End of the line for Pujols was more inevitable than sad

Simple question: Was this wrong?

Albert Pujols, one of the greatest baseball players the world has ever seen, was just unceremoniously dumped by the Angels a few hours before their game against the Rays on Thursday night.

Do you know how many kids in middle America grew up with a Pujols poster on their wall and a No. 5 St. Louis jersey hanging in their closet? Josh Fleming did. Just the other day, the Rays rookie was talking about getting his picture taken with Pujols at Angel Stadium and potentially facing his idol before his scheduled turn in the rotation Thursday night.

Instead, Pujols was designated for assignment like any other fringe ballplayer on the roster. There was no ceremony, no tearful goodbye, no standing ovation. Unless he gets a last hurrah in St. Louis or with his longtime manager Tony La Russa in Chicago, the final at-bat of his career was a pop fly off Rays reliever Hunter Strickland in an 8-3 loss for the Angels Tuesday night.

So I’ll ask again: Was this wrong?

The answer, of course, depends on a person’s point of view. I saw some people on social media, and heard some broadcasters say, that it was a slap in the face to one of the game’s all-time greats. That it was disrespectful and sad to see Pujols’ career potentially end with baseball’s version of a pink slip.

I’ll buy sad. I may even say it was a darn shame.

But disrespectful? Not even close.

Pujols was not a very good baseball player anymore. He hadn’t been for quite some time. I could make an argument that the Angels carried him far too long and probably should have made this decision before the season began.

This moment seemed inevitable since Pujols signed a 10-year, $240 million deal with Anaheim in December of 2011. He was soon to turn 32 and coming off the worst season, at that point, of his career. What did the Angels think that deal would look like 10 years later?

Using baseballreference.com’s WAR calculations for players with at least 1,500 plate appearances since 2017, Pujols was the least valuable player in the majors for the past five seasons. And yet he was paid more than $140 million during that time.

I’m not saying respect should be equated to salary, but I am saying Pujols got far more from the Angels than they ever got from him. If someone was owed an apology, it was Anaheim fans who got an injury-prone facsimile of the legend they were expecting.

Maybe that sounds harsh. And maybe it is harsh.

But it’s part of the landscape in a world of $60 tickets and $12 beers. Pujols made a business decision when he left St. Louis after 11 mostly glorious seasons, and he’s got no right to complain when the Angels made a similar bottom-line decision almost a decade later.

In time, his final days in Anaheim will be forgotten. Just as Babe Ruth’s release from the Boston Braves once was. (For reference, Ruth was hitting .181 with six homers and 12 RBI in 28 games for the Braves in 1935; Pujols was hitting .198 with five homers and 12 RBI in 24 games for the Angels this season.)

Instead, we will recall that Pujols hit more home runs than any player other than Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Ruth and Alex Rodriguez. That he was second all-time in RBI. That he joins Aaron, Rodriguez and Willie Mays as the only players with more than 3,000 hits and 600 homers.

He was fearsome as a hitter, and unmatched as a baseball tale. In the era of the draft, he was the greatest 13th-round pick to ever pick up a bat. He carried the Cardinals to seven postseasons and held two World Series trophies in St. Louis.

If time has fogged your memory, think of Pujols this way: His first 11 seasons in the majors with the Cardinals, he won three MVP awards and finished in the top-five in voting 10 times, and in the top-10 every season.

On the other hand, he never finished in the top-10 in his decade in Anaheim.

For quite some time now, Pujols has been overpaid, has disappointed Angels fans and has blocked someone else’s place on a big-league roster. I’m not blaming him for any of that. Given the choice of cashing another $30 million in paychecks or retiring early, I would have done the exact same thing.

But I’m also not going to shed a tear now that the Angels have acknowledged he was a drag on their lineup. It would have been nice had it ended another way, but this decision was not wrong.

John Romano can be reached at jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.

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