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​​Believe it or not, most of our writers didn't enter the world sporting an @baseballprospectus.com address; with a few exceptions, they started out somewhere else. In an effort to up your reading pleasure while tipping our caps to some of the most illuminating work being done elsewhere on the internet, we'll be yielding the stage once a week to the best and brightest baseball writers, researchers and thinkers from outside of the BP umbrella. If you'd like to nominate a guest contributor (including yourself), please drop us a line.

Matt Welch is Editor-in-Chief of Reason, contributor to Halos Heaven, and co-author (with Nick Gillespie) of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America.
 

By now we all know the story: after a spring dominated by press coverage of his contract, Albert Pujols stumbled out of the gate with his worst full month in a decade. Given that his early struggles arrived on the heels of a couple of decline years (albeit from the loftiest of starting points), people started audibly grumbling the unthinkable: Is the best player of his generation facing a sudden early-30s decline?

Yes, that's the Albert Pujols story. Of 2011.

From 2003-2010 (ages 23-30), when Pujols established his consistently high performance level (an average of .334/.433/.635, OPS+ of 177), his worst two non-injured months looked like this:

Month/Year

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

April 2007

0.250

0.343

0.489

126

July 2010

0.267

0.333

0.515

128

That's right: the guy was so damned good he slugged .500 at his worst, putting up an OPS+ in the second-worst month that matched Torii Hunter's seasonal career high.

But in 2011, after a month of uncomfortable and unprecedented attention to his contract situation, Pujols came out of the gate looking more like Vernon Wells:

Month/Year

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

April 2011

0.245

0.305

0.453

112

It was the subject of agonizing attention in St. Louis. He looked out of sorts at the plate. People started pointing out negative trendlines even in his otherworldly numbers of the previous three seasons—his batting average had declined from .357 to .327 to .312! OBP and slugging down each year, too! All the way through May 29, 2011, El Hombre was putting up a Cameron Maybin-style slash line of .257/.326/.395.

We all know how the 2011 story ended for the Cardinals. After shaking off the bad vibes, Pujols closed out the rest of the season hitting almost exactly like he always did: .322/.388/.623, for an OPS+ of (yep!) 177. MVP voters put him in the Top 10 for an amazing 11th season in a row.

The $240 million question: Can he pull out of another nosedive? And even if he does, how will that contract look five years from now, let alone 10?

I'm an Angels fan who edits a political magazine for a living, so there are certainly better people to ask. But every year over at Halos Heaven I like to tinker with various players' historical comps, and the exercise usually yields an insight or two.

The basic formula works like this—using Baseball-Reference's great Play Index feature, I assemble hitters since 1901 at the same position, who by the same age compiled +/- 25% of the player's plate appearances and +/- 10 points of OPS+. That usually produces a couple dozen comps, which I then whittle down to 10 or so using Wins Above Replacement and some eyeballing.

Under that formula, here is the complete list of Pujols' comps: Jimmie Foxx, Jeff Bagwell, and Frank Thomas.

That's not enough to make a meaningful comparison (though it's plenty sufficient to remind us that Pujols has been nearly incomparable), but expanding the search to include those who played RF, LF, and DH yields just three more (phenomenal) players: Barry Bonds, Stan Musial, and Dick Allen. Since six ain't enough, I widened the OPS+ band by 5 more points in each direction, finally cobbling together a solid selection of 11 comps for Albert Pujols.

Here they are, ranked by OPS+ through their age-31 seasons. It sounds like a Strat-o-Matic Hall of Famers set: Aaron, Foxx, Pujols, Gehrig, Musial, Ott, Bonds, Robinson, Bagwell, Allen, Thomas, and Manny. Take a moment to luxuriate in their awesomeness:

Name

G

AB

HR

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

Lou Gehrig

1538

5714

348

0.344

0.444

0.643

183

Stan Musial

1524

5844

227

0.346

0.431

0.579

172

Albert Pujols

1705

6312

445

0.328

0.42

0.617

170

Jimmie Foxx

1834

6583

464

0.337

0.439

0.64

170

Frank Thomas

1371

4892

301

0.32

0.44

0.573

169

Dick Allen

1363

4985

287

0.299

0.386

0.553

164

Barry Bonds

1583

5537

334

0.288

0.404

0.548

161

Jeff Bagwell

1317

4759

263

0.304

0.416

0.545

159

Hank Aaron

1806

7080

398

0.32

0.376

0.567

157

Mel Ott

2015

7080

388

0.313

0.418

0.551

157

Frank Robinson

1786

6582

403

0.304

0.392

0.563

156

Manny Ramirez

1383

5004

347

0.317

0.413

0.598

156

In this list of inner-circle Hall of Famers and are-you-effing-kidding-me hitters, Albert Pujols through age 31 had the most doubles, the second-most home runs, the third-highest slugging percentage and OPS+, and the fourth-best batting average and run/RBI totals. Those numbers benefited from Pujols’ playing 162-game, strike-free, war-free seasons in a mostly offense-friendly era—creating some distortions that we will smooth out below—but the fact is he compares favorably to his fellow incomparables.

So how did these hitters age? It's a surprisingly complicated question. That's because some of these players, above and beyond being historical outliers, had among the most bizarre career second-acts in Major League Baseball history. I am not exaggerating. Consider:

  • Lou Gehrig by age 37 was dead, from a disease that would go on to bear his name. So let's scratch him off the comp list.
  • Barry Bonds, already a freak here because of his baserunning and defense, is the only great player in baseball history who had his three best seasons after age 35. Considering that Bonds' aging pattern is historically unique, coinciding with a well-documented collaboration with the BALCO laboratory, let's scratch him off, too.
  • Dick Allen was a similar hitter to Pujols, another impossibly huge right-handed masher athletic enough to play some third base, but I'm not sure if there has been any player in major-league history who did more to sabotage his own talent, whether through bad living, bad attitude, or general recklessness. Albert Pujols is a clean-living fitness nut who has averaged 155 games per year; Allen exceeded that total just twice in his career. Take a walk, Richie.
  • Jimmie Foxx, who is perhaps Pujols' best comp by the raw numbers, "was a degenerate drunk who often went to bat with a flask in his pocket." As this Foxx bio puts it, "Some have surmised that the length of Foxx' career was curtailed by his drinking, and it certainly did not help. It seems much more likely that it was a diminished batting eye caused by the beaning and related sinus problems that led to his decline. Foxx also frequently played through injuries that would have sidelined other players, and eventually this took a toll as well." Let's take Foxx off the list as well.

That leaves us with a group of seven other players, which is still too small for non-government work but will have to do. Albert Pujols is 32, so what did his comps do at that age?

They flat-out raked. Four of the seven had more than 40 home runs, four hit over .300, four had OBPs over .400, four slugged over .600, four had more than 100 walks; you get the idea. Six of the seven received MVP votes. Here's a full list.

Name

G

PA

AB

HR

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

MVP

Stan Musial

154

698

593

30

0.337

0.437

0.609

169

8

Frank Thomas

159

707

582

43

0.328

0.436

0.625

163

2

Hank Aaron

158

688

603

44

0.279

0.356

0.539

142

8

Jeff Bagwell

159

719

590

47

0.310

0.424

0.615

152

7

Mel Ott

148

634

525

27

0.286

0.403

0.495

149

17

Manny Ramirez

152

663

568

43

0.308

0.397

0.613

152

3

Frank Robinson

130

508

421

15

0.268

0.39

0.444

152

N/A

The lowest OPS+ here, Hank Aaron's 142 in 1966, would have been 18th best in baseball last year, between Alex Avila and Mike Stanton.

If you adjust each season for an 162-game schedule, in a park and league context of 4.42 runs per game, and then take the average and median of those adjusted seasons, you get an aggregate age-32 performance like this:

Name

 G

PA

AB

HR

 AVG

 OBP

 SLG

OPS+

MVP

Average

154

659

556

33

0.299

0.401

0.549

154

 

Median

158

682

566

39

0.292

0.405

0.568

152

 8

It's basically Prince Fielder 2011 territory:

Prince Fielder

162

692

569

38

0.299

0.415

0.566

165

3

Since the American League in 2011 averaged a nearly neutral 4.46 runs per game, and since we're doing things like trying to compare Frank Robinson's 1968 with Jeff Bagwell's 2000, these neutralized average and median performances of Pujols' comps give us a pretty good baseline of what we might expect going forward.

Here's what Albert's peer group did from 33-36, adjusted and neutralized:

AVERAGE

Age

G

PA

AB

HR

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

33

137

603

511

33

0.305

0.403

0.573

158

34

146

616

517

29

0.292

0.396

0.52

145

35

145

622

526

33

0.291

0.392

0.548

149

36

132

543

460

27

0.298

0.398

0.533

148

MEDIAN

Age

G

PA

AB

HR

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

MVP

33

155

693

586

36

0.31

0.391

0.553

165

5

34

148

621

519

30

0.307

0.404

0.533

151

18

35

147

651

541

29

0.296

0.391

0.545

146

14

36

141

588

509

26

0.289

0.409

0.54

151

13

Note that they never stop hitting. They just slowly miss a few more games each year (especially Frank Thomas). Manny Ramirez at age 36 hit .332/.430/.601, with 37 homers, 121 RBIs, and 87 walks. And that probably wasn't as good as Stan Musial's 36, when he led the league in batting (.351), OBP (.422), OPS (1.034), and was MVP runner-up. Hank Aaron hit .298 with 38 home runs (though he was much better the next year, at 37, when he led the league with a career high OPS+ of 194). Mel Ott hit .308/.411/.499 and finished 13th in the MVP vote.

You see what I'm saying here? Albert Pujols' comps, when they were four years older than he is now, when they were the equivalent of halfway through his monster contract, could still on average hit the cover off the baseball.

Ah, you ask, but it isn't really fair to compare Albert to the average of a group of Hall of Famers, is it? And you're right! It isn't fair—to Albert.

If you break up Pujols' career to date in half-decade chunks and stack it up to the careers (adjusted and neutralized) of his comp set from the same age, you will see that Albert consistently hit more home runs and had a higher slugging percentage than anybody, while being third in batting average and among the top three in OPS+. Look how he compares to the average and median of his comps:

21-25

 

G

PA

AB

HR

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

Average

156

675

582

30

0.323

0.408

0.562

158

Median

157

675

571

32

0.319

0.402

0.559

158

Albert Pujols

158

681

588

40

0.329

0.412

0.615

167

26-31

 

G

PA

AB

HR

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

Average

152

664

558

36

0.319

0.42

0.587

167

Median

153

668

553

37

0.314

0.423

0.59

167

Albert Pujols

152

668

560

41

0.326

0.425

0.616

173

If for the next five years he retains his current positioning within his comp list, Pujols would hit something like this from 2012-16:

Name

G

PA

AB

HR

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS+

Albert Pujols

149

637

580

43

0.304

0.411

0.591

159

So is Albert Pujols going to put up MVP-caliber numbers for the remaining 132 games of 2012 and the four years after that? I don't know, and neither do you. But to believe that he won't means you have to think that he is suddenly going to perform not just at a much worse level than his own established history, but also below that of a Hall of Fame peer group in which he has been one of the consistently leading lights.

I prefer the simpler explanation: the man got stressed out (again!) about the expectations surrounding his contract and subsequent bad performance and will soon reassert himself as a .320 hitter with monstrous power and terrific strike-zone judgment. Inner-circle Hall of Fame hitters are such outliers that we forget they don't generally fall apart at age 32, particularly when they take excellent care of their bodies and don't play demanding defensive positions. It's a half-educated guess, but my bet is on Albert figuring it out.
 

​Thanks to Rob McQuown and Hudson Belinsky for formatting assistance.

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jrbdmb
5/08
This article is reassuring for the Angels and Pujols owners, whether he is age 32 (as advertized) or slightly older than that (as widely suspected). Thanks.
azynkewl
5/08
good article. what would the forecast be for pujols if he was in fact 3 or 4years older than advertised?
mleewelch
5/08
That's where it gets more awkward, for sure. Stan Musial at 41 was still a very good hitter (2nd in OBP, 3rd in batting average, 10th in slugging), but he was just kinda bleh from 38-40. Hank Aaron was great through age 39. Frank Robinson's last very good year was 38. Manny hit like a bastard through age 38. Bagwell and Ott were toast after 36. And Frank Thomas was injured and weird through his 30s, but still managed to hit 39 home runs in Oakland at age 38. They all obviously leaked defensive value and speed throughout.

If Albert is as old as advertised, I'd expect him to hit well through 2018. If he's three years older, that goes down to 2015.
sportspopery
5/08
This is really solid analysis. From a non-stats perspective, it's starting to look like Pujols is making solid contact and laying off of chase pitches once again--a return to normalcy, if you will. If he is 35ish, it's not end times in Orange County. It just means that he'll be under contract until he's 44, which--OK, that would be be sort of apocalyptic. Even so, his production should be alright for the time being.

Matt, I was aware of how awesome Dick Allen's career was, but this puts it into a perspective that makes me wonder what your take on his HoF credentials are.
mleewelch
5/08
Thanks! On Allen, who I find to be a genuinely fascinating and not-totally-unsympathetic character, it becomes hard to overlook that he was washed up after 32, that he was one of the worst defensive players in the history of the game, that he couldn't stay on the field, and that he'd occasionally sabotage his team & his own performance. I think Bagwell, Thomas, Edgar Martinez, McGwire, and probably Palmeiro are all in front of him right now.
prs130
5/08
I start every day with BP, reason.com, and coffee, not necessarily in that order. I'm delighted to see Matt Welch in BP, but I don't know what I'll do if I see him in my coffee...
gweedoh565
5/08
I'm genuinely curious about this, as I have not followed Pujols closely: Is there actually any real reason/evidence to suggest that he is actually 2-4 years older than he is listed? I mean, aside from the fact that age-fixing was pretty common around the time he came up?
eighteen
5/08
Well, if you believe the pictures of him when he came up in 2001 are of a 21-year-old, then, no, there's no evidence.
salvomania
5/09
OK, here's Pujols from 2001, when he was 21.

Looks pretty much like a 21-year-old.

http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=39224949&event=1375735&CategoryID=38576


(this next one scroll down a half page)
http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/etopps-program-at-standstill/

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/firsts-and-lasts-of-pujols-career-as-a-cardinal/article_15c0bd80-2282-11e1-955e-001a4bcf6878.html
Drungo
5/08
I'd like to see the analysis go a step further, and see how often 1.000 OPS players have .525 OPS months. And how dependent on age that is.

Sure, the easy answer to all of this is that Pujols is in a peer group of inner-circle HOFers, and he'll keep hitting. But n=7 (when you eyeball four others and throw them out), and for all we know #8 breaks the model.
mleewelch
5/08
Good idea for a follow-up. I was struck when looking at his monthly numbers how consistent they had been between 2003-10 -- only two months under 142 OPS+, and both of those were in the 120s. I'll do a follow-up over at Halos Heaven maybe comparing that to the month-by-months of his peer group.

In any case, his absolutely brutal performance to date (OPS+ of under 60) is an enormous outlier, even compared with his early-2011 slump.
johnsamo
5/10
It's pretty clear starting last year that teams grew less and less afraid of him, with his walk rate dropping significantly, and his intentional walks have all but stopped.


buckgunn
5/10
Interesting piece. Thanks, Matt. A number of quibbles, however, starting with this one - "Foxx also frequently played through injuries that would have sidelined other players..." Isn't that EXACTLY what Pujols has done? He's played through an injured oblique, a strained calf muscle, a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament (!), a chronic case of plantar fasciitis, a freshly healed broken forearm, etc., etc. It's too early to say whether those injuries have taken their toll on Pujols the same way they did on Foxx, but I'd be skittish about tossing out the comparison (particularly when you consider that Foxx - another 1B-3B-OF - has been Pujols' most comparable player, statistically speaking, for a number of years now).
mleewelch
5/11
buckgunn -- I think the main takeaway from the Foxx comparison is not the nicks & cuts but the drinking and (comparative lack of) self-preservation. Pujols just takes care of himself so much better, and both the science and the incentive structure are much more helpful as well. There was grumbling about Foxx's conditioning and dedication during his career; nothing like that with Pujols.

But you're right: otherwise he's easily the best comp.
buckgunn
5/11
Makes sense. I still think the last part of that quote weakens your case about Pujols (regardless of whether it was the main takeaway). But yes, I've always understood Foxx's drinking to be a major (if not THE major) contributor to his decline. And in that respect he clearly differs from Pujols, who abstains from alcohol and is fanatically disciplined about his health.