Posted by Jeff Lubbers on Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 3:42 am

At this point in his career it is impossible to understate the importance of Albert Pujols to the St. Louis Cardinals. However, despite all of the accolades that have been sent his way before Pujols in 2009 managed to become even more important to the Cardinals’ offense.

Using Runs Created for the season the chart below lists every team’s leader in Runs Created along with the percentage of their offensive contributions to their team’s overall offense. To no one’s surprise Pujols leads the league in not only Runs Created but also in his Runs Created as a percentage of his team’s overall offense.

Rank	Team	Player	Runs Created	Team Runs Created	Percentage
1	St. Louis	Albert Pujols	165	789	20.9%
2	San Diego	Adrian Gonzalez	124	697	17.8%
3	Milwaukee	Prince Fielder	150	845	17.8%
4	San Francisco	Pablo Sandoval	121	686	17.6%
5	Seattle	Ichiro Suzuki	118	709	16.6%
6	Minnesota	Joe Mauer	138	851	16.2%
7	Detroit	Miguel Cabrera	127	784	16.2%
8	Chicago Cubs	Derrek Lee	123	768	16.0%
9	Florida	Hanley Ramirez	132	830	15.9%
10	Cincinnati	Joey Votto	113	720	15.7%
11	Washington	Adam Dunn	122	783	15.6%
12	Cleveland	Shin-Soo Choo	122	810	15.1%
13	Philadelphia	Ryan Howard/Chase Utley	130	890	14.6%
14	Kansas City	Billy Butler	105	719	14.6%
15	Arizona	Mark Reynolds	113	789	14.3%
16	Toronto	Adam Lind	120	852	14.1%
17	Baltimore	Brian Roberts	109	783	13.9%
18	Houston	Carlos Lee	97	711	13.6%
19	Tampa Bay	Ben Zobrist	117	867	13.5%
20	New York Yankees	Mark Teixeira	135	1003	13.5%
21	Colorado	Todd Helton	115	857	13.4%
22	Los Angeles Dodgers	Andre Ethier	107	825	13.0%
23	New York Mets	David Wright	96	747	12.9%
24	Boston	Kevin Youkilis	117	918	12.7%
25	Chicago White Sox	Paul Konerko	95	751	12.6%
26	Texas	Michael Young	102	812	12.6%
27	Los Angeles Angels	Kendry Morales	108	880	12.3%
28	Pittsburgh	Andrew McClutchen	81	694	11.7%
29	Oakland	Jack Cust	83	747	11.1%
30	Atlanta	Chipper Jones	86	791	10.9%

Pujols ranks head and shoulders above the player who contributed the second largest percentage of team offense (Adrian Gonzalez – helped by an otherwise anemic San Diego offense). Additionally, while his remarkable offensive output remained relatively similar to his contributions in years past, Pujols’ relative importance to the team jumped in 2009 thanks to a Cardinals offense that was likely the second worst (2007) since Pujols’ career began in 2001. Here are Pujols’ relative contributions going back to his rookie year in 2001:

Year	Runs Created	Team Runs Created	Percentage
2008	160	889	18.0%
2007	132	770	17.1%
2006	151	834	18.1%
2005	156	830	18.8%
2004	157	930	16.9%
2003	176	947	18.6%
2002	126	816	15.4%
2001	141	862	16.4%

For a team to get over 20% of its overall offense from one spot in the lineup had never happened before in Pujols’ career and is practically unheard of. These almost comical numbers show how it is difficult it can be to put a dollar value on his worth to the team as both sides will be discussing a possible contract extension in the offseason. For a little bit of perspective, Alex Rodriguez contributed only 16.1% of the Seattle Mariners’ offense in 2000 and 16.6% of the New York Yankees’ offense in 2007, the two seasons prior to his lucrative contract extensions.  If Pujols’ relative contribution is 25% more than Rodriguez’s, should Pujols make 25% more than Rodriguez as well?  At the very least we’ll likely be looking at baseball’s first $30 million dollar a year player very soon.