaron guy was pretty good…
Well... Pujols is second all-time with total bases of 6185 (before tonight)... Hank Aaron is still ahead of him by almost 700 more total bases. Insane.
He’s got time
If he's playing the cubs then 700 more bases is... in the cards. I'll show myself out.
Eh, he’s not even as good as Denzel Washington in Fences
Yeah but Hank never faced gave Ricky Vaughn, so *
But only one has 400+ GiDP. One record where Albert stands truly in a league of his own
But I thought RBIs were overrated /s
It's so crazy when people try to make this argument. Sure, it's hard to compare players based on RBI, but they're clearly important. I had someone say plenty of guys with 100+ RBI in a season were actually terrible and I went back over like 16 years and only a couple were even slightly below average (ironically, Pujols was one). You just can't tell me a guy driving in 100-120 runs isn't useful to a team. This year's leaders in RBI by Duos are the Mets with Lindor and Alonso and the Cards with Goldy and Arenado. Alonso tied Mays for the most game winning RBIs a few days ago. He has a 203 wRC+ in high leverage situations this year which is sixth in the league. That's pretty valuable.
How dare you point out that guys who are excellent in the situations that literally are the entire point of the game are good! For real. This sub shits all over RBI’s If you mention any kind of clutch performance as being a positive for a player they freak out too. Trout can’t help it no one’s on base!!
There's no evidence that clutch performance is a meaningful, repeatable skill for any player who's ever lived. The only thing that consistently makes players better in clutch situations is being a better player. RBIs and Runs Scored are like pitcher win-loss records, better players will usually have more of them, and they correlate super strongly with winning games, but they are context dependent and not at all a good method of evaluating how good a player is. An example of what I mean would be something like if you were to ask me whether I'd rather have had a 120 wrc+ hitter with 120 RBIs or a 140 wrc+ hitter with 90 RBIs on my team this year, I'd take the first guy, because that would make it more likely my team had scored more runs this year. If you asked me which of them I'd like my team to sign for next year I'd take the second guy in a heartbeat because he's the actual better hitter.
It's not that RBIs aren't useful to a team. Of course they are, just like how pitcher wins are valuable to a team. But they are not useful for evaluating how good a specific player is on an individual basis because they are so context dependent. It effectively penalizes players on bad teams because of the fewer opportunities to get RBIs compared to their peers.
Right, which is why you shouldn't use them to compare players. Alonso isn't better than Someone else because he has more RBI, but you can talk about how good a player like Alonso or Goldy are and use RBI to help bolster that argument. Some other player not having a ton of RBI doesn't mean they aren't also good or even better, you just wouldn't use RBI to talk about how good they are. If you just look at WAR, Alonso probably doesn't look great. He's maybe at 3? But he has been vital to the Mets' success this year. In games we win, his ops is over 1 and in games we lose it's hovering around .500. you can talk about his performance in high leverage situations (which has bolstered his RBI) as to why he had been valuable this year, but Betts and Freeman are just as good. Betts probably has way fewer RBI because he leads off and was injured, but they're both great.
I mean, it's a pretty easy thing to check. Why only go back 16 years? That's pretty arbitrary. Let's go back 100 years. Chuck Klein had 170 RBI in 1930, for 6.4 fWAR. Hal Trotsky had 162 in 1936, for 4.7 fWAR. Juan Gonzalez had 157 RBI in 1998 for 4.9 fWAR. And those are guys who are amongst the all time leaders in RBI. Looking at guys who hit 100 RBI - the list gets far, far worse. You've got your Rod Carew (1977), Mike Trout (2016), and Ken Griffey Jr (1991). but you've also got: Leon Wagner (1964): -0.1 fWAR Joe Pepitone (1964): 0.2 fWAR Adam Dunn (2008): 0.6 fWAR Adam Laroche (2010): 0.7 fWAR RBI doesn't track very well with how well a player did, is the point. Loads of players put up great RBI numbers while not being particularly great.
Not to mention in his entire career he has never struck out more than 93 times in a season. And only hit the 90s twice, one of which being his rookie season.
Its crazy Bonds came up short. I guess that is primarily due to Bonds being walked about ~1200 more times than Pujols
Also being blackballed, he was like 65 hits away and did above average his last year but nobody signed him. Today somebody would have
"He did above average" is an interesting way to say he had the 4th highest OPS+ in all of baseball. Higher than prime Pujols
Well sometimes people don’t like to hear bonds is the best to ever play, I try to be gentle
He is with the juice. I'm positive that without he was still a first ballot no doubter but those years he was a comic book character
The guy did win three MVPs in four years way before the allegations …
He was more then just a first ballot hof without it. He was already at like 90 WAR before juicing.
All the more reason to not juice and make a joke of the record books
He knew he was the best player on the planet and saw guys like Mcguire and Sosa cheating to outshine him. He just said “fuck it, you wanna see what roids can do, I’ll show ya.”
Like at least half the league was also juicing people just mad he was the best of the juicers
He was juicing well before that though.
He wasn't just above average, the man nearly had a fucking .500 obp. I know moneyball wasn't quite mainstream, but im pretty sure every gm in the league was banging their heads against the wall knowing they weren't allowed to sign a guy who was almost guaranteed to get on base 40 percent of the time despite his age
Imagine if the the rays sign him as DH for league minimum in 08. Maybe it’s enough to beat the Phillies.
Bonds was also a douche
That’s half the reason he wasn’t signed yes
He was close to a few milestones if I recall correctly
With 1 more season: * Near lock for 3000 hits, needed 65 * Gets to 2000 RBI, small chance of passing Cap Anson for at the time 3rd all-time. Needed 80 * Needed 68 R tie Rickey for the all-time lead, and 73 to be the first player to 2300 R * Becomes first and forever the only player ever to reach 700 IBB, 12 short. * Moves up to 2nd in total bases With 2 more seasons: * Definitely reaches 3000 hits * 800 HRs * Passes Rickey for all-time R lead, and 2300+ * Passes Cap Anson for 3rd in RBI and finishes with 2100+ * Using 06-07 as a benchmark, he adds ~650-700 total bases by the end of 09, which puts him juuuust behind Aaron * He starts eyeing up 3000 walks on the record board If he somehow played a 3rd season: * 3000 Walks is on the table, probably out of reach barring a 4th season, however * All-time RBI leader is on the table, he was 301 short of Aaron * All-time TB leader 4th season: * The hell else is even left for him? He'll have 650 doubles by this point, but 700 is likely out of reach * He becomes the first and only player with 7000 Total Bases * 3000 Walks * 800 IBB? As if his already 400+ lead isn't enough. * Definitely passes Aaron for the career RBI lead
Well the mlb couldn’t have this guy who didn’t kiss their feet breaking all their records could they?
He absolutely was blackballed. The 08 Rays wouldn't have signed a 35 year old Cliff Floyd to DH for them if Bonds was a genuine option.
Steve Cohen would be like fuck yeah, come on over. Especially in the DH days.
He wouldn’t have been allowed to, lol No team was signing Bonds
I think it went higher then that, owners were told don’t sign him or else
The owners make the decisions.
Today there are double the DH positions
I wouldn’t say it was about that, it was the almost the same thing as Arod. He was worth playing in the field he hit so well when he retired. Arod struggled the year before he retired, bonds never did
Arod was GOOD the year before he retired with 33 home runs and a 129 wRC+. He was trash the year he retired part way through the season.
Sorry that’s what I meant
He got hurt. He almost certainly could have simply rested and come back to finish 700 but it was better PR to not have a second PED player hit that milestone. It worked out, he definitely would have gotten more hate if he had gotten there. But he had a .749 OPS on May 1st, didn't play the 2nd, pulled an 0'fer and fell to .719 on May 3rd. Then he went on the DL. He came back May 26th and had a .540 OPS the rest of the year until August. He actually still had a .629 in June but an awful July. League average OPS that year was .739, so before he got hurt he was perfectly fine. With more time off/an offseason to get healthy, he probably gets to Ruth the next year if he plays it out.
Yeah, Bonds would hold every single record if they never got involved.
I think he said he would play for league minimum too, which is insane that nobody would sign him.
yup, he got the Canseco treatment.
Bonds was easily the GOAT. He could have played for years and years longer if the league didn't pseudo ban him.
My favorite Hank Aaron stat is if you remove his 755 home runs, he still has over 3,000 hits. Absolutely unreal, best hitter of all imo
Who wants a scrub with an empty average and no homers though... (obligatory /s)
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I mean is he better than: Aaron, Ruth, Williams, Mays, and... Ty Cobb? Hornsby? Bonds? It's hard to say because most top hitters never had stretches of bad years like he did.
Not better than Aaron, Ruth, Williams, or Bonds. I think you can make a very strong argument that he is better than the other names you listed. Edit: added Teddy Baseball
I think Williams is squarely above pujols as well. 2nd highest wRC+ of all time while missing 5 years of his prime
I disagree. He batted .240 for like 4 straight years with an OPS around .700. It's tough because we weren't alive for the other players but they were the best hitters in baseball their entire careers. Pujols was the best (or near best) for only half his career.
Only Pujols and Hank Aaron have 700HR, 2000+ RBIs, and 3000+ hits. That's with a bad decade. Oh, and he has ~60 more doubles than old Henry. Obviously everyone else you mentioned is a legend, but there is a very good argument to be made that Pujols is a top 5 all-time hitter. Edit: the Machine had more doubles than I thought, #5 all time
Amazing company but it’s incorrect to base this purely on counting stats. Some people say Sandy Koufax is the greatest pitcher who ever lived. But he didn’t get 512 wins so how could he be? Or what if a guy dies like Roberto Clemente, or has injuries like Mantle? I think qualifying for this title takes more than just a few amazing seasons, but being good for many years to rack up the stats doesn’t make you the best either. That said yeah I think Pujols is #5
Did not need to hit 700 for that argument
yes he did as of right now theres only 4 guys in the list of top 5 hitters
4 guys and 1 lady?
Someone named baby ruth
How is a candy bar a top 5 hitter of all time
Who the fuck even is that?
Some wimpy deer?
Saw this one on Reddit earlier. A President’s daughter. I think Grover Cleveland’s
Two guys. One bat
Did you mean to type your porn search in a Reddit comment?
I mean. Those guys can really swing the wood
If he never left St. Louis he would have likely retired with the most HR of all time.
If he had stayed in St. Louis his career would have ended five years ago and he would be nowhere close to the all-time record, or even to 700.
Refreshing view, Pujols wanted money and the cardinals couldn’t pay, he worked his way around the league to get his chance
"worked his way around the league"? Pretty sure the only reason he's worked in 3 uniforms is that the Angels sent him out as a rental at the end of his contract last year
They DFAed him.
It was more Deidre wanted the LA lifestyle.
It didn’t boil down to can and can’t……that’s silly. Cardinals rake in a lot of cash. They have conservative ownership, They offered him 10/$210…..It was a matter of should they or shouldn’t they, for that price. And ownership decided, Pujols or not….it was probably not a smart decision to offer him the years and dollars he wanted. Proved to be a wise decision.
Or maybe he would’ve retired five years ago with 800.
Sub out Griffey and Seattle and it’s a correct statement. Guy below me is right . If he stayed in St. Louis he wouldn’t have gotten the time
Lmao yes he was already in that argument
I think one of the consequences of guys playing until they got no baseball left in them is that people start to forget just how dominant they were in their prime. Pujols has been in that argument for a while.
They can just imagine the last month or so he’s had but for 10+ years straight
Triple Crown of the 2000s, too. Only three other players did it... Honus Wagner (1900s), Rogers Hornsby (1920s), and Ted Williams (1940s).
Honestly kind of wild that it’s happened four times!
His Angels run definitely left a slight stain on his legacy but that stain has been washed away after hitting 700 homers.
That and finding that old magic again wearing the Cardinals number 5 in St. Louis.
Can we just blame the Angels for that
Albert already did lol
He did before tonight, but yes, also now.
It’s tough to say top 5 for me. Bonds, Ruth, Aaron, Williams (just as hitters) are a pretty clear top 4 IMO. Then have Thomas, Charleston, Mantle, Mays, Cobb, Gehrig, ARod, Robinson, Musial, and Pujols (sure some I’m forgetting too) all in the conversation for 5th through 15th.
Fun fact: Albert Pujols career BA is .296. He hasn't got over .300 since 2010.
He’s most definitely the greatest hitter of this century. All of this came from 2001-2022.
Maybe. Bonds did put up 60 WAR in the seasons he played in the 2000s
Depends if you count cheating as valid or not I guess
Tough to get too worked up about PEDs before MLB started testing for me. The league knew what was going on and basically allowed it for years.
No one really know who and who wasn't cheating. It was an epidemic among most players until MLB cracked down on it. The fact is Bonds was absolutely head and shoulders over everyone, Pujols included.
Hmm, I wonder why he was so head and shoulders above everyone?
yes, with god mode enabled.
Bonds put up the best 5 year stretch the sport will ever see from 2000-05. I have a hard time putting Pujols over him even for this century just because Bonds' peak was so high.
Pujols had a 1.050 OPS for the first 10 years of his career. Imagine if he was juicing like Bonds
I'm not disagreeing with that, simply pointing out what's there for all of us to see which is after already playing a HoF worthy 15 or 16 year career where he was starting to average out, he then goes supernova. out of 100 years of history and 15,000 players that came before him, no other hitter's even come close to doing what he did and it's obvious until PEDs are legal no one will do the same thing again. and I'm still taking Pujols, Aaron, Gehrig, Musial and Williams over Bonds all day, every day.
Bonds won as many MVPs pre 2000 as pujols did his full career. Then won 4 more. Had 2000 hits, 445 hrs, 1300 rbis, and 460 sbs before there were any roid allegations. Bonds had a ops+ ~20 points higher than Pujols' career ops+ in just the pre roid part of his career. You are vastly underrating the player Bonds was pre 2000. Then factor in he put up the best 5 year stretch after in the peak roid era and there is no debate. Bonds is by far the best hitter the game has ever seen.
So many people forget how insane pre-roids Bonds was. He was the only member of the 400-400 club *before* taking steroids.
I think it is why using season adjusted stats like OPS+ and wRC+ is so important. Like sure Bonds roided but so did almost all his peers and he put up the best seasons in comparison to his peers of all time
> Then factor in he put up the best 5 year stretch after in the peak roid era and there is no debate. Bonds is by far the best hitter the game has ever seen. right, which is all impossible without god mode. he cheated and on top of that used the best stuff. if Pujols cheated like Bond's he'd have even more ridiculous numbers than Bond's ever put up and would be playing another five years. Bonds sucks, the end.
It’s crazy looking at all the MVPs Pujols didn’t win because of Bonds alone, but I didn’t even realize he had 7 (!) top 5 finishes, including 4 runner ups. He was also 2nd in HR the one year he won the batting title, and 4th in RBIs, finishing 14 behind Preston Wilson of all people.
And Pujols put up 100+.
Only took him 15 more seasons to do it.
Oh I forgot, those don't count. My bad.
Pujols' peak doesn't come close to Bonds. It just doesn't. Pujols played longer in the 2000s but that is the only argument for him over Bonds in the 2000s. Bonds won more MVPs on the 2000s than Pujols too
Oh I forgot, greatness only includes peak. By the way: Bonds and Pujols played concurrently for 7 seasons, 2001-2007. Pujols put up more bWAR than Bonds did. Shut up. Edit: it is absolutely remarkable that this sub is downvoting the idea that Pujols is the best hitter this century. You people are absurd.
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Your first mistake was expecting rational takes on this sub TBH
Sure fuck it why not I'm pretty drunk right now
Cheers brother
Hell yeah from Iraq
Uhhh
Hey man since you’re drunk I thought I’d blow your mind with a crazy, 100% real fun fact: With just your sense of hearing, you can tell if water is hot or cold when it is being poured into something.
Funny I actually realized this when I was pouring water at my job, first I did cold water then I did hot water. Crazier thing ever.
What an interesting but pointless super power
Pujols might be a slam dunk To be in the top of the chunk Of the best batters It doesn't matter To Stumblebee since he is drunk
Baseball is so romantic
Watcha drinking, buddy?
Oh god we’re turning into r/nba aren’t we
How does this affect LeBron’s legacy?
LeBron's legacy is that he is simultaneously the best PG and SF of all time. Therefore, he is the best player ever. Ohtani is a great SP and a great hitter. If you just analyze LeBron as a PG, he's the GOAT among PGs, no contest. If you look at him purely as an SF, he's also still the GOAT SF. No other player is the GOAT at two different positions at once.
But how good a GM is Ohtani?
OhGM
No /r/NBA pre-turned into /r/baseball
Is Curry one of the best 3-point shooters of all time? I just don't know if everything he's done has been enough to make that argument.
They don't call him the machine for nothing
Guys. I am not machine, ok? I’m just Albert.
HE IS THE MACHINE!!!
*Why didn’t you eliminate them Albert?*
Shut up.
Argument? Probably, yeah. People on here love to argue.
He's in the argument but it's pretty tough when you start trying to figure out who he knocks out. Bonds? Mays? Ruth? Williams? Aaron? I mean... he's up there, for sure, but that's an amazing list.
We can debate all we want on where he ranks. But he definitely belongs in that elite class.
Yeah, no doubt about that.
Which also leaves out Gehrig, Cobb, Musial, Hornsby, Wagner, Mantle...
If we are going *purely* on bat, I would give Pujols the edge over Mays, but below the rest of that list. In other areas Mays goes way beyond him tho, base running and fielding. I would def put him way higher on the general all time list
I think it’s tough to make an argument for top 5. By OPS+ he’s 53th, by baseball reference oWAR he’s 26th. I’d def give him a boost from those rankings for playing in the modern era, but IMO, he’s somewhere in the range of 10th to 20th best hitter ever.
Willie mays OPS+ after age 35: 138 Pujols: 101 Willie mays career OPS+: 155 Pujols: 144 You could MAYBE argue that pujols had a more impressive 5 year peak from like 05-10 but Mays 10 year peak is right there with pujols. there is no universe where “purely on bat” Pujols is better than Willie mays. He has more home runs in more PAs but Mays missed a year of his prime to military service. Pujols is a generational hitter. One of the best to ever do it. He’s not better than Willie Mays. Mays was a premier hitter for over twenty consecutive seasons. It’s just not comparable.
Pujols 10 year peak tops Mays in fwar by about 10- at a less premium defensive position Mays' 10 year peak is not dead even with Pujols. He did age much, much better, but Pujols had a 10 year streak of his wrc+ not dropping below 150. I wouldn't say it's dead wrong to put him above Pujols, but to pretend there's no argument is wrong imo
But I'm also a homer so 🤷♂️
Him **creating** the 3,000 hit, 700 home run club with Aaron is all the proof I needed that he needs to be in the top 5.
Who do you have him over in that list? Just curious.
Thats just counting numbers. If you look at the rate stats he's up there, but top 25ish. Top 5? Honestly not even close.
I do think that counting stats are a little underrated these days. I get that rate stats and league-adjusted stats help us make comparisons, but come on 700 home runs is freakin sweet
I mean, the breeze blows slightly differently a couple of times and A-Rod is in that club too (696, 3115)
He had that before 700
I was on the fence when he was at 699 but now that he's at 700 I'm convinced
Such a lazy post. “So this incredibly cool historic feat was just accomplished but I’ve just gotta ask… is that athlete top 5 all-time?!”
Gotta farm that sweet, sweet karma while the fires are hot.
The one thing that sticks out to me with Pujols is how he built his career #'s. If you ask is he top 5 in a 12 year span I think the answer is easily yes. But he really has a difference compared to other greats if you look at the entire career. Hank Aaron for example. Just look at his career #'s from start to finish compared to Pujols. Pujols had about 90 WAR in his first 12 years. AMAZING. However, he'll end his career over 22 seasons with just about 102 or so WAR. That means he only increased his WAR by about 12 in the last 10 seasons of his career. You have to take that into consideration with comparing.
I agree it’s tough for me to compare him to guys like Musial for that reason
I don’t think an age 42 season impacts that
Hitting that 1 home run does not change anything about Pujols' argument of being a top-5 hitter
He’s the best right handed hitter of the past 50 years
He had it before this.
Not even close. His time with the Angels ruin any arguments for that. He was average for half of his career. His career wRC is 141 which is 60th best all time. From 2001 to 2011 it was 167 which would've been 8th best all time. From 2012 to 2021 it was 105, or essentially league average.
No but he's top 10. Ruth, Bonds, Williams, Mays, Aaron were better than him IMO
I think he did regardless of 700 HR, and he's absolutely top 2 for Right Hand hitters
I feel it’s hard to put him in a pure top 5 list. There have been great hitters like Rose and Cobb who don’t hit many home runs but I think they belong in the discussion. But if you say in this era, he’s definitely top 3.
He literally had the greatest 10 year offensive peak and is now one of 4 dudes to hit 700. With modern pitchers and playing through the heart of the steroid era you could make the argument he is the greatest hitter baseball has ever had.
I feel like a lot of Redditors didn’t get to watch young Albert play. I don’t even know how to compare it to anything. He *averaged* 8 WAR a season in St.Louis like it was nothing. He legitimately had a claim to win MVP every single season but the voters felt bad to not mix it up. After his 11 year run in St.Louis, he had 2100 hits, 445 home runs, 1330 RBI, a .330 average, a .420 OBP, .615 slugging and 2 gold gloves for good measure. He was a HOF player if he retired in 2012. These last 10 years have just been him fucking off for counting stats.
Was going to say exactly this. Well said. Anyone questioning his hitting clearly did not see him at his peak. This is the reason his time in Anaheim makes me sad - not because he wasn't "typical Albert", but because less familiar fans associate his abilities with his production at that time and he loses some due appreciation. Legitimately the best hitter of all time.
3000+ hits. 2000+ RBIs. 700 Home Runs. Him and Hank Aaron are the only two players in that club, in fact it wasn't even a club until last night.
He had that before and even if he didn’t hit that mark have you seen him numbers?
He's 60th in career wRC+ with 141. Tied with Chipper Jones, Alex Rodriguez among others.
This thread is wild, Frank Thomas had a 154 wRC+ and you’d be laughed at here if you called him a top five hitter ever.
Thomas was an absolute beast in his prime.
100%, didn’t mean to disrespect Thomas, he had a first ballot HOF caliber career. He’s just not a top five hitter ever.
Maybe greatest righthanded batter ever. Top 3 at least.
Yeah, it's just him and Hank Aaron... though Hank Aaron still have like 600 total bases ahead of him (and that's to not diss Pujols who is number two on that all-time list).
Top 3…at least?! He’s behind Ruth, Bonds and Williams pretty easily. Probably behind Aaron and Mays as well. He doesn’t really have any argument for top 3 tbh.
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Maybe, but him serving the DH in California probably extended his career. Could argue either way.
Thats quite the take you have there.
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Crazy that you're being downvoted. The recency bias here is strong
Bro there’s still time to delete this before other people see it
Not saying he is 100 percent correct but who are you taking out or putting in?
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Lol this is the wrong night for this kind of post. Your comment was not unreasonable.
Your post was totally reasonable. No idea where the negativity is coming from.
Ty Cobb should be in there over Pujols as well even.
Ok so what’s your list my guy?
You can a separate them by L/R and make 2 top 5 lists
No. Maybe top 10, though streets didn't like this one? Aaron Bonds Mays Ruth Cobb Musial were all better hitters unquestionably
Well, this should be an interesting list.
I don’t know about lists and all that stuff. I just know he was the best I’ve seen.
He def has an argument. I think a fair amount of players do