Albert Pujols is going to sit down with the Houston Astros this week to talk about managing their baseball team. That sentence alone is worth sitting with for a second.
The reporting says Pujols is expected to interview for the Astros' open managerial job, one of a handful of vacancies around the league this offseason. He'd walk into that room as one of the greatest hitters who ever lived and as a complete unknown at the only job he hasn't held in professional baseball: the one in the dugout chair, not the batter's box.
Pujols spent 22 years doing damage with a bat, most of it in a Cardinals uniform before stops with the Angels and a final lap back in St. Louis. He hung it up with 703 home runs, third all time, and a pair of World Series rings from 2006 and 2011. None of that tells you whether he can manage a bullpen in August or handle a Tuesday night clubhouse meeting after a four-game skid. Hall of Fame production and managerial readiness have always been two separate questions in this sport, and front offices know it. The list of inner-circle hitters who became successful managers is short for a reason.
What makes him a real candidate rather than a courtesy interview is less about the swing and more about the standing. Pujols carries the kind of credibility in a clubhouse that gets a 25-year-old rookie to actually listen and gets a frustrated veteran to pick up the phone. The Astros, mid-rebuild of their coaching staff and their roster identity at once, may value that presence as much as any in-game strategy he'd bring.
This is one name in what's almost certainly a longer list of interviews Houston is running through. Nothing here is decided, and the club hasn't tipped who else is in the mix. For now it's a meeting on a calendar and a name that makes the whole search more interesting to watch.