Pujols Having Best Season?
Look, we all know Albert Pujols is an absolutely tremendous baseball player. He is arguably the best player in baseball right now (Yuniesky Betancourt would give him a run), is a clear-cut hall of famer, and there are very few sane pitchers who actually look forward to facing him. A couple of months ago I wrote that he wasn’t being fairly treated in terms of both how good he is and how much coverage finds itself in his direction, because of this inherent comfort factor. Since we know he is fantastic, his performance has become more expected than admired, which I cannot stand. An OPS over 1.000 should “get people going” regardless of whether or not the player in question has reached that mark in just about every season of his career.
This year, even less press seems to consist of Albert-oriented focus, and he might actually be having the best season of his career. He rarely misses games, but being hurt for a bit this year will cause some of his raw totals to fall short of years past; his rates, however, are just as good if not better. In 118 games, Pujols is hitting .359/.467/.639, for a 1.106 OPS. Let that slash line sink in.
The only other time he came close to this was in 2003, when he hit .359/.439/.667, for an identical 1.106 OPS. The difference between the two years comes in the form of walks. This year, Albert has a 17% walk-rate, which is higher than any other season of his career. Coupled with a very low strikeout rate, Pujols has a BB/K of 1.95, meaning that he walks about twice for each strikeout. In terms of raw figures, that translates to 44 strikeouts and 86 walks. In fact, Pujols is the only player in baseball with a 17% or higher walk-rate that has a strikeout rate of under 20%.
Since his rookie season he has never fanned more than walked, and his BB/K has ranged from 1.49-1.95 since 2004. His patience is an enormous factor of his success that does not get mentioned much. Another of these factors is his fielding. You might not think it at first glance, but Pujols has been the best defensive first baseman in baseball at least since 2005. From 2005 until right now, Albert has been +87 plays better than an average first-sacker: +15 right now, MLB best +37 in 2007, MLB best +25 in 2006, and +10 in 2005.
To put that in perspective, not only is he probably the best overall hitter in baseball right now, he is also the best fielder at his position, which truly does elevate his value, regardless of how fielding metrics are perceived in the general public. I’ll end this with just some simple rankings:
BB/K: 1.95, 1st
BA: .359, t-1st
OBP: .467, 1st
SLG: .639, 1st
OPS: 1.106, 1st
WPA/LI: 5.19, 1st
REW: 5.73, 1st
Yeah, he’s pretty good, and could be in the midst of his best season to date.
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If we need to let a 1.1 OPS “sink in”, what do we do with Bonds in 2004?
Drugs or no drugs, that’s just unbelievable.
What’s most amazing is whenever you read some blurb about how hot someone is over the past 15 games or whatever, you look and their OPS is 1.200 or something. And Bonds destroyed that level over 4 FULL SEASONS.
Assuming that Bonds did use PEDs, I think the biggest harm he did was “softening” us to other outstanding (but less outstanding) performances.
Thanks to Bonds, Pujols’ 1.106 doesn’t seem like anything remotely special. That’s sad.
Good point Jon. Not only did Bonds’ ruin his own deserved reputation as an all-time great because of his fear that history would not properly value him, but he’s potentially diminishing the appreciation of others. Sad indeed. Pujols is on pace to be an inner circle HOFer and, like A-Rod, is being glossed over instead of promoted as a true star. Baseball really needs to get better at promoting its stars. Imagine if Pujols got the pub that Kobe or D-Wade gets.
Betancourt?
Hey man, that Betancourt guy is a stud… he uh… plays shortstop… and… has a high BA?
Eric – Thanks for the Pujols writeup. As a Cardinals fan I am blessed to witness his incredible consistency on a nightly basis. Unfortunately for Albert his consistency seems to hurt him in MVP voting. Voters are all too likely to look at players having career years when Albert has a “career” year every year. Not only that but if you look at Albert’s month-to-month numbers for his career you find that he almost never has a down month. He is truly a metronome when it comes to hitting.
Oh and he was jobbed for the Gold Glove last year.
Betancourt was a joke… please tell me someone out there got it. Jon, PED or no PED, I consider the 2001-04 Barry Bonds as the best offensive player of all time. It’s really ridiculous what he did in that span. I’m going to write somethig this week on it.
The most amazing thing was something a good friend of mine, RJ Anderson of Beyond the Box Score found: Barry Bonds’ WARP is so much better than the WARP of the average HOFer that he makes an average HOFer look like a replacement player.
Nick, it’s a shame Pujols gets cornered into this consistency dilemma. But, such is life. At least we know he’s amazingtastic.
I agree with your article, and Pujol’s play may not get as much press coverage as he deserves, but neither does any other very good player on any team outside NY, Boston, the Cubs, or LA.
For example (I will use my favorite player):
Pujols vs. Lance Berkman
WPA avg since 2001 : Pujols, 5.54/season. Berkman, 5.35/season.
RC since 2001: Berkman, 1046. Pujols, 1167
Career BABIP: Berkman, .327. Pujols, .323
Career OPS: Pujols, 1.047. Berkman, .977
Also, interestingly, right now they both have 948 career RBI, with Pujols have 227 fewer AB. To be sure, Pujols’ numbers are better. Pujols is “amazingtastic” as you said. But Berkman gets far less coverage even than Pujols, and while Pujols may be the best hitter in the game, Berkman’s numbers are not toooo far off.
To me, Berkman is underrated for the same reason Roy Oswalt is underrated: they played with other higher-profile stars/players for a while. Berkman began his career with Biggio/Bagwell, and so it became hard to be the “face” of the offense or team. Oswalt had Clemens and Pettitte there. Both are tremendous at what they do and are severely underrated.
As you said, Pujols is a better player, especially when you factor in defense (which you really have to do for a complete evaluation), but Berkman’s offense isn’t far off of Pujols.
I agree.
Eric and Berkmaniac – I totally agree with you guys that Berkman is underrated. He has become a pretty good defender at first as well. The true difference between Berkman and Pujols lies in the strikeouts & walks. Berkman is at 933(K)/859(BB) in his career a pretty good .921 bb/k rate. Albert’s at 496(K)/678(BB) for a rate of 1.424. Thus while both players walk about 85 times per season, Berkman K’s about 93 times/year while Albert K’s about 62 (these numbers include this year). When players square up the ball as well as Berkman and Pujols do, you want them to put it in play.
Nick, good numbers. Here are the defensive comparisons, for the record. Berkman, from 2006-08, is a total of +21 plays better than an average first baseman. Pujols, in that same span, is +77 plays better than an average first baseman.
Berkman may have become a better fielder, but he’s no Pujols with the glove. It’s really scary how good these defensive metrics rate Pujols. We, for whatever reason, don’t tend to value defense that much, but it is insanely important and really does make a difference.
I don’t think we’re debating Pujols is better than Berkman, but rather diagnosing why, considering some of their career numbers are so similar.
As a wincing member of Mariner nation, I appreciate the Betnacourt reference. The sad thing is, I suspect Pujols would actually be a better defensive replacement for Yuniesky as well (yes, at shortstop). I doubt he would airmail as many balls into the 1st base dugout, anyway.
That is a very good point. It made me think about how little Pujols seems to strike out against the Astros.
In 549 career PAs against the Astros, Pujols has just 55 strikeouts, or only 1 per every 10 plate appearances.
Don’t wanna sound stupid, but is the Betacncourt joke about him being chosen by his peers as the second best defensive infielder in the game? If not, i’m clueless. Either way, great post. I for one, have never taken Pujols for granted, as he has been beating up on my hometown Cubs for far too long.
That’s actually higher than his career rate, idiot. His K/PA is 9.9% against Houston and 9.4% against all other teams.
So that means his K/PA is low against everyone….and I guess our pitching has just been that good against him.