Sporting News says Pujols is the Player of the decade.

[piccione88]

The Sporting News magazine announced that Albert Pujols is the Player of the Decade.

" No muss, no fuss, no drama-and no longer much debate about who is the best player in baseball. For much of the decade, the debate focused on Rodriguez and Barry Bondshttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2.gif. But in nine seasons, Pujols has never not surpassed a .300 average, 30 home runs and 100 RBIs. Those Hall of Fame numbers (by age 29) define him only slightly more than his all-around pursuit of excellence."

 

I know Bonds is not a very popular guy, but I just dont see how what he did from 2000-2004 does not make him a lock for player of the decade. Bonds OPS+ during those years was 241, and his OPS from 2000-2007 was 221. Pujols has never had a season with an OPS+ over 200. Bonds was also by far the best player of the decade at getting on base his OBP for the decade is 517, something that Pujols again has never come close to in a season let alone throughout the whole decade. Not to mention the four MVP season's in a row.

 

I get that Bonds is not the most popular guy in the world, but he was by far the best baseball player of the decade. I hope that one day people can look past the fact that he used steroids, and just enjoy the fact that they were lucky enough to see possibly the greatest hitter of all time.

[PlayerHader]

I vote for Balloon Head, too. No one knows who did what and when so I'm just looking at the numbers. Give Al whatever Barry had and he wouldn't do what Bonds did.

[Ennder]

I couldn't disagree more, Bonds didn't play for a third of the time frame and has been caught cheating. If you look at their offensive numbers as compared to the other top players during the same time frame Pujols has been more impressive as well. Pujols is the best 1B in the game defensively while Bonds was below average for part of the time frame. If you look at OPS ignoring IBB then Pujols blows Bonds away for the decade. I know that sounds odd but the fact is Bonds had such bad talent around him that the league made him look better than he was rather than face him.

 

Also if you want to get really nitpicking Bonds got the royal treatment, his strike zone was so freakin small that Jody Gerut probably could have hit .300 with it. I have never seen a player catered to so much as Bonds with the closest being Glavine who got the same sad strike zone only in reverse.

[crewcrazy]

I could see how they came to that conclusion if they weren't looking at all the stats and were simply looking at the traditional counting stats:

 

Bonds -- .322/.517/.724 (221 OPS+), 317 HR, 697 RBI

Pujols -- .334/.427/.629 (172 OPS+), 366 HR, 1106 RBI

 

There's also the considerations about defense to make -- for much of the decade, Bonds was too musclebound and old to play in the field. Pujols is still generally regarded as one of the better defensive first basemen in the game (although I haven't seen the metrics for his defense lately, so don't quote me on that). To be fair to Bonds with the counting stats, though, Pujols is playing in his 9th season of the decade, while Bonds only played in 8. Bonds never had many RBI opportunities later in his career, either. The year he hit 73 home runs he drove in 137 runs, which seems low to me when you're hitting that many out. And really, neither of them compare to the counting stats compiled by Alex Rodriguez.

 

I don't have much of a problem with Pujols being considered the best of the decade...he's certainly gotten off to a hell of a start for his career, even if it's getting tiring seeing the media proclaiming him the best of this generation every chance they get.

[piccione88]

I couldn't disagree more, Bonds didn't play for a third of the time frame and has been caught cheating. If you look at their offensive numbers as compared to the other top players during the same time frame Pujols has been more impressive as well. Pujols is the best 1B in the game defensively while Bonds was below average for part of the time frame. If you look at OPS ignoring IBB then Pujols blows Bonds away for the decade. I know that sounds odd but the fact is Bonds had such bad talent around him that the league made him look better than he was rather than face him.

 

Also if you want to get really nitpicking Bonds got the royal treatment, his strike zone was so freakin small that Jody Gerut probably could have hit .300 with it. I have never seen a player catered to so much as Bonds with the closest being Glavine who got the same sad strike zone only in reverse.

You have a very valid point in regards to the playing time, I overlooked that. I would take into consideration, the fact that the league has in essence banned Bonds from the game these last couple of years, but I can see alot of people saying that was justified, and playing time still should be taken into consideration. As for Pujols blowing Bonds out of the water when it comes to OPS, if you ignore IBB, I think that is a flawed argument.

 

Bonds was not being intentionally walked just because he had bad hitters behind him after 2002, although that is a part of it. The biggest reason in my mind, is that Bonds was a bigger power threat than Pujols. Bonds ISO for the decade is 402, compared to Pujols' 295, a 107 point difference.Also you cant just assume that Bonds would get an out every time he was intentionally walked.

 

Lets say Bonds would have got 200 less IBB, had he had a better hitter behind him. If Bonds hit at his normal rates for the decade, in those plate appearences, he would have got roughly 46 hits, 16 of them homeruns, 1 triple, 9 doubles, and I would guess at leat 35 walks. If Bonds had done that instead of getting intentionally walked, he would still have a much more impressive line than Pujols. Offensively there is absolutely no comparison between Pujols, and Bonds.

[Tbadder]

A decade is such a random useless stat that this debate is meaningless.

[adamb100]

Cant really disagree. It's hard to name a player this past decade that is better than Pujols that has done so mucn.

[pitchleague]

isn't The Sporting News based out of St. Louis? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

While I do agree that Bonds was definitely the player of the first half of the decade, it's fairly obvious to me that Pujols is the Player of the second half of the decade. Add in the fact that others have stated about Bonds being done a few years before the decade is finished while Pujols has done it the whole time (minus 2000) and he would be my winner, too.

 

Oh, and this is not aimed at any specific poster, but if my winner does not equal your winner, I'm okay with that. You can pick whoever you wish to be the winner.

[Ennder]

Lets take a really simple cumulative offensive stat like runs created, it isn't the best stat in the world but it does do a semi ok job of judging what a hitter did. Pujols had 1359 for the decade, Bonds had 1171. Bonds had an amazing 4 years during the biggest hitter seasons in major league history due to steroids, I just can't give him an award like this for those 4 years alone.

[homer]

A decade is such a random useless stat that this debate is meaningless.

Thanks for your input. It was invaluable to the discussion.

[mletto157]

For those of you who can look up baseball stats at work or during the day... it would be interesting to look up what each player did in their respective half of the decade relative to the next best player in that half decade. Or maybe the average of the top 5 players on that half decade. I think that might be more telling than just looking at their stats in a vacuum. It would show just how much better that player was than the rest of the players they played against. IMO that would be a better way to judge the best player of the decade.

[topper09er]

To make things a little more even lets use Pujols first 9 seasons: (Ages 21-29)

.334/.427/.629=1.056/1068 R/1710 H/808 BB/385 2B/366 HR/1109 RBI/60 SB

 

Bonds last 9 seasons (Ages 34-42):

.316/.505/.712=1.217/863 R/1018 H/1201 BB/198 2B/351 HR/780 RBI/69 SB

 

And A-Rods last 9 seasons (Ages 25-33):

.302/.399/.584=.983/1054 R/1561 H/749 BB/251 2B/392 HR/1104 RBI/164 SB

 

Obviously based on that Bonds wins in a landslide. For A-Rod it pretty much went right through his prime and Pujols may still have a few more seasons which may be his best ever. Since I cant stand letting Bonds win lets look at his "prime" numbers: (Ages 25-33, starting in 1990 when he won his first MVP)

 

.305/.438/.600=1.038/1000 R/1385 H/685 BB/279 2B/327 HR/993 RBI/328 SB

 

Based on that I would have to say Pujols wins, and Pujols 25-33 will probably be even better than his 21-29.