Albert Pujols is a much better baseball player than Mike Trout can dream of being

This week mlb.com announced that the player of the 21st century so far is St. Louis Cardinals legend Albert Pujols.

Naturally, that pronouncement caused predictable outcry from fans from East Coast to West. A lot of folks were of the opinion that Pujols isn’t even the best player of the 21st century on his Current team, the Los Angeles Angels, conferring the honor, instead, on slugging outfielder Mike Trout.

In a word: Wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to knock Trout. He’s the best player in baseball right now. But for the first 20 years for the century, there’s no way he stacks up to Pujols. It is an inarguable fact that Albert Pujols had the best first 11 years of his career of any player in the history of Major League Baseball. Trout has only completed nine seasons great seasons — although they are inferior to Pujols’ start. How is it possible that Trout is the better player on balance.

The problem here is that people are forgetting about the greatness of Pujols’ first decade plus in baseball. They’re comparing the declining Albert to the still-in-his prime Trout. If Albert would have retired after nine seasons in the big leagues, no one in their right mind would conclude that Trout was better.

Through nine years trout is a .305 batter. Pujols was a .334 hitter. Through nine seasons, Trout hit 285 home runs. Albert hit 366 home runs. Through nine season, Trout has a .419 on-base percentage. Pujols got on base at a .427 clip. Slugging percentage for Trout through nine campaigns, .581. For Albert, .628. Both players had three Most Valuable Player Awards under their belt and Rookie of the Year Honors by this point in their careers. Albert had two World Series rings while Trout has none.

I don’t understand how anyone can punish Albert by saying his greatness has diminished because he’s added a few human seasons to his immortal first decade in baseball. Especially when you look at Pujols’ stats including his decline years and see that their still on par with Trout. Albert’s average has dropped to .300, only five points less than Trout and his .379 on base percentage and .549 slugging percentage are comparable. Tell me what happens when Trout, who is 29, starts his inevitable decline. Albert lost 34 points off his career batting average, a similar slowing of Trout would knock him down to the .275 range. Pujols has 656 home runs for his career, sixth-best in history — and he needs four to catch Hall of Famer Willie Mays for fifth. Trout is 371 homers behind. That’s more than 37 homers he’d have to average for the next decade to catch the great Pujols if Albert didn’t hit any more out of the yard.

Would I rather have Mike Trout’s future instead of Albert Pujols’ future? Sure thing. But I wouldn’t take Trout’s future or his past over Pujols’ record-setting past. If Trout were to prove to be the player of the 21st century, I’d say that it would take at least another six or seven years of elite performance for him to claim the crown. It’s not impossible. But it surely isn’t a certainty.

I can see why an Angels fan would think Trout was better than Pujols. The version of Pujols that has played for the Angels isn’t nearly as good as Trout. But Trout — who has only hit .300 in five of his first nine seasons and who has struck out 11 times for every eight he has walked — has never seen the heights of prime Albert Pujols who hit .312 or better his first nine years, walking nine times for every six he struck out.

Albert Pujols is better in every single metric

Trout’s best season was 2018 when he hit .312 with 39 homers. Every single one of Albert’s first nine seasons was better than that. During his worst year, he hit .312 with 42 home runs. Trout couldn’t dream of Albert’s best seasons: 2003 when Pujols hit a cool .359 with 43 homers and 65 strikeouts. (Trout has had nearly triple that many strikeouts in a season) and 2008 when Albert hit .357 with 37 homers while striking out 54 times.

I know, I know, somewhere some of you are grumbling that batting average don’t matter. WAR or OPS or some other metric is the true barometer. Doesn’t matter. Pujols was better in every single way you can measure it during his first decade of baseball with the exception of stolen bases. But I’d point out that for being a big guy who looks like he’s in a world of hurt when he runs the bases, he’s managed to steal 16 bases on a couple different occasions.

In a way, I’m glad for the controversy that this debate stirred up. I have to admit, in the nearly 10 years that have passed since Pujols left the Cardinals, the memories of how great he was have faded from memory. I knew he was incredible. But it took looking through the numbers with a magnifying glass to for me to truly realize that he was head and shoulders above the best player in the game today when he was in his prime.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.