Just how bad is Albert Pujols’ season?

Posted by Andy on June 6, 2011

Albert Pujols is having a subpar season by his own amazing standards. (OK, I wrote this post minutes before Pujols' second straight walkoff HR. Give me a break!)

Through Saturday, he had a 127 OPS+ in this, his age 31 season. Since 1901, a total of 107 players have qualified for the batting title in their Age 31 season with an OPS+ between 122 and 132.

That group of players includes names such as Hi Myers, Heinie Peitz, Moose Solters, David Dellucci, Randy Winn, Nixey Callahan, Johnny Kling, Jeff Blauser, and Al Zarilla. That's not exactly fantastic company.

Of course, the group also includes Tris Speaker, Frank Thomas, Chuck Klein, Arky Vaughn, Larry Doby, Chick Hafey, Al Simmons, Zack Wheat, and Johnny Bench.

It's all the more striking given similar comparisons to other years from Pujols' career. For example, here are all the players to have an OPS+ between 185 and 195 in their year 28 season:

Rk	Player	Year	OPS+	Age	Tm	Lg	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Albert Pujols	2008	190	28	STL	NL	148	641	524	100	187	44	0	37	116	104	34	54	5	0	8	16	7	3	.357	.462	.653	1.114	*3/D4
2	Manny Ramirez	2000	186	28	CLE	AL	118	532	439	92	154	34	2	38	122	86	9	117	3	0	4	9	1	1	.351	.457	.697	1.154	*9D
3	Lou Gehrig	1931	194	28	NYY	AL	155	738	619	163	211	31	15	46	184	117	0	56	0	2	0	0	17	12	.341	.446	.662	1.108	*3/9
4	Harry Heilmann	1923	194	28	DET	AL	144	626	524	121	211	44	11	18	115	74	0	40	5	23	0	0	9	7	.403	.481	.632	1.113	*93
5	Ty Cobb	1915	185	28	DET	AL	156	700	563	144	208	31	13	3	99	118	0	43	10	9	0	0	96	38	.369	.486	.487	.973	*8

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/5/2011.

That's been done by many fewer players and, on average, a much higher class.

Here's another one for Pujols' last season: Age 30, OPS+ between 169 and 179:

Rk	Player	Year	OPS+	Age	Tm	Lg	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Albert Pujols	2010	173	30	STL	NL	159	700	587	115	183	39	1	42	118	103	38	76	4	0	6	23	14	4	.312	.414	.596	1.011	*3
2	Jim Thome	2001	170	30	CLE	AL	156	644	526	101	153	26	1	49	124	111	14	185	4	0	3	9	0	1	.291	.416	.624	1.040	*3/D
3	Larry Walker	1997	178	30	COL	NL	153	664	568	143	208	46	4	49	130	78	14	90	14	0	4	15	33	8	.366	.452	.720	1.172	*9/38D
4	Mike Schmidt	1980	171	30	PHI	NL	150	652	548	104	157	25	8	48	121	89	10	119	2	0	13	6	12	5	.286	.380	.624	1.004	*5
5	Joe Torre	1971	171	30	STL	NL	161	707	634	97	230	34	8	24	137	63	20	70	4	1	5	18	4	1	.363	.421	.555	.976	*5
6	Rico Carty	1970	170	30	ATL	NL	136	560	478	84	175	23	3	25	101	77	6	46	2	0	3	19	1	2	.366	.454	.584	1.037	*7
7	Carl Yastrzemski	1970	177	30	BOS	AL	161	697	566	125	186	29	0	40	102	128	12	66	1	0	2	12	23	13	.329	.452	.592	1.044	*37/8
8	Willie McCovey	1968	174	30	SFG	NL	148	608	523	81	153	16	4	36	105	72	20	71	5	0	8	10	4	2	.293	.378	.545	.923	*3
9	Mel Ott	1939	174	30	NYG	NL	125	508	396	85	122	23	2	27	80	100	0	50	1	11	0	5	2	0	.308	.449	.581	1.030	*95
10	Lou Gehrig	1933	176	30	NYY	AL	152	687	593	138	198	41	12	32	139	92	0	42	1	1	0	0	9	13	.334	.424	.605	1.030	*3
11	Hack Wilson	1930	177	30	CHC	NL	155	709	585	146	208	35	6	56	191	105	0	84	1	18	0	0	3	0	.356	.454	.723	1.177	*8

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/5/2011.

It's the same story.

It's true for all players (and in fact all people) that they won't stay at their peaks forever. Pujols has to decline sometime. Thankfully, at just age 31, it seems a lot more likely that he's either distracted by his contract status or has some injury than he's just lost it.

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24 Responses to “Just how bad is Albert Pujols’ season?”

BalBurgh Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 8:52 am
Sorry to go off topic, but I thought Hack Wilson's 1930 RBI total had been revised to 189. Has it been re-revised back to 191?
Dave Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:30 am
@1...I thought it was 190?
Brett Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:45 am
It was originally 190, then revised to 191 in the mid-1990s.
steven Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:54 am
Pujols started to take off last year, right around Memorial Day, also. I think he had a three-home run game against...the Cubs.
Devon & His 1982 Topps blog Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:20 am
I think we have Hack Wilson's day-by-day stats now, so whatever is here now (and at Retrosheet) is probably more accurate than it used to be.
DavidRF Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:36 am
It was Cobb's hit total that was revised down. From 4191 to 4189.

This post made me thing off oddly "off" year by otherwise consistent superstars. Ike Frank Thomas-98 or Rogers Hornsby-26.
mistertmo Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:47 am
@6 So does that mean Pete Rose actually became the all-time hits leader on September 8, 1985 with a 1st inning single off of Reggie Patterson (in a game that for some reason ended in a 5-5 tie)?

They probably didn't even have the scoreboard ready with the announcement!
Lawrence Azrin Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:12 am
@6, @7/ Mistertmo Says: "@6 So does that mean Pete Rose actually became the all-time hits leader on September 8, 1985 with a 1st inning single off of Reggie Patterson (in a game that for some reason ended in a 5-5 tie)?..."

Mistertmo, as I recall, shortly before Rose broke the all-time hits record, it was brought to the attention of MLB by a baseball historian (Pete Palmer, perhaps?) that Ty Cobb's actual career hits total was 4189, _not_ 4191. This was due to one of Cobb's box scores being "double-counted" in the 1910 season, which also gave him the batting title over Nap Lajoie.,.

The commisioner's official response was something like "Well, thank you very much for your research, but we are keeping Cobb's career hits total at 4191, despite whatever evidence you present us".

Anyone else recall this?
TheIronHorse Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:36 am
@6 good memory. I found this on a blog. I can't speak to the accuracy, but the quote does sound like something Bowie Kuhn would have said...

Major League Baseball has also preferred to leave numbers alone. A perfect example came in April 1981, when The Sporting News announced that the historian Pete Palmer had discovered that the American League office had double-counted (some suspect intentionally) a two-hit game by Ty Cobb in 1910. The Sporting News contended that Cobb's career hit record should be revised to 4,189 from the well-known total of 4,191.

With baseball preparing to sell Pete Rose's pursuit of Cobb's mark, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn announced, "The passage of 70 years, in our judgment, constitutes a certain statute of limitation as to recognizing any changes."

Cobb's official total of 4,191 has stood to this day, though most encyclopedias and record books use 4,189.
Netrigger Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Or perhaps he's not 31.
Lawrence Azrin Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
@9/ TheIronHorse - thanks for filling in the details on 4191 vs. 4189. Other well-known fluctuating statistics:
- Hack Wilson's 1930 RBI total (noted above)
- Larry Lajoie's 1901 BA - from .422 to .405 to .426!*
- Ty Cobb's 1911 RBI total: from 144 to 127
- Billy Hamilton's record 1894 Runs Scored total, from 192 to 196 to 198
- Lou Gehrig's increasing RBI total, from 1990 to 1995
- Honus Wagner's ever-fluctuating Career Hits total
- Sam Crawford's career record 3B's total, down from 312 to 309
- Pete Alexander's career Wins total, currently tied w/Christy Mathewson at 373 (but not always in the past)
- Roger Maris' and Mickey Mantle's 1961 Runs Scored totals, Mantle now behind Maris instead of tied

Well, at least Clemente still has exactly 3000 hits!

* many decades ago, someone copied down his "hits" total as 220 instead of 229
Netrigger Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
@11, Yikes, can you imagine if during research it was discovered that one of Clemente's hits was double counted, and his career total dropped to 2999?

It would be like the movie Mr. 3000, with Clemente not available for a comeback.

Probably unlikely since record keeping was quite good during Clemente's time. Most of the questions go back to the earlier part of the 20th Century.
Lawrence Azrin Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
@12/ Netrigger Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
@11, Yikes, can you imagine if during research it was discovered that one of Clemente's hits was double counted, and his career total dropped to 2999?... ...Probably unlikely since record keeping was quite good during Clemente's time. Most of the questions go back to the earlier part of the 20th Century."

Yes, Netrigger, the short version of my #11 could be "MLB record-keeping wasn't that good until the middle of the 20th century." But note the discrepancy in Mantle's 1961 Runs Scored total...
Dan Berman4 Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Most are from earlier in the century. But I am shocked that the records of Mantle and Maris were in error. Seems like any era is prone to mistakes.
Lawrence Azrin Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
@14/ Yes, Dan Berman4, for example I was shocked to find that Hugh Duffy "lost" his 1894 Triple Crown when Sam Thompson's RBI total went from 141 to 147, surpassing Duffy's 145. I know that's more accurate, but certain baseball facts and stats are just engraved in my memory, and it's very difficult to change what I "knew" for decades.

I think there was a similar change with Heinie Zimmerman's RBI total in 1912 where he also lost the Triple Crown.
Whiz Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Regarding Pujols, for a while he was 8th on the team in OPS+ among regulars and semi-regulars. Now at 132, he's passed Colby Rasmus (130) and is closing in on Yadier Molina (at 134, he's having a heck of a comeback season after a down year in 2010).
Paul Drye Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
It's interesting that Frank Thomas shows up on Pujols' age 31 list. I was recently thinking about how Pujols might (emphasis on might) be coming down with the same disease as struck the Big Hurt, just a little bit later.

Lest we forget how insanely good Thomas was, he was .330/.452/.600 from age 22 to 29. Pujols was .334/.427/.628 from his first season (at 21) to age 29. At first I was thinking Frank might have benefited from the higher over all level of offense in the mid-90s, but his OPS+ in this time frame comes out to 182 as opposed to Albert's 172.

Then, of course, at 30 Thomas fell to Earth and only ever had one season up to his previous standard after that: for the rest of his career he went only .276/.389/.515 (and averaged only 113 games a season). Pujols made it through 30 all right, but I wouldn't be utterly surprised if he falls the same way.

It doesn't happen to all the greats, to be sure, but there are plenty of truly great hitters who lost it quite quickly around the age of 30-32 and never got it back: Dale Murphy, Ernie Banks, Al Simmons, George Sisler, Ralph Kiner, Orlando Cepeda, Wade Boggs....
Jimbo Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Wade Boogs?

I thought he just stopped playing half his games in Fenway park? I think his late career numbers are in line with his career road numbers of the first half of his career.
Paul Drye Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:22 pm
@Jimbo: Losing Fenway couldn't have helped his raw numbers, but even with park adjustment he still dropped off the table at 33. OPS is park adjusted and his age 26-38 numbers run 125, 151, 156, 173, 166, 142, 121, 140 before and 96, 104, 141 (in just 97 games), 119, 98 after.

By WAR he goes from 6's, 7's, and 8's to 1's, 2'3, and 3's.
Paul Drye Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
Correction, OPS+ is park corrected -- those are the numbers I posted, in case that's not clear.
DoubleDiamond Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
I saw something go by fast on the ESPN crawl yesterday while eating in a restaurant that was tuned into this channel that said that Albert Belle was the last player before Albert Pujols to hit walk-off home runs in two consecutive games. So the question now is, who was the last player not named Albert to do this? Or did Belle do it early in his career when he was playing under the name of Joey?
Neil L. Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
@21
Double, when I was looking up high-WPA games yesterday in connection with Albert Pujols, after I sorted alphabetically by clicking on first name I noticed Albert Belle with two games right ahead of Pujols.

I didn't link the search, but I assume these high-WPA games for Belle are the ones ESPN was referring to.
Timmy p Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Pujols will be playing for the Cubs next year. Zambrano was 100% right on the pitch thrown to Theriot last night. Mike Quade is a great manager as long as he's managing a team that is out of the race, playing against other teams out of the race. The Cubs blew it by not hiring Sandberg! Ryno was awesome, he hit for power, he was a great defensive player, he stole bases. He did not strike out 185 times in a season ever. Rafael Palmiero slept with his wife and for that Palmiero should never be in the hall of fame.
SocraticGadfly Says:
June 9th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
@ Timmy P ... Sadly, as a Cards' fan, I think you're right on Prince Albert. Dunno on Ryno vs. Quade as managers; plenty a great player who wanted to be an MLB manager wasn't cut out for it. Ruth comes immediately to mind, followed by many others.

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