This made me go back and look at his stats, and the most amazing thing is that he's never struck out 100 times in a season - not even the current shitty version of him. He averaged about 60 strikeouts a year in his prime. Also, he won an MVP and finished 2nd twice in years that he didn't win a silver slugger award? How is that even possible?
The year he won the MVP but not the silver slugger, Derrek Lee won it at 1B. That was a monster year for Lee - 50 doubles, 46 homers, while hitting .335. He beat Pujols in OPS, 1.080 to 1.039. To make it even weirder, Lee also won the Gold Glove - so he was objectively better than Pujols both offensively and defensively. The difference was, the Cardinals won 100 games, and the Cubs won 80. There's at least a plausible rationale there. The first year he finished 2nd, he was primarily an outfielder. The MVP was Bonds, so one of the 3 slots is easily explained. The other 2 winners were Vlad Guerrero and Sammy Sosa. Sosa and Guerrero put up OPS of .993 and 1.010 respectively to Pujols .955. Bonds was a unanimous MVP that year (it was the year after 73 HR - so he posted a casual .582 OBP on route to a 1.381 OPS) -- I think the voters just threw a random order after that - the Cardinals didn't even make the playoffs, so his #2 finish in the MVP race probably wasn't deserved.
Barry Bonds was one of the most prolific cheaters in the history of baseball, **** him. May he never go into the Hall of fame.
To be fair, "he that shall not be named" was so freaking good, that many suspected him of us PEDS also. Considering his numbers dropped quite a bit once he joined the Angels, that I wouldn't be surprised if it came out that he did. We just never had a young and small contact hitter version of him like we had with Bonds.
I don't think Pujols cheated, I KNOW Bonds did. There's a distinct difference. Pujols is still a massive ****ing dude, Bonds went from rail thin to looking like Drax the Destroyer over night.
But Pujols came into the league right in the middle of the cheating era when everyone cheated. We never saw him in the period before. I have no proof that he did, but most of the great players of that era cheated so it wouldn't surprise me. Bonds was so obvious because, as you say, he was rail thin coming into the league.That and he was super human for about a 5-7 year stretch.
One of those guys is still in the league playing and hitting HRs and has been for about 7, 8 years longer. Are you saying he still does PEDs? Obviously father time has caught up with him, but he's still a very big dude and productive MLB player.
Bonds was a ****ing HOF guy before steroids. Pujols has been juicing since day 1, delude yourselves not.
I am just saying that when everyone kept salivating and waiting for management to bring up Kyle Tucker they thought he was going to be the second coming of Ted Williams. I hope he does well when he gets his next chance. The point I was making is that Kyle Tucker was a big disappointment and Yordan Alvarez exceeded everyone's expectations. After all the hype on Tucker quite honestly I was not expecting much from Alvarez. Having seen both of them, from what I have seen so far, there appears to be an enormous difference in their abilities to hit with both power and average. I just think we need to find a way to make Alvarez an everyday player. First base appears to be, for me anyway, the best fit. I am surprised there is not more chatter about developing Alvarez at first base. Alvarez's one weakness is lack of speed. That makes him somewhat of a defensive liability when put in the outfield.
Alvarez is an every day player. I'm sure Astros will try to teach him LF and 1B. Tucker still has plenty of time to develop. There should be some disappointment in Tucker, but not to degree there is. Tucker's development has nothing to do with Alvarez.
Alvarez is an everyday player as long as we are not playing an NL team. The few times I have seen him in the outfield, due to his lack of speed, he appears below average defensively to me.
He's a rookie with a banged up knee. Sure, he's below average in the OF. Everything I've heard is that he's worse on the dirt. Right now, Astros want him to hit and will worry about defense in offseason. Tucker, at the moment, does not have to worry about studying video of MLB pitchers.
What do you mean worse on the dirt? Are you suggesting by worse on the dirt he has played on the infield before and was not very good at it?
That's exactly what he's referring to. Apparently they tried him at 1B towards the end of his time in the minors... it was apparently terrible to the point that the suggestion was to not try it again at all this year. The off-season will explore all of these options... but its also good to have a full time DH... especially when the entire league at some point is going to be looking for full time DH's.
Thank you. I wish it were possible to see some of the minor league games on TV. Assuming we make it to the WS this year and it appears we have a better than average chance, we will have to decide what to do when we play the away games with the NL rules and no DH in place. It would be nice to win at least one more WS while we have all of this great talent together.
Not more chatter? It's been discussed going back at least last year about his being tried at 1st base. This is not a new topic by any means.
