The Los Angeles Angels released MLB star Albert Puljos on May 13, 2021. Just one week after the team had designed Albert Puljos for an assignment. Although Puljos is a free agent and can sign with any team, The Angels are still responsible for his yearly salary. The team owes the free agent baseman his $30 million salary in his final season of his 10 year $240 million contract. Puljos did not have the best start of the season only hitting .198, .622 OPS, five homers and 12 RBI’s in 24 games. 

Career Accomplishments

Albert Puljos playing in the league for in his 20th year has had many successes. Pujols is a 10 time all star, a two time World Series champion and a three time National League MVP award. In addition he has also won a Gold Glove twice, as well as the Hank Aaron Award twice, and a Silver Slugger award 5 times. In the early 2000s era is where he has done the most damage in his career. Playing for the Cardinals for an entire decade of his career, is the franchise he is more well known and had the most success with.

Angels made a good choice?

Before signing the contract for the Angels in 2012, Pujols was going into his age 32 season. According to MLB Network sports analyst Brian Kenny, this wasn’t the best move for the Angels. His on base, slugging, and walk rate percentages were going down after the 2011 MLB season. Meanwhile the only thing that was increasing was his chase rate on trying to put the ball in play. Furthermore Kenny has also mentioned on his “Ahead of the Curve” that he advised a club to never sign a free agent in his 30s. If you take Pujols’ number averages with both the Cardinals and the Angels you would see a huge difference. With the Cardinals he was batting a 170 OPS average in his 10 years while with Angels he was batting 109. 

Career Stats

If you take a look at his OPS average with the Angels, his OPS was at 109. On average he would also hit 40 home runs during his time in St Louis, with the Angels it was only 24 average. Last but not least, he went to a 121 RBI average with the Cardinals to 86 RBI with the Angels. He went from an all star to an average baseball player. While playing with the Cardinals, he was a 9 time all star and only played 1 all star game while being with the Angels. 

After hearing that he was being released many other players were sad to hear the news. Nolan Arenado, the Cardinals first baseman had a message for Pujols after a post game interview. “Albert Pujols I love you man, you’re one of the greatest to ever play this game and I hope you get to go out the right way. You know there is someone who is a huge fan and I hope you hear this one day because you’re my favorite player.” 

Dodgers Sign

It wasn’t long till someone would pick up the veteran free agent. The Dodgers and Albert Pujlos reached an agreement on a Major League deal for the remainder of the season. On May 15, Jorge Castillo, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, posted on twitter about the deal. Joel Sherman, a sports writer for the New York Times had also confirmed the news according to MLB Network.