Find out what Jorge Soler, Nelson Cruz and Albert Pujols have in common

By Juan Páez

When you hear the name Albert Pujols, you probably think of a legendary career ending in the Hall of Fame. When you hear the name Nelson Cruz, your head may fill with long strokes. Finally, when you remember Jorge Soler, you probably imagine Cuban law enforcement more strongly at the plate today.

Now, apart from the home run and the fear they cause in rival pitchers, what else do Soler, Pujols and Cruz have in common? Simple: They are all free agents today and would benefit greatly from the reappearance of the DH figure in the National League for the 2022 Major League Baseball season!

The reason is that these three are great sluggers who don’t contribute much defensively. In the case of Pujols, he won the Gold Glove in the initial in 2006 and 2010, but he will turn 42 years old in January and nature is diminishing physical conditions. Cruz, 41, has not played in the outfield full time since 2013 and the last time he saw action on the prairies was in 2018, with the Mariners. In Soler’s case, he’s racked up a negative defensive WAR record in each of his MLB seasons thus far, and while he does have outfield appearances recently, organizations prefer to have him just on offense.

To find a team for 2022, the possibilities of each of the aforementioned players will be greatly benefited and expanded if the designated hitter is implemented in the old circuit. But will it be possible to use full time and indefinitely what was already seen in 2020?

It may interest you: RUMOR: PATRONAL CLOSURE go on, and it could be 2022 without baseball

It’s possible. As the Washington Post In a recent work, owners, agents, general executives, coaches and players, for the most part, spoke of this possibility with a certain sense of inevitability. They saw it as something imminent, something that would just happen in the future. Although it would break the tradition of the game, it would create more work for available hitters, there would be more offense in matchups and it would protect more elite pitchers for whom teams invest millions and millions of dollars year after year.

However, in December, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred issued a statement that clouded all this optimism about the designated hitter in the National League. Major League Baseball and the Baseball Players Association, who must soon reach a collective agreement for the following years, would only focus on talking about the economic aspects, putting aside points related to what happens on the field of play.

The positive is that these changes in the regulations, as with the DH in the National, can be negotiated or discussed at any time, not necessarily before signing a new agreement. But, in this case, the truth is that time runs and runs without both parties even talking, which would give organizations a smaller margin to arm themselves for the upcoming season in case there is any drastic change, like the designated hitter deployment in the National League. Such a possibility is something that Cruz, Pujols, Soler and others are clamoring for in free agency.

We would love to thank the author of this post for this outstanding web content

Find out what Jorge Soler, Nelson Cruz and Albert Pujols have in common