Albert Pujols Can Create Contenders

The Albert Pujols-Miami Marlins contract negotiations are heating up, and at this point it seems more than a possibility that El Hombre could be among the first to don a uniform with Miami across the chest in 2012. Pujols alone does not a winning team make — he cannot turn a team of replacement level scrubs into a 90-win squad. Still, his exceptional talent could give the Marlins a quick path to the playoffs, even relative to the other stars the Marlins have been eyeing this winter.

Obviously, Pujols’s sheer talent starts this path. He has been worth at least 5 WAR in all 11 of his big league seasons and at least 8 WAR seven different times. Even in last year’s down season, he recorded a 148 wRC+. His career mark sits at a stunning 167, and I don’t think there should be much doubt as to his ability to reach that mark again. Once he returned from his wrist injury in the second half, he went off, hitting .319/.375/.584 and then adding an excellent postseason performance which included five more home runs in 18 games. I think he’s fine, and his career path is still right on track with the best of the best:

Source: FanGraphs — Albert Pujols, Hank Aaron

Hank Aaron has him by a sliver now, but Pujols is doing just fine by this measure.

Still, the 5-10 wins Pujols may add over a replacement player don’t get the Marlins into the playoffs last season, and even with an extra four from Jose Reyes, the Marlins still look like an 82-87 win team without some more improvements — that is, they’re still sitting well behind Philadelphia in the National League East and they probably need some luck to grab the NL Wild Card, which usually checks in around 90 wins.

Now, the Marlins may be a better team behind Pujols and Reyes than last year’s 72-90 record suggests, but the Marlins still need to fix a couple of holes even if they can land Albert. Here is the second way Pujols’s exceptionally rare talent level can blaze a trail to the playoffs — low-level teams who add the same amount of wins via four or five players typically run out of places to improve. A hypothetical Marlins acquisition of Pujols significantly increases their quality at first base, but they still need help in center field and with their pitching staff. There would still be plenty more places for the Fish to add victories before calling it an offseason and going to war with Philadelphia, Atlanta, and the rest of the National League.

The sheer talent level of Albert Pujols and the results he produces on the field make him a gamechanging player for any team who would add him. But beyond that, the scarcity of players who can do so much in just one roster spot gives the team with his rights an incredible amount of flexibility with the other 24. As much as baseball has been made into a game of “How much production can I get with this much money?” it is also a game of “How many wins can I squeeze out of 25 roster spots?” When one of those roster spots is occupied by one of the league’s top players, and arguably its singular top player, the latter question nets a much more appetizing answer.