Los Angeles Angels: Albert Pujols Still Climbing All-Time Greats Ladder

Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols has been riding a hot streak of late, pushing him further up some all-time lists. Are achievements like the career home run record still in reach?

When you have accomplished as much as Albert Pujols has in his career, you reach a point where just walking onto the field tends to break a record or move you up an all-time leaderboard. Much has been made of the first baseman’s declining production since signing a massive contract with the Los Angeles Angels prior to the 2012 season. Some of the achievements he seemed destined for began to slowly fade out of reach.

But Pujols still shows flashes of the player he was with the St. Louis Cardinals, the one who won three MVP awards and all but punched his ticket to Cooperstown over a decade in advance. The 36-year-old has been on one of those hot streaks over the past few weeks, and it’s helped vault him into even more hallowed company on the all-time rankings.

Heading into action on August 16, Pujols sported a .249/.316/.421 slash line to go along with 21 home runs and 89 RBI. Robust power and run production for that point in the season, but decidedly below his earlier standards. However, since then Pujols is slashing a monster .386/.389/.757 while belting eight homers and driving in 19 runs in 17 games.

In those last seventeen contests, Pujols has notched a hit in all but one of them, and seven have been multi-hit performances. That torrid stretch has lifted is overall season line to .268/.326/.467, and he now boasts 29 long balls and 108 RBI on the year.

On August 24, he clubbed his 584th career home run, moving him past Mark McGwire on the all-time list. A notable accomplishment, as Pujols broke into the big leagues in 2001, McGwire’s final season. Ten days later on September 3 he swatted two more round-trippers to pass Frank Robinson, placing him ninth all-time. After adding another yesterday, he now has 589 home runs for his career.

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Weeks like these serve as a reminder of what Pujols can still do, even as he gets on in years. They also make us speculate just what kind of numbers he will end up with once he retires. ESPN’s Buster Olney wrote a piece wondering if Pujols might actually have a shot at breaking Barry Bonds‘ all-time home run record. He points to the way Hank Aaron shattered Babe Ruth‘s mark with consistency and longevity, never hitting 50 homers in a single season, and wonders if Pujols could do something similar.

Pujols has five more seasons left on his deal with the Angels, at which point he’ll be 41 years old. At his current pace, he’ll hit six more homers to finish the current campaign with 35. If we spot him that, he will need 168 to pass Bonds’ total of 762 home runs. That means he’ll have to hit about 34 long balls per year to claim the record by the end of his contract.

In the previous five seasons, Pujols has surpassed that total only twice. He managed a surprising 40 homers last year, but we probably shouldn’t count on a repeat of that performance in the future. Even if he stays healthy, Pujols will likely be hard-pressed to hit 34 home runs a year as he nears and then passes the age of 40. But the fact that he has a visible pathway at this point in his career says something about the kind of player he has been.

Albert Pujols is no longer the perennial MVP frontrunner he once was with the Cardinals. He’s worth nowhere near what the Angels are paying him. But his play on the field in recent years hasn’t been the complete disaster that some characterize it as. He’s become a streaky player, but those hot streaks are the kind that can carry a team, as we’ve seen over the last few weeks. The Angels have gone 12-6 since August 16, when Pujols really started to turn it up a notch.

Next: Eduardo Rodriguez Showing Promise

He’s already a future Hall of Famer, but just how far up the ladder of all-time greats he climbs will depend on how many of those hot streaks he can put together over the next several years.