Try telling that to your average Cubs fan.

They still don't get it. It's an entire fanbase built around revering individual players. Go ahead and try to say something bad about Mark Grace (i.e. that he's a glorified Wally Joyner) and they'll flip. They still defend Ryan Theriot and think Kerry Wood is a God.

They just latch on to individual players and that's what they root for - not the team.

There's never been a player more important than the Cardinals.

Yeah, Cubs fans over-value their players like crazy(Ryne Sandberg was the best infielder EVER! lol), but they're a good bunch in my experience... I at least feel a camaraderie with them considering their complete lack of success

Pujols will hit, the angels will play better. Heck, with the extra wild card, they may even sneak into the playoffs.

That said, they aren't catching the Rangers, because it's pretty clear that the Rangers are better, by a long ways.

Boy you aint kidding...They play like they are juiced. Its crazy how good they are. Sucks for me too.:shake:

Well.....that organization pretty much invented juicing. BTW, watchec Darvish last night, pretty impressive. Glad cards won't see him until WS. ;-)

The Phillies/Bucks/Rangers were suppose to kill us off quickly. Conventional wisdom said........No ****ing way do the Cardinals stand a chance.

Thats why they play the games.
/Captain Obvious

The Pirates were supposed to kill us off quickly?

If Darvish ever learns to keep his fastball down when he needs to and only come up in the zone when he wants to, he'll be as hard to hit as anyone in the game.

His movement and arsenal of breaking pitches are second to none. He really lacks fastball command right now, though. If he gets a handle on that, there really isn't any other hole in his game.

unlike most Japanese pitchers, Darvish is still young, and should get better. Encarnacion hit a hanging slider out last night. But yeah, stuff & makeup are impressive with him.

It wasn't really much of a hanger; it was more of a roller. The pitch was still below his knees, just not as sharp as others had been (much less lateral movement than his other sliders).

Ultimately Encarnacion is just really damn hard to get out right now - dude's locked in. There's no shame in giving up a solo bomb to Encarnacion.

His problem will be pitch counts and when hitters start to adjust to his patterns. He's firing first pitch heat and was so wild in his first couple of starts that hitters are laying off it and falling behind. Once you're behind him, he has so much movement that he's going to destroy you. Hitters will just start to attack that first pitch fastball, IMO.

I watched him punch out Brett Lawrie and JP Arencebia off about 11 combined pitches - two of them were in the strike zone. Effectively wild doesn't do the dude justice. He's about incapable of throwing 3 pitches in the strike zone during an AB, but gets so much movement that hitters just aren't able to lay off and the late movement murders them.

He's sick. Just absolutely filthy.

Im sorry, but I dont quite get how the Angels invented juicing. Im sure players juiced like all other teams, but what makes you say we invented it?

Pitchers always have the advantage over the hitters at first. lets ee how he does after a few go arounds...but yeah, he looks really good right now.

Dee Gordon has one more HR than Pujols

He looks 40

Pretty sure he's talking about the Rangers with the juicing.

The Rangers, I was speaking of the Rangers. Pudge, Incaviglia, Palmeiro, they (along with oakland) pretty much did.

Ah, gotcha. I thought maybe you were talking about The A's with the Bash brothers and all...Then again, all teams were juicing...may still be. Some of the numbers Rangers are putting up is insane. Kemp for that matter too. I wouldnt be surprised.

*shrug* Kemp's always had ridiculous talent, he should've been the NL MVP last year regardless of the fact that we know Braun was juicing because his numbers were just straight up better and he had nobody producing around him.

Yeah, Kemp has been pretty good for the last few years. He's just now not free swinging and learned how to take a pitch. He's much much more patient at the plate.

He got screwed out of MVP last year. He had NO ONE around him and he still put up triple crown type numbers. Either was hurt alot of last year and was playing on a bad wheel.

Agreed. He should of been MVP last year. Just saying, his numbers are ridiculous, like 60 HR ridiculous. Thats juice numbers, not saying he's juicing, just saying we havent seen that kind of shit since the MLB got a handle on juicing

I think the ballpark the Rangers play in factors into their numbers as well,but all of their players who came there from other teams (Napoli, Cruz, Hamilton, Beltre) have always been able to hit.

True, but I can tell you napoli never hit like that for the Angels. Yes, he hit HRs but he is in a different demension now. I think that has more to do with comfort and a different hitting coach. I hate our hitting coach. Mickey Hatcher sucks.

Napoli may be the biggest beneficiary of the ballpark.

Albert certainly agrees with you about Mickey Hatcher I imagine. He's pissy about Hatcher talking about him with the media about team stuff.

Prior to this 2012 Season Albert's average season was as follows:

AVG SLG OBP OPS HR 2B BB
.329 .639 .419 1.058 41 40 82

In order to end up with a comparable season, Albert would have to hit as follows for the remainder of the season (assuming he gets about his average number of plate appearances):

AVG SLG OBP OPS HR 2B BB
.356 .716 .451 1.167 41 32 76

Albert's best statistical season (in terms of OPS) was 2008. In order to end up equaling the 2008 season Albert would have to hit as follows:

AVG SLG OBP OPS HR 2B BB
.390 .734 .504 1.237 37 36 98

Albert's worst statistical season was last year (2011). In order to end up equaling the 2011 season Albert would have to hit as follows:

AVG SLG OBP OPS HR 2B BB
.317 .590 .387 .977 37 21 55

Assuming Albert is able to snap out of his funk tonight and hit according to his career averages for the remainder of the season (assuming an average number of plate appearances) He will end up with:

AVG SLG OBP OPS HR 2B BB
.307 .578 .392 .970 36 36 75

While I still think Albert is capable of posting a .970+ OPS season I think it will be a long shot for him to equal is his worst season this year.

Pujols deal will go down as one of the worst in history. Mark it down.

He cant mentally handle the failure and it will snowball. Bet on it.

I never thought he'd crash quite like this, but I am on record as saying I was fine with him leaving because we got his best 10 years at a reasonable price, while the Angels would be getting his 10 worst at a ridiculous price.

I didn't expect him to crash this hard either and I am sure there will be some recovery. Never enough to justify the $.

The thing I don't get is if anyone is going to over pay a guy for past performance it needs to be the team he had that past performance with, even though that's not really smart. STL got a bargain for 11 years so to overpay a little is understandable. The contract STL offered covered that.

For the Angel's to way overpay for him is just plain stupid. If he never does anything significant as an Angel, and he may not, its super stupid.

Still no homers for Albert, but Jared Weaver just no-hit the Twinkies.

This doesn't even get it's own thread. Just thrown in the Pujols thread.

I like it.

I thought about making a thread, but yeah, it's the Angels.

Albert Pujols OPS watch: .540

He can handle failure. His season is not going to snowball.

People forget that he was a .257 hitter in April last year. And that he only hit 2 HRs in May of last year. He got off to a really un-Pujols like start. After May, he was one of the hottest hitters in the game. He's putting too much pressure on himself, probably compounded with having to adjust to new pitching. But it's not like he's ARod dealing with New York. He was pretty miserable his first season with the Yanks too and ended up having an MVP-calibre season. It's not like he's some kind of head case who's going to get a big contract and give up. He's a very good hitter with great character and work ethic.

He'll turn things around. At least they'll probably get good productivity out of him for at least 5 years. If you're talking worst contracts in history, that goes to Mike Hampton. And given the path A-Rod's taking, he's probably going to be a much worse investment than Pujols.

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

Pujols takes an 0-4 tonight, and drops below the Mendoza line. He's at .194, and his OPS is close to dropping below .500, which is beyond terrible.

Angel fans are starting to turn.

Bench? Seriously... Some people are just idiots.

What site is that on?

This is really getting ugly for him lol.

Trouts got to come up now. Great job angels

Trout has been up for over a week. He came up because we got rid ogf Abreu, not becasue pujols has a big POO-Holes in his bat right now. Altho, he did finally hit his first HR of the season yesterday.

Ofer 4 today.............

He's no Chris Getz.

Josh Hamilton hit 4 homers in as many hours...

Beltran with 2 homers, 6 RBI's....couple dudes came up huge today....but not Big Gay Al.

Pujols with 1 home run and 10 RBIs for the season. Damn.

Pretty impressive for a 42 year old.

Somebody at work pointed this out to me today. Did a quick search, to see if it had been posted, and came up empty.

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What the heck were they doing?

The story that goes with it, says Erick Aybar tapped him on the elbow, instead of giving him a high five. It was from Wednesday night's game.

http://larrybrownsports.com/baseball...r-video/134783

Cowherd pointed out this morning that in the last week Hamilton hit more homers (6) than Pujols, Votto, Mauer and Gonzales combined.

WTF? :shake: Pujols is going to have a full meltdown.

At some point in his life he is going to shout from the rooftops that leaving the Cardinals was the biggest mistake in his life. It's just sad.

This isn't a good thread to do the sour grapes thing in, because Albert is the best hitter of his generation and is going to be just fine. He stands a pretty fair chance of some additional MVP awards and another ring. He didn't just fall apart in three months. He will be fine.( Besides, the narrative here is that he was over the hill anyway...?)

Hamilton hit 4 in one game!! And then another one yesterday-he is going for the triple crown this year.

This is the perfect thread for the sour grapes thing.

But hey, if you want to ignore 3 straight years of declining production and the fact that teams are now routinely shifting him on the infield because he's had to cheat to catch up to good fastballs, be my guest.

Most assumed that Pujols would eventually be the Home Run King taking the crown from Arod-that is assuming Arod hits another 130 over the next 4-6 years with the Yanks.

I think he will come around-but this slump should have Angels fans worried- they have 9 more years plus a Service contract after that to choke down.

No he won't.. He's making bank and he's already won championships.

Watch him still get voted as the All Star game starter.

Wow he is down to .198 with 1 HR and 11 RBIs so glad we didn't pay him.

yep...post those stats when he comes up to bat.
sec

Follow @AnaheimAlbert on Twitter for a few laughs.

The wifey is still in STL. Daddy needs to get laid. :mad:

I have nothing against you or the Angels Carlotta... quite the opposite. But after being in Cardinal land and listening to StL fans never ending gushing about Pujols throughout his whole career I'd be happy if he never gets another hit. Unfortunately he will.

And again no offense but even with a productive Pujols the Angels aren't close to as good as the Rangers imo.

And why the hell doesn't she move to LA now anyway? Lack of funds?

Apparent by the game on right now.

Cardinals fans weren't the only ones gushing over him. Best player/hitter for what, 11 years?

I see you're into busting my balls... all good. I think the Rangers are better even with a productive Pujols because they are a truly complete team. Best team batting average in MLB, most runs scored in MLB, best team ERA in MLB. Fantastic defensively.

And yes Pujols was the best player in MLB for 11 years in StL. I never said he wasn't. I'm just sick of everything Pujols.

and don't forget "**** the Cardinals and their fans"

Not trying to bust your balls. Just saying it wasn't only Cards fans. I agree with you though. Rangers are definitely the best AL team. Pujols isn't going to carry an entire team, even if he was playing better.

Remember, that's WORLD CHAMPION Cardinals to you, Ms. Penis Envy.

Heh well for the most part yeah. But my 2 best friends and my gf are all Cards fans so they (you) aren't all worthless.

:D

edit... somehow I attributed that post to fraz. Sorry fraz.

Nope, I meant it just like I said it. "**** the Cardinals and their fans" douchebag.

**** you too, I guess.

OK. Even if you were/do I deserve a few from you so I'll take them.

Pujols will get it together I'm sure. He's too good not to.

I'm just glad that the Cards have been able to continue to do well without him. I'm just not a fan of putting one guy above the entire team.

I think they make something for that vaginal swelling you suffer from.

Ok

As much as I hate to admit it the Cards run their team the right way. Lose Pujols... Matt Carpenter steps up in the interim (although not at the same position). Obtain an old Carlos Beltran and he's on fire. Chris Carpenter goes down... Lance Lynn steps up. The Cards build teams to win... as in teams... and they're excellent at it.

edit... Wainwright struggles early... Lohse gets his stuff back. The Cards will be in contention all year again, sweep to the Braves or not.

Yadier has stepped up his offensive game this year too. He's been my favorite Cardinal for a while now, so that makes me happy.

Anyway, this thread is about Pujols, so I guess I need to leave the Cardinals out of it. :)

And no offense to Carlota, but an ex boyfriend of mine was an Angels fan, so I tend not to like them.

Everyone hates a winner.

Yadi is the heart and soul of that team imo. Allen Craig comes off the DL and hits big. The Cards are a model franchise. ****ers.

And threads takes turns all the time... Pujols made his name in StL so it's all game imo. I'm enjoying the convo.