Albert Pujols Expected to Retire Following 2021 MLB Season
Albert Pujols is expected to retire following the 2021 MLB season. Pujols, 41, is entering the final year of a 10 year $240 million deal he signed in MLB free agency way back in 2012. Talks about this being Pujols last season in the MLB picked up steam after his wife Deidre Pujols went on Instagram and posted a very long paragraph about how incredible his career has been as he entered year 21.
Deidre Pujols wrote, “today is the first day of the last season of one of the most remarkable careers in sports!” Later, she edited what she originally wrote and said, “today is the first day of the last season (based on his contract) of one of the most remarkable careers in sports!”
Now technically speaking, Deidre Pujols is not wrong, but before she edited her caption, it got people around the MLB thinking. For any MLB player, 41 is old age.
Pujols Career
Albert “The Machine” Pujols is one of the most famous names in baseball and someone who has made a lasting impact on not only the St. Louis Cardinals or the Los Angeles Anaheim Angels, but the entire MLB. Pujols, a three-time MVP, ten-time All-Star, two-time World Series champion, and six-time silver slugger award winner, has accomplished almost everything you could set out to do as an MLB player.
Cardinals Legend
Pujols spent the first 11 years of his career playing first base for the St. Louis Cardinals, where he won both of his World Series titles. Pujols was the face of the Cardinals and, without a doubt, had the best years of his career while being a Cardinal. In St. Louis, Pujols recorded 2,073 hits, 445 home runs, 1,329 RBI’s, and averaged a .328 batting average. MLB fans will always wonder what the second half of Pujols career might have looked like if he stayed in St. Louis, but unfortunately, we will never know.
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2012 Free Agency
Albert Pujols left the St. Louis Cardinals following the 2011 MLB season after the Cardinals captured their 11th World Series in team history. The Cardinals were an excellent team at the time, and Pujols was one of the best players in the league. The Angels offered Pujols the second-highest-paid contract of all time as at the time back in 2012, Alex Rodriguez was the only other MLB player with a contract exceeding $200 million. At the time of the deal, Pujols was 32 years old, and he was only going to get older.
Pujols in LA
Looking at Pujols’s entire career, you might say that he fell off quite a bit after signing the massive contract with the Angels, and you are correct. If Pujols was able to keep up the numbers he had in St. Louis throughout his 21-year career, it probably would have been the most significant sports accomplishment of all-time. Entering the final year of his 10-year contract with the Angels, Pujols hit 217 home runs, had 1,163 hits, and 771 RBI’s, which are still very solid numbers.
The Angels never were able to go far in the playoffs with Pujols and did not win a World Series. Pujols is teammates with another hall of fame caliber player in outfielder Mike Trout who seemingly can do almost all of the same things Pujols was able to do early in his career.
As Pujols might be entering his final season in the MLB, sports fans can do nothing but wish him the best as he has been a class act for 21 years. Pujols will go down in history as one of the best power-hitting first basemen to ever play the game and is a sure-fire Hall of Famer.
Thank You, Albert.
