Albert Pujols: Greatest of All Time?

[Thriller Ant]

For those who haven't heard, Albert Pujols was unanimously selected for his 3rd National League MVP award, with the others coming last year and in 2005, making him one of 5 players to win the award that many times, the others being Barry Bonds, Mike Schmidt, Stan Musial, and Roy Campanella. Here are some of his stats from this year, from ESPN.com:

Pujols led the majors in homers (47), runs (124), slugging percentage (.658) and intentional walks (44), and topped the NL in on-base percentage (.443). He was second in the league in doubles (45) and third in batting average (.327) and RBIs (135).

An average season for Albert goes something like this (once again, numbers from espn.com)

• 199 hits
• 124 runs
• 42 home runs
• 129 RBIs
• 1.24 walk to strike out ratio

He has also played 3 different defensive positions in his career (3B, LF, 1B) and is widely considered a Gold Glove candidate every year at first base. He is also one of only 2 players (Al Simmons the other) who had 100 RBIs in their first 9 seasons. He has recorded 100 runs, 30 homers, 100 RBIs, and a .300 batting average in every season of his career except for one, in which he fell 1 run short of accomplishing the feat.

So what does everyone else think? Where does Albert rank among the all time greats?

 

[NSL]

Greatest of all-time is a bit of a reach. I'd put him in the top 50, as he's had a great 9 years so far. But, he has at least 6 years left to his career, and since he's built like a tank, and has played through injuries before, I'd say he could have a 20 year career.

By the end of his career, there will be a great argument for ranking him among the top 10, but until then, there's too many things that can go wrong, or knock him out of that grouping. I just don't think "Pujols" when I think of Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Ryan, Mathewson, Hornsby, Banks, and others.

 

[One Punch Doug Crashin]

instead of quoting the entire post above me I'm just gonna simply say this poster is exactly correct. Pujols maybe one of the greatest players of this generation but he's nowhere near the top tier. guys like Mantle, Ruth Gehric all won multiple rings, multiple mvps' etc etc..... he's got a hell of a long way to go to reach top tier potential.. he'll be a hall of famer for sure however