The comparisons between Albert Pujols at 25 and Joe DiMaggio at 25 are striking. With each having played five major-league seasons by that age, they almost feature identical slugging percentages (.621 for Pujols, .623 for DiMaggio) and have other similar numbers across the board at that stage of his career.
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| Albert Pujols has 201 homers and 621 RBI in his first five years in the majors. (AP) |
Bonds, of course, missed almost all of 2005 because of his surgically repaired knee, removing him entirely from MVP consideration.
It was, though, only a matter of Father Time before Pujols chased Bonds down, anyway.
In giving St. Louis a sweep of the NL's two biggest awards -- right-hander Chris Carpenter last week won the Cy Young -- Pujols finally has placed the first exclamation point on his remarkable young career.
Five years in the majors and Pujols has finished in the top five in MVP balloting in each season. He was fourth in 2001, second in '02 and '03 and third in '04. That is a stunning start.
Pujols has been Bonds on training wheels for the better part of the past half-decade, ranking just behind San Francisco's Big Man as the game's most feared slugger, a sort of Midwestern apprentice waiting to take over from the master as the game's most consistent, dangerous hitter.
"It's awesome when you hear people compare yourself with Barry," Pujols said on an afternoon conference call. "He's the best player in the game right now. The numbers he's put up in the past are amazing.
"I don't try to compare myself with anybody. I don't get caught up in that because then you might take things for granted. I just try to be the best, go give it my best shot, and that's all the manager asks from me every day."
When you're asking that from somebody with both the talent and the determination of Pujols, well, what you get on a nightly basis is the most feared slugger this side of Bonds.
Pujols is more similar to DiMaggio than to Bonds statistically through the age of 25 because, through that mile marker, it isn't even a contest between Pujols and Bonds. Pujols wins in a landslide.
Bonds' birthday is July 24 (Pujols' is in January) so, even including 1990, when Bonds started at 25 and turned 26 during the summer, the production numbers between the two aren't even close.
At 25, Pujols has five full seasons in the majors, while Bonds had completed four full seasons and roughly 70 percent of a fifth (which, actually, was his rookie season when he was called up from Triple-A Hawaii on May 30, 1986).
