St. Louis Cardinals: Looking back at the records of Albert Pujols

30 or more When Albert Pujols joined the St. Louis Cardinals, he immediately became a transcendent talent. What records did Pujols set in St. Louis that may never be broken?

On Saturday, MLB Network began their celebration of Albert Pujols’ career by replaying three games from his time with the St. Louis Cardinals. On Monday, they will show six more legendary games from his career.

The more that we continue to look back at Pujols’ career with the Cardinals, the more it doesn’t seem possible that one player was so good. Right from the time Pujols came up, he was an elite talent.

If you’ll remember, in his rookie year, Pujols batted a slash line of .329/.403/.610 with 37 homers and 130 RBI. Pujols’ .281 ISO and 159 wRC+ all netted him a 7.2 fWAR in his first season in the MLB. After being ranked the #42 overall prospect in baseball by Baseball America, it’s fair to say a season like this from him wasn’t what the league expected from him.

That season was easily good enough for Pujols to win the Rookie of the Year in 2001, but Pujols’ rookie year began what would be a career of records that he would set while in St. Louis.

First, that rookie year has a couple of records itself. Pujols has the record for the most RBI by an NL rookie as well as the most extra-base hits by a rookie. In 2019, Pete Alonso came close to catching Pujols with his 120 RBI and 85 XBH compared to Pujols’ 88 in 2001.

From the beginning of his career in 2001, Pujols set records with a streak of consecutive seasons with 30 or more homers from their career start(12 seasons) as well as consecutive seasons with 30 homers, 100 RBI, and a .300 batting average (10 years).

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Pujols has four separate “most home runs in first _ seasons,” those being the most in his first three seasons (114), nine seasons (366), 10 seasons (408), and 16 seasons (591). Another interesting one, Pujols also has the record for the most consecutive seasons leading the league in runs (three seasons).

While Pujols has some other slightly obscure records (most homers in the first inning), he is tied with Alex Rodriguez for the most seasons with 100 or more RBI with 14.

While some of these records were finished during his time with the Angels, they were all started in his time with the Cardinals. When he left the Cardinals, he ended his time with a .328/.420/.617 slash line, averaging 40 homers and 121 homers a year.

There’s no doubt in my eyes that Pujols will have a statue in front of Busch eventually. No Cardinal has worn number 5 since Pujols left and it would not be surprising if no Cardinal ever wore it again. Pujols was a lock for the Hall of Fame when he left St. Louis and at this point, let’s just thank him for the memories he made here.