So you want to buy a first baseman

With no actual baseball to write about (what, they're still playing...I had no idea) and another boring Packers win on Sunday I started looking at some numbers (and thanks to fangraphs for killing the majority of my Sunday).

Ok, so there are a couple first basemen about to hit free agency once the season ends, perhaps you've heard of them their names are Albert and Prince.  Both of these guys are going to get roughly $87 bajillion* contracts in free agency this winter but should they??**

The measuring stick for MLB contracts is of course Alex Rodriguez who's contract is worth roughly $200 trillion for 27 years***.

I'm going to use WAR exclusively here, I know it doesn't tell the complete story but we're going with it.

Through this season, Pujols' career WAR is pretty much mirroring Rodriguez. full size

Raw numbers suggest Rodriguez had a peak at age 31 while Pujols, who is currently 31, is on a decline

Let's project....shall we??

Rodriguez's career

The 3 lines are 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order polynomial trends (sorry I went geek there) and all point south.

What about Pujols??

Probably not likely to turn out like that, but would you give that chart a 10 year contract??

So where does that leave us??  Albert is going to get a fat (hehe pun)  contract, probably from St. Louis because he is worth way more to them than he will be to any other team, with the possible exception of the Cubs but with all the money they have tied up in Soriano and Zambrano I don't see them breaking the bank for Pujols or our next subject.

So what about that other first baseman??

Smaller sample size so the data is going to be a little more volatile.

Raw numbers:

As much as we love Prince, not really in the same ballpark.

Where does he project at age 27??

Not enough numbers.

What if Prince has the seasons Pujols had when he was 28 and 29??

GET OFF THE STEROIDS!!

ok, again not likely

so what if Prince has the same seasons as Pujols the next 4 years:

That's a nice career...but that's a big if.   Pujols put up 9.1, 9.0, 7.5, and 5.1 the last 4 years and Prince's career high is 6.4.

Two guys about to make a lot of money.  Are they going to be worth it??  Time will tell but I'd be happier if they both ended up in the AL.  Just saying.

Now can we get this World Series stuff over with so we can get ready for next year already??


*I said roughly
**at this point I must apologize to anyone hoping for another around the infield episode, you can turn back now
***again, roughly


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