I wouldn't be worried about it yet. Sports radio, fans, writers will get on anybody. Pujols is in a much different market with an obscene contract. Everyone is going to be watching him and shitting on him every step of the way.
To my knowledge on the contract, no. There isn't any way they will recoup unless Albert does something to violate the terms or is a Bobby Orr level of humble.
I thought this was the case, just making sure. Mark McGwire also returned much of his salary to the Cardinals, but I strongly suspect that wasn't just humility -- he was afraid of being caught. Of course, being "caught" would not have violated any rules at that time; it was just a matter of dignity and shame, not necessarily humility.
Personally, I think his numbers and performance from the season prior is a very good indication on how this contract will progress. Maybe insert one vintage season.
I think this sounds right, but at this point his April numbers have been so terrible that even a recovery would not make a great Pujols season -- part of what made Pujols great was his relentless consistency, and you can't reach the heights of his WAR or OPS with isolated months as bad as this one. Assuming a rapid rebound starting very soon, I think the plausible upper limit of his OPS for the year would be somewhere around .850, which is fine but would only be another bullet point in a continuing downward trend for him. He declined slightly in 2009, then lopped .100 off his OPS two years in a row. The decline is coming from both his plate discipline
and his power.
In other words, I do expect him to rebound, but I also now feel very confident that Pujols is already in his "decline" phase, with 10 years left in his contract. Just saying that sounds terrible. I think the last chance for another MVP year will be 2013 and 2014, if he gets luckier with BABIP; beyond that the odds of a return to greatness seem extremely slim.