MLB Rumors: 7 teams who should sign Albert Pujols
After his surprise release by the Los Angeles Angeles, these teams should consider signing future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols.
Albert Pujols is not off to a great start this season, with a .622 OPS and zero extra-base hits other than five home runs. But Thursday’s news that the Los Angeles Angels have released the future Hall-of-Famer, as first reported by Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, was a big surprise.
Pujols is in the final year of the 10-year, $253 million deal he signed with the Angels. He’s a long way from his prime as a hitter at 41 years old (or however old he actually is). But he did hit 23 home runs in two of three seasons from 2017-19, with 19 home runs in the middle season of that stretch. He’s got an .878 OPS against left-handers this year, continuing a recent full-season trend (.830 OPS vs. left-handers in 2019). So he might still have some value.
Pujols has mostly played first base so far this year, but in the right situation he’d be almost strictly a DH. So that eliminates National League teams, though going back to the St. Louis Cardinals would be a nice story.
A reunion with Tony La Russa makes sense on the surface, but the Chicago White Sox would be taking at-bats away from younger players if they signed Pujols. On the other hand, the White Sox look shorthanded offensively with Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert out.
Beyond the Cardinals and the White Sox, and the ties he has there to drive the fit, here are five other teams who should consider signing Pujols.
5 more teams who could realistically sign Albert Pujols
AL West. . Seattle Mariners. 5. Scouting Report. Pick Analysis. player. 62
Entering Thursday’s action, the Seattle Mariners are 10th in the American League in OPS from their DHs (.703) with a similarly toward the bottom 13 RBI from that spot. As a team they are hitting just .186 against left-handers with a .630 OPS against southpaws (both second-worst in the AL).
The Mariners have of course gotten a close look at the eroded version of Pujols in recent years, and he went 0-12 in three games against them for the Angels in the first-month plus of this season. But there is a fit here, and Pujols can surely be signed cheaply.