I seem to remember Anaheim burying themselves last year with a bad April. They're 5.5 games behind Oakland already and we haven't finished the second weekend of the season yet.

Last edited by forsberg_us (4/12/2013 7:53 am)

artie_fufkin wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

I seem to remember Anaheim burying themselves last year with a bad April. They're 5.5 games behind Oakland already and we haven't finished the second weekend of the season yet.

Oakland won't win the division because the A's don't have Jonny Gomes anymore. The Boston media has annoited him baseball's good luck charm.
 

Yeah, but this year Oakland has Josh Reddick's beard.

"Just glancing over his numbers it looks like he's back on track. Throw out the intentional walks and he's sporting a nifty 15 percent walk rate. Last year he only drew 36 unintentional walks in 654 plate appearances. He's already one-sixth of the way there this year."

Amid the reports that his feet are now really bothering him, Pujols has hit 3 HR in his last 202 at-bats dating back to last year.  Something isn't right.
 

3hrs in 202 at bats.  Holy shit!  Wiggington could do that..lol. Sounds like he is in season ending form.  

tkihshbt wrote:

Yeah, I haven't seen him play but apparently he's moving like molasses and every week something comes out with him talking about how much pain he's in.

God let Moses wander around the desert for 40 years, but it shouldn't take his favorite disciple since then that long to get from first to third.

$380M well spent by Arte Moreno

Things can’t get much worse for the Angels right now.

The Halos suffered their 10th loss in the last 13 games on Tuesday, and the defeat came against the Astros, who snapped a six-game losing streak of their own. Los Angeles is now sporting a lowly 11-21 record, a win total that surpasses only the Astros’ and Marlins’.

The struggles of Josh Hamilton have been well documented. The pitching staff has failed to perform after the injury to ace Jered Weaver. Mike Trout, while certainly not playing poorly, has fallen off notably from last year’s pace to this point.

A guy that hasn’t seemed to have the finger pointed at him much is Albert Pujols. Maybe that’s because there are others that deserve more of the blame. Maybe it’s because Pujols was hitting a lot worse at this time last season, so his numbers don’t look nearly as bad by comparison. But make no mistake about it: Pujols hasn’t played well.

After an 0-for-3 performance Tuesday that included two strikeouts, Pujols’ batting line has slid to .231/.317/.397. It’s been much worse over the last 15 games, as the $254 million man is hitting only .145 over that stretch. Take out the 4-for-8, two-homer showing in the marathon game against the A’s and, well, it gets a lot worse.

What’s been even uglier than Pujols’ work at the plate lately has been watching him try to run. The 33-year-old has been dealing with plantar fasciitis off and on for multiple seasons now, but it appears to have really been bothering him this year. He’s made only three more starts at first base (17) than he has at DH (14) in 2013 as the Angels try to keep him off his feet as much as possible.

I doubt the Angels would be able to talk Pujols into a trip to the disabled list even if they wanted to. Rest is the only prescription for his foot problem, though, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if his health gets worse before it gets better.

Pujols batted .305/.365/.569 from May 6 on last season after his slow start, so we certainly can’t rule out another big turnaround. He’s never looked this old, though, and he’s on pace for his highest strikeout total since his rookie season. “El Hombre’s” numbers have been in a steady decline since 2009, and it’s looking like they’ll continue to trend in the wrong direction.

http://www.rotoworld.com/sports/mlb/baseball

Last edited by forsberg_us (5/08/2013 11:59 am)

The cardinals front office keeps looking better and better.  Looks like they dodged a huge bullet.  I feel bad for pujols in a way.  He went from the face of the game and a hero in st louis to nothing over night.  Not that he isnt getting paid well but this is a disgrace.

"They were willing to give Pujols 10 years/$210M. Thank goodness he said "no."

Don't you mean God told him to say "no?"
The CW at the time was the Cardinals would have to overpay him for diminished production in the later years of the contract, but no one expected the "later years" to begin in 2013.
Maybe it's because he plays on the West Coast and in a different league, but it's stunning how much you don't hear about Albert Pujols anymore. 
Memolo and Hollandsworth were talking on the XM the other day that Scioscia may not be bulletproof for much longer. There was no mention of Dipoto, but remember how smug and confident he looked when the Angels trotted out Pujols and Wilson for that inane dog-and-pony show a year-and-a-half ago? I imagine his mood has changed a little since then.

forsberg_us wrote:

In all fairness, unless you believe (as Max does) 

That's fair.  The FO did not get lucky, so much as they were "smart" to have began an active plan to see that Pujols would not resign with Cardinals, and that plan was in action several years before the 10 year offer was made.  I think that's a hypothesis that is worthy of consideration.  

Yep. He may not get #500 this year after all, unless the AL adopts a Designated Runner for the Designated Hitter or waives the requirement to circle the bases on a home run.

Last edited by JV (7/28/2013 7:34 am)

artie_fufkin wrote:

"Sunday update: The MRI on Albert Pujols' troublesome left foot revealed a partial tear of the plantar fascia. According Yahoo!'s Tim Brown, Pujols is likely done for the season and surgery is a still possibility since it wasn't a complete tear."

The term "still possibility" is probably a little misleading. He's just slow.

....and the Cardinals continue to smell like a rose on that deal.
 

I feel bad for pujols.  He turned into a shell of himself over night.  He went from the best player in the league to not even one of the top 20.