Robb, as good as Pujols, as a firstbaseman, who will be 32 before the start of next season, is nowhere nearly as valuable as ARod was as a 24 year old SS.
If Pujols is just the age he is reported to be, he will be 32 in January. Long term deals with 32 year old players out to break the bank just don't seem to make sense to me.
One interesting thing about Pujol's performance this year is that while his performance is well off his career norm (of a career 171 OPS+), he may be performing poorer while getting better pitches to hit.
For the last three years, Pujols has had 34, 44, and 38 IBBs, and has had at least 22 every season since 2005, but this year he has one. Only one. His overall walk rate is also down sharply. For his career, he has walked 13.4% of his trips to the plate, last year it was 14.7%, and in 2009 it was 16.4%. This year it has been 10.2%.
It would appear that teams are no longer pitching around him anything close to the way they have in the past, and there is no reason to think that he has expanded his strike zone. But his performance is more than 250 OPS points below his career average.
And even if he recovers this season, the tenth year of his ten year contract, the team that signs him will be paying a 42 year old player.