mac-unit wrote:bigh0rt wrote:Ray Zorback wrote:What do you guys think Pujols' value is in a keeper? It's a 14 team, keep 5. No fancy keeper values. I'm in a heated battle for first and could use some help. I've got 5 other guys I'd rather keep. I just don't know what to expect for him. Thanks.
It'd be tough for me to not keep Pujols in a 14-team Keep 5 league. Either your team is incredibly stacked, or you're probably mis-valuing players. At any rate, I'd post the specific players in question in the DTKW Thread to get a full answer there. It's unlikely that you've got 5 guys who should be more valuable than Albert Pujols in 2014, though. It's easy to be sour on him right now, and while we understand he isn't The Machine he used to be, he's still likely one of the Top 5 players on all but very few 14-teamer teams.
He isn't anywhere near a lock to be a top 100 player next year let alone top 70. He WAS a great player. He's been in a 5 year decline in almost every category. And unless he finds a way to reverse age this offseason he's just going to be another year older. In a post-PED league, players are going to start falling off when normal people experience physical decline.
This will be what, the first season of his entire career where he hasn't been a Top 100 player? A Top 50 Player even? Top 25? Maybe 2012 is the first time he didn't crack one of the latter two. I don't expect him to yield very early pick value in 2014, but I also don't expect him to bat .258, 63 points below his career average. I would be completely and utterly shocked to see him finish outside of the Top 100, and probably the Top 70 as well, provided he remains healthy. This will be the first season he's ever played fewer than 143 G, so he's not exactly a guy I peg as a health concern, regardless of age. If this is the general view on Albert, maybe he's a guy I'll actually be able to own in 2014, because I don't think he's quite ready to be put to pasture yet. There's a middle ground between being the otherworldly player he's been for a decade and what he is in 2013, and likely 2014. I'd be surprised to see him hit fewer than 30 HR. I'd be surprised to see him bat below .290. I'd be surprised to see him drive in fewer than 100. I'd be surprised to see him score fewer than 85 Runs. Even in his disappointing 2013 campaign, he approached or surpassed all of those figures. So, if what I consider to be a conservative and rough low projection of .290, 30, 100, 85 with plenty of room for more in every area isn't Top 70 material, then it isn't. I'm actually unsure of where that would slot. I just know that in my 14-teamer, I'd probably be hard pressed to find 5 guys I'd keep over Pujols for 2014 if there were no picks tied to rounds, etc.