With a home run, three doubles and five RBIs in Game 2 of the NLCS, Albert Pujols did everything but say the words “show me the money”.
I’ll say it for him.
By leading the Cardinals past the Phillies and into a 1-1 tie with the Brewers, Pujols has put Alex Rodriguez to shame as baseball’s highest-paid player. The Cards have to resign him when his contract expires next month.
It’s easy to see that now.
But until the Cardinals snuck into the playoffs, the thought of signing Pujols to the largest contract in sports history seemed pretty risky. It would have been the fourth time in five years since winning the World Series that they missed the postseason, and they were supposed to hand him a $300 million deal with no questions asked?
Very few teams can or should invest that much in one player when it doesn’t translate into wins, even if it has nothing to do with that player. The Cardinals have been known to underperform no matter how well Pujols plays.
He put up his usual elite stats this season, but the team was still going nowhere late in the season. If they had come up short again this year, I could argue that money would be better spent on a quality starting pitcher and two good hitters.
I can’t argue that anymore, not after Pujols led the Cardinals into the playoffs and is now taking over games with clutch hitting. Now the team is winning because of his play instead of losing despite it.
It’s not that Pujols just now deserves to be the highest-paid player in baseball. He has been worthy all along.
The question before was whether it made sense for the Cardinals to pay him and be stuck with the same underachieving team for eight or more years. Locking up Pujols would prevent the Cardinals from improving his supporting cast much or at all.
But if they can play at this level consistently, and with Adam Wainwright back, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. A bad thing would be messing with a good thing, which is what the Cardinals should have with a full team next season.
That team needs to include Albert Pujols.
