What happened to Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder? These guys were two of the most feared sluggers in baseball! Pujols blasted 37 bombs last year, but that was tied for his second lowest amount of homeruns in his career. Last year was his worst year for RBIs and batting average. His average was .299 and he only had 99 runs batted in. So even with a down year and the help of Lance Berkman, Matt Holliday and David Freese, Pujols won the Cards a championship. This was Albert's last contract year with Saint Louis and he made the best of it. Many people and Cardinals fans thought that Pujols would stay with Cardinals. They thought wrong. The Angels of Anaheim lured the three time NL MVP into Angel Stadium with a ginormous 10 year 254 million dollar contract. The Angels finally thought they had reeled in the power they needed to win a championship. Unless Pujols can turn it around Anaheim fans thought wrong about Big Al.Today Pujols has only hit 6 homeruns. Only 6. His BA has dropped to a rock bottom .212. He can't even produce runs like he used to. His RBI's are 18. Some people may blame a new stadium, but facts show that more of his bombs should go over the fence in California then they did in Busch Stadium. From 2009 to 2011 Pujols jacked 55 into the bleachers. With Busch Stadium 9 hits to the warning track would have been souvenir balls in California. Only one would have been a deep fly ball out in Angel Stadium. So that means with in 3 years he should he hit 63 homeruns for the Angels. So that knocks out a new park issue.Could the spirit of time taken away King Pujol's power? In the last few years we saw a surprising decline, but I personally didn’t think much of it. I don’t know if one year of age could destroy a silver slugger's ability to smash the cover off of the ball, but it is the most likely culprit.Maybe he is still adjusting to the AL. After being in the National League for all eleven years of his career the switch to the American League might jolt him a bit. It may be hard for some players to get used to playing DH after playing in the field for they're whole career. Although he is still playing first base every game. No matter the cause of the slugger's slump every fan of Albert or Anaheim better hope he gets back on track quickly or Anaheim and Pujols could both plummet down to last. Now let’s look at Prince Fielder. Last year the Prince blasted 38 homers and knocked in 120 runs. His average was .299. This was an average year for Fielder. He didn’t do badly, but he didn’t do great. Even with Fielder’s average contributions the Brewers had a very good a year. Even with hey won their division and made it to the NLCS. They lost to the future champions themselves, the Cardinals. After that playoff run Prince Fielder elected to leave Ryan Braun and Milwaukee to test free agency. He floated around for a surprisingly long time until the Tigers seized the day and signed him. They paid him $214 million dollars to stay in Michigan for nine years. Right now he is in a homerun slump. Fielder has hit 7 homers and a decent 25 RBI’s. His batting average is pretty above his average at .286 so that’s okay. The problem is the home run count, just 7.In Milwaukee, Miller Park was a hitter friendly park. Comerica, not so much. From 2009 to 2011 Fielder nailed 65 homers in Miller Park. Around 31% of those rips would drop into an outfielder’s glove and two warning track hits in Miller would go home with a fan in Comerica. So this looks like the reason for the shortage of bombs. Then, if you look again you’ll notice he made the switch to the AL as well, but he isn’t playing DH on a daily basis. He pretty much stays at first base for every game he starts. There are a few occasions when he will play DH. So, the slump does not look like it was caused by the switch of leagues. Prince Fielder is only 28 so has still has a few years of stardom before the decline caused by age. Definitely not age. So, overall it looks like age may have caught up to Albert just after signing a ten year deal and Prince Fielder needs to smack the ball a lot harder to take a nice jog around the bases. Both of these slumps look like they’re for legitimate reasons and both can be broken. Prince needs more power and practice on a new field and Albert needs to find a second wind.

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Hi my name is Chad and I'm an average kid (except my mom says I'm above average) that loves sports. These posts are how I see the world of sports.