putting pujols at third would be a HUGE injurt risk.

NO, NO, YES, NO

cuz it just can’t be said enough

1. He’s a great defender at first
2. First basemen are less prone to get injured

NO, even if it means having anemic guys at 3B all year…

is this game over or what? PPD? i’m waiting for the mlb.tv archive to pop up and…..nothing. not even a link like the game is still going on

What do we know about his arm (I don’t mean health, I mean strength and accuracy)? That’s obviously far more important at 3rd than 1st, and I have to confess I don’t have the slightest idea what his arm was supposed to be like in LF, not counting when it was injured and Renteria would come out to take soft tosses from him.
Is he supposed to have a gun? And is it an accurate gun?

We’ve found one thing every member of VEB can agree on (that this is a bad idea).

Or did Sooner say it would be a good idea (after surgery, I believe).

if pujols blows that elbow out it is far, far worse for us than Joe Thurston at third.

it really would open up a myriad of options… but unfortunately, the elbow is too big a risk.

WIth one condition: we flip the baserunning around so that now runners run 3rd to 2nd to 1st to home.

Imagine all the left-handed middle infielders we’d need all of a sudden…

I think it is better for Pujols.

I think the throws he makes from first on various plays are just as risky as the throws from Third. At third, at least you square up for the most part and use the body. Of course, he won’t be able to make the charging bunt play or the long throw from behind the bag, but who cares. Honestly, if his arm was that bad, he’d be out by now.

Every night on the thread I read about people complaining about (insert name here) pulling Albert off the bag on bad throws. We’ve seen the Rolen/Choi debacle —that could easily happen with the reverse result.

Moving him to third opens up the possibilities for real lineup protection. I’d give up the store for Gonzalez and Peavy in that scenario. Hell,with that trade just tell albert to shovel pass all groundballs to ryan and have him make the throw. I’ll take my chances.

world, this would work.

In this world, I’d have to take tranquilizers to watch Albert play 3B with his arm injury.

Albert’s arm wasn’t in bad shape.

But I’m a nervous wreck everytime I watch Carp swing the bat now. I know I couldn’t handle watching Albert make those deep throws from foul territory over to first base. My heart wouldn’t last a week.

DUMB DUMB DUMB…who are you going to get to replace a gold glove first baseman, secondly what about Pujols elbow, the stress from those throws would surely tear it then we dont have a 3B or a proven 1B. not sensible at all.

…Schumaker to 2nd.

Didn’t Pujols have corrective surgery after last season? Hasn’t he said all along that he can play through it? Hasn’t he said all year that he is healthy? IF we can accept what Albert himself says as true, then there should not be that problem.

What are the responses if we accept “Pujols is healhty” as fact?

if it works, great, we can probably make a trade at 1B (or even move dunc there and get a proper LF) and add one or two marginal wins. If it goes wrong, we lose an 8+ win player, the best player in the game, and our only chance of making the post-season for the next three years, to a potentially serious injury. I think it’s kinda high-risk, low-reward. If we had a first baseman who was utterly mashing in the minors like Ryan Howard was the year before the phillies called him up, it might be worth a try I guess, but we don’t. We’re likely moving dunc in there (with his current bat, he’d still be a poor player regardless where we hide his glove) or trading for someone nowhere near as good as albert. PASS.

Don’t get me wrong, the Thurston/Barden crew isn’t ideal.

But Pujols getting hurt making a throw to first?