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July 18, 2012

Pebble Hunting

Albert Pujols Walks Again, and Other Reflections on Earlier Articles

by Sam Miller

July 18 is as good a time as any to go back and read old pieces to see whether they make a lick of sense in hindsight. It is as good a time as any because there is, from the writer’s perspective, no good time to do this without wondering why that thing was written in the first place. Baseball is really just a lifelong project to break down any sense of certainty you might have about cause and effect.

Nonetheless, let’s review a few of the conclusions I made in March, April, and May to see what new information tells us.

April 24: Albert Pujols Never Walks

Topic: Albert Pujols was hitting poorly, but beyond that was the continuation of a trend that started the previous year: Few walks, less plate discipline, lot of swings at sliders outside.

Excerpt: "The Angels signed Albert Pujols for 10 years because even the decline phase of a .328/.420/.617 hitter should be pretty good. It turns out they’re getting a different hitter entirely. Probably a great hitter, maybe still the best hitter, and if there's anything you take from this piece, I really hope it's not that Albert Pujols is anything less than awesome still. He is awesome still, and I hate all of you who quit reading way up there and think that I'm giving up on Pujols. But he's a different hitter."

Update: Since April 24, Pujols is hitting .279/.347/.496, but I don’t mind using a more generous endpoint for this. Going back to the midway point in May, Pujols is hitting .317/.397/.603 in 53 games, with 20 unintentional walks. Over a full season, 60 unintentional walks would be at the low end, but not the lowest end, of his career norms.

Looking at some other observations in the piece:

• Pujols had typically swung at 42 percent of pitches, until the 2011 All-Star break, when he began swinging at about 49 percent of pitches. But since we ran our piece, he has swung at 45 percent of pitches, and since our generous May 16 endpoint, he has swung at 44 percent.

• Pujols had traditionally swung at 40 percent of curves+sliders+changeups, but was swinging at 53 percent this year. Since May 16, he is down to 41 percent.

• Pujols had swung at 27 percent of pitches outside the zone in 2010, 33 percent in 2011, and was swinging at 35 percent through April 24 of this year, according to StatCorner’s figures. That figure hasn’t changed. He’s still swinging at 35 percent of pitches outside the strike zone.

So Pujols doesn’t quite have the same patience he used to have, and the Angels probably wish he did, but he has mostly gone back to the swing rates and walk rates he had during his MVP seasons. Optimistically, you could look at his performance since mid-May, and the underlying swing rates he has since then, and conclude that Albert Pujols was merely going through a really weird phase and that he is still mostly the hitter we thought he was. Swing rate is about the fastest measure to stabilize, so you might say he is stable huzzah. But you might also note that even measures that stabilize quickly can fluctuate quite a bit.

March 26: Pick an Old or Injury-Prone PItcher.

Topic: Who will win more games going forward: Mark Prior, Scott Kazmir, or Jamie Moyer.