Prince Albert Pujols, he reigneth

Nobody came close to Maris' record until McGwire, Sosa and Bonds... all of whom have been publically tried and sentenced for alleged PED abuse.

Pujols is currently on pace to demolish all of their marks, so why should he be free of any rumors/accusations?

2. Because two of these people fell out of baseball very quickly (one to injuries, one to falling the eff off and being blackballed) and the third has had an entire book published detailing court transcripts about his (ALLEGED I KNOW) steroid usage. Pujols is still in the game, still strong, and hasn't tested positive for anything.

Cuz he hasn't done it yet for one thing. Plenty of people have gotten off to ridiculously hot starts and cooled. And everyone suspects that at least part of this hot start is aided by juiced balls and a rather easy opening schedule for the Cards. Plus there is the added fact that Pujols is 26 and has always been pretty close to this ridiculously good unlike "I turn 38 and become absurdly better than I ever have been before" Bonds and "We don't look much like our rookie baseball cards no more" McMark and SaSosa. Just saying.

After Honus Wagner (clearly the greatest shortstop ever), he's routinely cited as one of the top two or three shortstops ever, even though he isn't nearly as famous as a host of other guys. But I wouldn't have pegged Arky Vaughn for 2nd on that list.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/v/vaughar01.shtml

Keep in mind that WARP3 measures performance relative to others at the same position. In that respect, Vaughn hit out of his mind for a shortstop (check out those Ruth/Williams-worthy OBPs), and the 30's were a weak decade for shortstops.

Pujols is currently on pace to demolish all of their marks, so why should he be free of any rumors/accusations?

I know that this question is somewhat rhetorical, and it feels like everyone is recycling their comments from other threads ... but anyway:

-- 20-year male athletes are skinny. All of you were probably skinny when you were 20. Athletes bulk up as they get older. This is normal. Athletes' bodies fill out throughout their 20's and 30's. This is normal. Looking like a beast when you're only 21 (Pujols' supposed age in his rookie year) is not normal.

-- In light of the above comment, improvements in medicine and training, not to mention the tremendous amount of money to be made in pro sports now (compared to 10-20 years ago, even) have led to more athletes (in many sports) getting bigger at an earlier age. Lifting weights was strongly frowned upon by baseball players throughout the history of the game. It only started gaining acceptance in the 1990's. It doesn't matter who you believe was on the juice -- you still gotta lift weights when you're on steroids, and that wasn't part of the culture until very recently. So it's pointless to say that Bonds/Mac/Sosa/etc. looked different at the start of their careers because bulking up just wasn't done when they were coming up through the system. You can't argue "Bonds put on lots of weight and Pujols hasn't, therefore this 'proves' that Bonds juiced but Pujols didn't because it must be his natural body type." No, they grew up in different times.

So why isn't Pujols surrounded by steroid rumours? Like I've said before -- cleaning up the game is a distant priority for MLB. Their main concern is cleaning up the game's image. You can accomplish the latter by scapegoating a few big stars. The former task is a lot more difficult because you have to do a thorough investigation into the role that steroids played in the game, how widespread the problem was (or is), and what effect steroids had on what we saw happening on the field. Selig doesn't have the patience for that. The Bonds Witchunt is supposed to convince people that MLB is "dealing" with the problem (which they aren't -- they're only "dealing" with Bonds). Once enough people believe that, they can proclaim that the game is clean and return to wilful ignorance (and therefore Pujols couldn't possibly be using drugs, and if he was, Selig doesn't need to know about it).

http://www.rookiesquantities.com/images/fi99_ap2_insert.jpg
http://www.rookiesquantities.com/images/fi00_ap3_insert.jpg
http://www.rookiesquantities.com/images/fi00_ap5_insert.jpg
http://www.triple-abaseball.com/images/pujolsa.jpg

I'm also glad that all those strappingly cut "look nothing like their rookie card" minor league middle relievers that are getting busted every week for PEDs are built they way they are, otherwise how else would we know they were "obviously juicing"?

Problem is, aside from Roger Clemens, I can't think of many players who's bodies changed so dramatically during the "bulking up" craze.

Albert Pujols did
not look like a "beast" back then;
a large human, yes.

ALLAHFROG, if you
do not trust baseball at all,
then why do you care?

Why should I not dismiss all pitching records before 1969 (before they lowered the mound)?

Why should I not dismiss the balk records set in 1988 (when it was widely known that the umps were going to call a lot of them, the rules were relaxed the very next season)?

Why should I not dismiss every home run record set after (or before, depending on your viewpoint) 1920, when the ball was known to be juiced? Or what about home runs hit in 1987 -- one of several years in which the ball was reportedly re-juiced?

Why should I not dismiss the HOF resumes of every hitter who reached his prime in the 1930's (a hitting era that puts the late 90's to shame)?

we tend to remember only doc gooden, the straw man and steve howe...maybe lamar hoyt, but the investigations and suspensions were pretty wide ranging. and i also remember a lot of guys being accused of using coke, though nothing was ever proven (eric davis is the biggest name i can think of).

I'd have to look through my books for the citation, but I read that with some interest just a couple of weeks ago. They did analyses of balls from both eras and found no real differences to account for the HR discrepancies. It comes down to hitting styles, park changes, the loss of specialty pitches (shineball, spitball, etc. being phased out as players retired) and on down the line.

But my main point still stands -- comparing post-1920 offense (particularly 1920-1940) with 1900-1920 offense is nearly impossible. There was an offensive explosion after 1920, but we don't view the live ball era as "tainted" in any way. It was just a different style of play.

But, yeah, your point is certainly correct - and that leaves out the biggest trump card of all time - Babe Ruth never had to play against Martin Dihigo or John Donaldson and without the color line we could very well be talking about Josh Gibson as the greatest hitter in baseball history.

Couldn't it just as easily have been someone from Japan or Cuba or wherever else? Babe Ruth is the greatest hitter in the history of Major League Baseball, whether you compare him to his era OR whether you take his stats alone. Josh Gibson never played Major League Baseball, and neither did, say, Saduhara Oh. Saduhara Oh played against allegedly watered down players, but so did Josh Gibson. If Gibson played in the major leagues, there's no way to know whether he would have hit 400 home runs for his career or 800.

The point is that Ruth PLAYED against watered-down players too though! And I find the argument that Gibson would have hit only 400 home runs in the ML pretty suspect esp. considering how a lot of the Negro Leaguers stars performed in the ML when they finally got there. Would Gibson have been as good as Babe Ruth in an integrated ML? Probably not. But would Ruth have been as good as Ruth in an integrated ML? Also probably not.

I don't know about that. I mean, to this day, there are very few good African American pitchers. I mean, who is to say that Barry Bonds would have 700+ hr if he had to hit against great pitchers such as, say, Donovan McNabb, Michael Jordan, or Jarome Iginla? While there were a core of excellent pitchers in the Negro Leagues, there were also a ton of guys who wouldn't have made a roster, and Ruth, Bonds, Gibson, et al. have always done most of their work against the worst pitchers in the league, not against the Satchel Paiges and Bob Gibsons of the world.

In fact, you could probably make the case that an integrated league would equate to lowered offensive production across the board.

(Yes, I know that I'm rambling and not really making a cohesive argument. I'm sick, give me a break.)

I think league wide the offense would probably have gone up though. Most of the most famous Negro Leaguers were hitters and I imagine the difference in their value over the players they were replacing would be higher than the pitchers (although who knows once you calculate defense blah blah.)

Also the reasons why there are so few African-American pitchers (and PLAYERS) now has a lot to do with a number of recent changes in the way youth talent is developed (and how that relates to race/economics) and most (if not all) of those changes are relatively recent.

xpost

The spread in ability between the best and worst players in baseball has decreased significantly since the days of Ruth and Cobb. In other words, the best players don't dominate the competition to the same degree that they did in the 1920's (Barry Bonds is a freakish exception, as you all know). I'm sure that the segregation of the game was a big reason for this ... larger pool of talent -> pitching AND hitting ability both increase -> less room for stragglers on the lower extreme of the talent distribution curve.

18/34.5*162 = 85

Krukow surmised that Ruth's lack of automatic doubles was because stadiums had not warning tracks; instead, the balls had to bounce off of grass. Then the play-by-play guy who went to Stanford (STATHEAD OMG) deep-sixed this theory, because plenty of other chumps were hitting ground-rule homers.

Couldn't it just as easily have been someone from Japan or Cuba or wherever else? Babe Ruth is the greatest hitter in the history of Major League Baseball, whether you compare him to his era OR whether you take his stats alone.
Yes, it was rhetorical. Martin Dihigo was a Cuban player who played all eight field positions at a high rate and was a slightly-below-great pitcher as well. Pop Lloyd, Oscar Charleston, etc. etc. etc. - there

Josh Gibson never played Major League Baseball, and neither did, say, Saduhara Oh. Saduhara Oh played against allegedly watered down players, but so did Josh Gibson. If Gibson played in the major leagues, there's no way to know whether he would have hit 400 home runs for his career or 800.
That's why I said we 'could be'. What we do know is that the talent pool for both players was more questionable than the one facing Pujols or Bonds (and, I mean, there are questions about whether the stars of the 1920s could even get on the field with modern athletes).

Another thing to remember is that Negro League players were often playing in leftover deadball era parks, and none of them played in parks that were tailor-made to their abilities (ala Ruth's porch in Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox pulling in left field 10-15 feet to benefit Ted Williams).

Japanese records are significantly more detailed than Negro League (or even older MLB) records, so we do have a fairly competent way to translate Sadahuru Oh and other players' stats. From what I've read, Oh would certainly be a Hall of Fame hitter, but nowhere near the greatest ever. Shigeo Nagashima is less famous but equally respected by Japanese players/fans/historians.

i mean sports are serious business now and conditioning is superior and just general societal lifestyle things make a difference, but wasn't baseball pretty much the only true major league sport in the days of the babe?

look at at all the competition baseball faces now from football, hoops, soccer and to some extent, hockey and lax (to the extent that there are thousands of kids who may never play baseball b/c lax season conflicts).

i'm not saying that the talent pool is weak now, but baseball had pretty free range over things for a while.

I will enthrall and delight all of you with my fascinating observations in a week or so. I am leaving the keys to the ILB office with Barry and Felicity. Be easy on them!

Steve Shasta
East Coast Wakeboarding Representative

1.	Albert Pujols	STL     .362	35.2
2.	Nick Johnson	WAS     .326	17.7
3.	Lance Berkman	HOU     .316	17.4
4.	Nomar Garciaparra  LAN	.337	16.7
5.	Carlos Delgado	NYN	.305	15.7

Okay, the title of the chart is "Projected All-time HR Leaders using Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA Forecasting Tool":

1. Barry Bonds - 765
2. Hank Aaron - 755
3. Babe Ruth - 714
4. Alex Rodriguez - 678
5. Willie Mays - 660
6. Adam Dunn - 638
7. Ken Griffey Jr. - 637
8. Albert Pujols - 620
9. Manny Ramirez - 589
10. Sammy Sosa - 588

Albert Pujols article: Albert is the new, clean face of baseball heroes. Albert upset about any steroid allegations, upset at his disputed age allegations. Meanwhile, he's on pace to shatter a record that only Evil, cheating steroid abusers (Bonds, McGwire, Sosa) have been able to accomplish!

Barry Bonds: Increasingly poor production (.971 OPS?), agonizing march to overtake Ruth (3 HRs in 4 weeks of April vs. 3 HRs in 3 weeks of May to date!?!?!?), more of Verducci's declining and agonizing analysis.

Justin Gaitlin: FASTEST MAN ON THE PLANET!!! Meet the brand new 100m world record holder!!! Never mind that he tested positive for PEDs 3 years ago and received and served a year suspension!!!! Nevermind that his trainer and coach is the man who first was caught with an HGH/BALCO affiliated designer steroid syringe, setting off a wave of baseball-centric federal drug investigation... Nevermind all that, boy is this guy fast!!!

Also Adam Dunn has got to be one of the greatest power hitters of all time.

I'm wondering how Teixeira fares, if he signs long-term to play in the AL Coors.

Dunn is the true three outcomes master: K, BB, HR.

Darryl Strawberry (927)
Reggie Jackson (926) *
Jose Canseco (918)
Troy Glaus (909)
Tom Brunansky (902)
Juan Gonzalez (901)
Boog Powell (901)
Rocky Colavito (891)
Tony Conigliaro (890)
Harmon Killebrew (883) *

IIRC, Boog is one of PECOTA's top comparables (as are Killer and Glaus)

Pujols is a month and a day ahead of Babe Ruth's pace.

Comparing to Sosa/McGwire 1998 or Bonds 2001 is more revealing. I think he's ahead of everyone's pace though.

25/51*162 = 79.41

(btw, I only posted that because I find it "INTERESTING", not out of home team oneupsmanship)(but I've long been a fan of JD generally)

pre-AS break: 29:10
post-AS break: 17:21

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/sports/060822/s0822114.html

6.17.2001 = Justin Gatlin suspended 2 years for testing positive to banned substances.
7.30.2002 = IAAF reinstates Gatlin due to the nature of the offense ("unknowing effect of ADD medication")
4.22.2006 = Gatlin is tested after a relay race in Lawrence, KS.
5.12.2006 = Gatlin sets World Record in Qatar.
5.22.2006 = Steve Shasta scans Sports Illustrated
5.22.2006 = Steve Shasta posts doubtful post about Gatlin's legitimacy
7.29.2006 = USADA publishes results of Gatlin's 4.22.2006 test = positive for banned substances.
8.22.2006 = IAAF bans Gatlin for 8 years due to second positive test.
9.18.2006 = Haikunym denies any foreshadowing in Shasta's 5.22 post with regard to the events of 7.29-8.22 as they were "old news already".
9.19.2006 = Message board drama escalates to C-scale level post exchanges, feathers ruffled, will be forgotten in 24 hours.

B-scale: john vs the board on the old yanqui-bashing threads, the "White Sox: great or lucky" debates of 2005

A-scale: the steroid threads

?

xpost

Now that my entirely sincere apology is out of the way, let's get back to the issue at hand: Albert Pujols, unlike Barry Bonds, is an aged steroid cheat who stains the game with his very presence!

* baseless speculation, much like the non-Gatlin drug rumours on this thread

But for the rest of you, I hope you take a sharp grounder to the gonads.

Pujols 30.4 VORP, .325 EqAvg

Fielder 29.6 VORP, .316 EqAvg

Prince Semien Fielder, he unworthieth.

your vendetta against Prince is just precious, Morbs.
keep up the good hatin'!

uh-oh, don't wake the shasta bias!

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols has agreed to participate in tonight’s Home Run Derby in San Francisco, even though he is mired in a career-worst power slump. Pujols, who has 16 home runs, and Alex Rios of the Toronto Blue Jays were the final participants added.

Pujols’s homerless streak reached 22 games and a career-worst 74 at-bats in the Cardinals’ 7-0 victory over the Giants yesterday.

Rios, Minnesota’s Justin Morneau, Vladimir Guerrero of the Angels and Magglio Ordóñez of the Tigers are the American League’s representatives for the Derby. Pujols, Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder of the Brewers are the National League contestants.

Oh, for a career-worst power drought to mean 16 HRs at the All-Star Break.

ha, he sonned Ryan THE CLEAN SLUGGER Howard!

Albert Pujols
SEASON TEAM IsoP
2001 StL 0.281
2002 StL 0.247
2003 StL 0.308
2004 StL 0.326
2005 StL 0.279
2006 StL 0.340
2007 StL 0.241
2008 StL 0.238

2007 & 2008 are his lowest IsoPs of his career.

I thought power was supposed to increase through *ahem* age 26-28?

IsoP is negatively correlated with hair loss, if that's what you're implying.

Guy has plantar fasciitis! It's amazing he can hit at all. That shit is painful.

OBP is only important in regards to Barry Bonds...

hi dere:

Bonds IsoP:
2006 SF .275
2007 SF .288

Plantier fascistus?

are those 'roid adjusted stats on Bonds?

Prince Albert:
Ranks 4th in NL in BA (.357)
Ranks 15th in NL in HR (8)
Ranks 1st in NL in BB (41)
Ranks 1st in NL in OBP (.503)
Ranks 8th in NL in SLG (.594)
Ranks 3rd in NL in OPS (1.097)

hi bnw, i'm talking about POWER. not walks, not batting average, not on-base percentiles.

i am talking about POWER.

And how Albert's POWER seems to be waning as he enters the eversofaint twilight of his mid-twenties.

how much of the waning is due to the elbow tear?

hi steve! if his power was rising into his "thirties" would you be on here insinuating something else about him? I am guessing YES.

"how much of the waning is due to the elbow tear?"

NONE! IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF HIS FAKE AGE!

The dude is playing through some pretty significant injuries and still hitting very well. I don't think it's very hard to understand how those injuries could reduce his power. I mean, the Cardinals were planning on having him miss the entirety of this season if they fell out of contention early. He's only still playing because they're in the mix for the division.

SHUT UP SHUT UP FAKE AGE SHUT UP!

Alex, how many healthy seasons has Pujols had?

;-)

http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/8168/apriltemp2sr4.png

According to the Will Carroll, none.

Is Shasta calling all the surge-in-NL-offense articles dumb, I wonder?

According to the Will Carroll, none.

Well obviously that's because he's been on the juice all along, right.

i really want him to reach base in all 162

　　 　　　　　/つ_∧
　　/つ_,∧ 〈（　゜д゜）
　　|（　゜д゜） ヽ ⊂ニ) poohole?！
　　ヽ__と/￣￣￣/ |
　 ￣＼/＿＿＿/￣￣

-- INSANE CLOWN FOSSE (Adrian Langston), Friday, May 26, 2006 5:52 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

lol

my finest post of all time

"Pujols’ first homer was massive. He led off the fifth inning by hitting reliever Justin Germano’s second pitch into the balcony on the fourth floor of the Western Metal Supply Co. building in Petco Park’s left-field corner, 405 feet from home plate."

"He hit another towering shot leading off the eighth, this one into the seats in left-center on a full-count pitch from left-hander Sean Henn."

;-)

wow, first Albert lines one off Chris Young's face, then knocks Bard out of the game by sliding into his ankle? DESTROYER OF PADS!

ALBERT POOLHALLS

IsoP
career: .288
2008: .283

HANG EM UP YR DUNN

wow, almost as good as Bonds in 2007.

Joe Sheehan:

The way in which Albert Pujols is taken for granted has become something of a joke. He is one of the two best players in baseball—it's him or it's Alex Rodriguez—and has been basically since he walked into the league, and is well on his way to being one of the 20 best players ever. He does everything: hits for average and power, runs the bases well, plays superior defense at his position, first base. He's rarely been at the center of any controversies. He is the second-best player in franchise history behind a guy who has a case for being the best player in the history of the National League. He would have at least three MVP awards had Barry Bonds retired after 1999, and he'd have a top-five finish in every one of his seven completed seasons if last year's vote hadn't been such a disaster. (Pujols was the best or second-best player in the league, but finished ninth in the voting because the Cardinals' pitching wasn't good. That makes sense.) Pujols should be considered the NL MVP at this point; there is simply no argument against him.

He's not even the best player on his team.

hahaha

He's not even the best player on his team.

Skip Schumacher, come on down!

I'm more of a Ryan Ludwick guy.

3 points from Larry Jones ;)

I have to ask, Steve, then who is?

i might care about this guy if he was the best player on his own team

lol wtf are you talking about deeznuts

do you mean chris carpenter???

I think there must be a joke here that I am missing.

not a good week to pick this fight :/

Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals has been named Bank of America Presents the National League Player of the Week for August 18-24, 2008. Bank of America, the Official Bank of Major League Baseball, is the presenting sponsor of the National League and American League Player of the Week Awards, which reflect Bank of America's long-standing tradition of promoting and recognizing higher standards of accomplishment.

Pujols led the N.L. with a .579 (11-for-19) batting average, a 1.105 slugging percentage, a .652 on-base percentage and 10 RBI, and was tied for the league-lead with four doubles. In addition, the seven-time All-Star was second in the N.L. with 21 total bases and tied for third with 11 hits and two home runs.

The 28-year-old first baseman posted four straight multi-hit and multi-RBI performances from August 20-24, including consecutive three-hit and three-RBI games on August 22nd and 23rd vs. Atlanta. The 2005 N.L. MVP homered in back-to-back games on August 23rd and 24th vs. Atlanta. Pujols currently has an eight-game hitting streak and is batting .359 (151-for-421) on the season, tied with Atlanta's Chipper Jones for the N.L. lead, with 28 home runs and 87 RBI. This marks the seventh time that Albert has earned N.L weekly honors. He has been named N.L. Player of the Week in each season since 2001 except for 2004.

I just don't even get who else is in this argument. Is there another first ballot HoFer (who is still playing like a first ballot HoFer!) that I'm missing on the Cardinal's roster?

ok i could hear an argument for brian barton

bnw i believe that is what is called a small sample size especially in relation to ryan ludwick's season (note that ludwick has more homers and more rbi than pujols, and rbi is the best indicator of an MVP player as we all know)

you rite. another aberration: those two weeks when Albert was injured and Ludwick ~.180.

The 28-year-old first baseman

Stop right there.

Proof that Gary Cohen of the Mets crew, admittedly a very good play-by-play man, is overpraised: He too said last night that Ludwick is having a better year than Pujols.

The War Against Counting Stats will take another generation to win.

Justin (Chicago): So we really do believe that Pujols was actually born in 1980 still?

Rob Neyer: (12:51 PM ET ) Given that he's showed no real aging pattern at all, I'm beginning to wonder if he's not an immortal, like Thor or Hercules.

so is he the best player on his team yet

jeez, even SUTCLIFFE said last night Pujols shd be MVP. (and cited OBP & SLUG; millennium arrives)

Motherfuckers that give Howard 1st place votes should be banned from life.

THAT'S RIGHT I SAID MOTHERFUCKERS -- THIS TIME IT COUNTS

they need to enact a sportswriter pogrom if pujols gets anything less than 100% of the 1st place votes

Walking across the clubhouse to his locker, Manny Ramirez literally went out of his way to say that he didn't deserve to be the NL most valuable player and that Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals did. "I voted for Pujols," Ramirez said.

But not before threatening to eat the heads of all his teammates' children.

so the man gets a night off and his team - best record in baseball - proceeds to lose to the Nationals - with the worst record in baseball.

jusayin.

^I started Pinero in vorppedminds. One earned run.

just blew out 'lectric lights a la Redford

Knocking out the "I" in "Big Mac" wasn't quite as cinematic as the Natural, but still impressive!

MLB Network is not a movie

(The Natural isn't much of one, either)

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/getty/00/fullj.76e1df41fb17254ec099ed1406587afa/76e1df41fb17254ec099ed1406587afa-getty-85134110jm034_st_louis_card.jpg

JESUS CHRIST

dont understand why they pitch to him

Me neither, but I'm glad they do.

After opening the third inning with a fly out, Pujols returned to the Cardinals clubhouse to review video. There he predicted to assistant hitting coach Mike Aldrete that his next at-bat would ricochet off the yet-to-open Royals Hall of Fame behind the visitors bullpen in left field. “He didn’t say he might hit the Hall of Fame. He said he would hit the Hall of Fame,” Aldrete recalled . . . When Meche finally threw the pitch, Pujols swatted it some 423 feet off a Hall of Fame window.

http://twitter.com/JesseSanchezMLB/status/2367035793

CARDINALS ACQUIRE MARK DeROSA FROM INDIANS; REDBIRDS SEND CHRIS PEREZ & PLAYER-TO-BE-NAMED TO TRIBE...

cubs fans will love that! would rather have lost Mott over Perez :/

this fucking guy.

they can give him the mvp already

you could rearrange the seasons of this guy's career in any order you'd want and they'd all look the same, this flat pattern of awesome.

Three singles--that's how close Pujols is to an N.L. Triple Crown this morning. I got really caught up in Delgado's bid in 2000, and in the end the only thing he led the league in was doubles. (He finished with a little more or a little less than 90% of the league-leading total in each of the TC categories.) I was six when McClain won 30--I know that won't happen again unless the game profoundly changes. Dimaggio's streak, all but impossible; .400, maybe. I've always believed there'll be another TC, though. How do people assess Pujols' chances?

sorta buy in 2 the argument from earlier in the season that theres not enough around him 4 giant RBI #s (tho i guess now w/ derosa [who is hurt?] & a non-pitcher batting 9th maybe im wrong)...idk it'd be interesting to see the stats of his # of ABs w/ RISP vs. say Prince Fielder

~also his IBB #s may start to take off...noticed SF walked him in the 1st inning yesterday

all depends on Wright. Wright is obv off the juice this year, his isoP is about 50% of his career average but he's still hitting for average.

worst troll yet.

btw guys, it's Suggest Ban Shasta Day.

D Wright, NYM 3B
Miscellaneous Batting
SEASON IsoP
2004 NYM .232
2005 NYM .217
2006 NYM .220
2007 NYM .222
2008 NYM .232
2009 NYM .153
Total -- .217

Albert Pujols
SEASON TEAM IsoP
2001 StL 0.281
2002 StL 0.247
2003 StL 0.308
2004 StL 0.326
2005 StL 0.279
2006 StL 0.340
2007 StL 0.241
2008 StL 0.238

― Steve Shasta, Friday, May 16, 2008 11:25 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

JUST LOOK AT HIS IhoP, PEOPLE! LOOK AT IT!

bnw there was another post you must have missed that had pujols best isoP season <<< than bonds final season.

http://i44.tinypic.com/2e54c40.gif

get back to me in September, Trollbot. With DW's ROAD numbers.

WALK HIM

worst troll yet.

btw guys, it's Suggest Ban Shasta Day.

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, July 2, 2009 10:23 AM (Yesterday)

oh the irony ;_;

bases loaded, 3 run lead and you pitch to Albert = GO CRY WITH MARK PRIOR DUSTY LOL

O_O

This just made my night! Is he back in the league lead for RBI's now? *checks*

WELL?

lol rbis

I got sidetracked by pizza time. It appears that Prince Albert Pujols er reigneth

wau espn just ran a stat...alb w/ bases loaded is 7-9, 5 HR, 2.444 slg this year

still hasn't been walked with the bases loaded...

rockin' his tongue sneer tonight too :P

Good lord, even off the bench he's unstoppable.

He wasn't far off. A few years ago, I tried to come up with a quick and easy method of ranking post-Yastrzemski Triple Crown bids. I'll just link to the piece rather than try to describe it here. By my estimation, Pujols edged ahead of Larry Walker's 1997 season for the seventh-closest run at a Triple Crown since Yaz. The top seven: 1. Dick Allen ('72), 2. George Foster ('77), 3. Jim Rice ('78), 4. Mike Schmidt ('81), 5. Dante Bichette ('95), 6. Willie McCovey ('69), 7. Pujols ('09). He came up 9 hits and 6 RBIs short.

185 assists, a record.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4531189

Oops--the link didn't work.

Okay, once more with feeling: http://phildellio.tripod.com/carlos.html. If that doesn't take, I give up.

http://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpghttp://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpghttp://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpghttp://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpghttp://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpghttp://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpghttp://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpghttp://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpghttp://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/St+Louis+Cardinals+Photo+Day+L4U5t3Ot9o0l.jpg

By my estimation, Pujols edged ahead of Larry Walker's 1997 season for the seventh-closest run at a Triple Crown since Yaz.

― clemenza, Sunday, October 4, 2009 7:59 PM (1 hour ago)

clemenza, let me aid with your research:

Bonds 2002: .370 (1st) / 46 HR (2nd) / 110 RBI (5th) but also SIXTY EIGHT (ie, 68) INTENTIONAL walks, shattering his previous record of 52. Had Bonds been pitched to, he would easily have won the triple crown this year, as well as a few other years.

pujols 185 assists for a first baseman broke a record held by bill buckner

Pujols fell short of the 2009 quadruple crown:

#2 in errors by a 1B
13 errors to Ryan Howard's 14.

Ranked dead last in Zone Rating of all qualified MLB 1B.

True enough, except that precisely because Bonds wasn't pitched to, he never had a realistic shot at the Triple Crown. In 2001, he finished 23 RBIs behinds Sosa; 18 behind Berkman in 2002 (probably his closest bid; he won the batting title and was only 3 home runs behind Sosa); and 30 behind Castilla in 2004. In my original piece, I established a cut-off that said you had to have a minimum of 90% of the league-leading total in any one category, and Bonds didn't reach the 90% bar for RBIs in any one of those years. I wasn't trying to figure out who might have won a Triple Crown under ideal conditions, it was just a cold calculation of who actually did come the closest.

And if you start throwing what-ifs into the mix, I'd say that absent the 68 intentional walks (and the other who-knows-how-many intentionally unintentional walks...), there's no way Bonds hits .370 that year.

Also, he's a drug cheat.

"Ranked dead last in Zone Rating of all qualified MLB 1B."

Where are you seeing that? Fangraphs has him at middle of the pack for UZR as does Hardball Times for RZR.

lol, Trollie loves batting average and errors.

bye bye bone spurs
cynical theory - cardinals hold off on new deal until surgery to fix what is causing spurs i.e. tommy john

Eric (Denver): I know he's not a free agent this offseason, but what do you see happening with Albert Pujols? Can the Cards sign him to an A-Rod-type deal and still have the money to field a perennial contender that can not only capture the NL Central title, but go deep into the playoffs?

Joe Sheehan: The Cardinals' problem isn't going to be money, but talent. They haven't done a real good job of integrating young players into their roster, and they've been drafting so low in the first round that they haven't had the shot at high-impact talent at the top of the draft. They can afford to pay Pujols $25-30MM/year, and still have $80-90 million for everyone else; the question is can they distribute that $80-90 million optimally, with a number of low-paid producers supporting a few other high-dollar players.

his reigneth, continueith!

unanimoso!

lol at pts for Tejada

i love derrek lee but it's strange that someone gave him a second place vote

one 3rd place vote for todd helton, one 4th place for holliday, one 5th place apiece for carpenter, wainwright (vote split ;_;), werth, and yunel escobar.

has he ever played healthy?

according to the mang, the only day he is 100% healthy is day 1 of spring training.

seriously, seems like he spends every off season in the hospital. i think alex in SF said (maybe on this thread?): "imagine if he played healthy"

just remember tony lolrussa didn't want to play him until 300 yr old bobby bonilla got hurt

He won the league Triple Crown for the decade -- first to do it since Ted Williams in the '40s.

I think he won the Triple Crown for today, too. Pujols and Halladay begin their MVP showdown on even footing.

I have this guy on my fantasy team

feel like a total geek saying that but it's true & I'm stoked

Tell the rest of your lineup to go have a fantasy vacation--Albert will take care of all.

shield your eyes

hoffman's got nuffin

nice poke

that was really predictable

from Hell's Bells to Tinkerbelle

lol

so much reigneth

<3 albert

~fin~

casey mcgehee, he reigneth

3 hr game for prince albert today

single handedly pwning my fantasy team

I got way ahead of myself last year, but geez:

HR -- 32 (first, leading by one)
RBI -- 88 (first, leading by seven)
BA -- .316 (second, trailing by four points)

The four points translates to two hits; he's two singles shy of a Triple Crown right now.

I know I should be rooting for Votto (not just from Toronto, but the exact part of Toronto--Etobicoke--where I am), but I've been waiting forever for someone to win the Triple Crown, and Albert seems like an infinitely better bet. I especially like that he's got a cushion in RBIs, the one category that you can't really control. If my own team didn't have the third baseman having the fluky year, Cabrera would have a real shot too.

Sorry--expect updates after a good night (i.e., a good night for Albert):

Pujols -- 33/92/.319
Votto -- 29/86/.323
Some other guy -- 31 HR

I know it's August 24, but I find this is getting almost no attention at all. Is that because 1) it is way too early, 2) a Triple Crown involves three categories at once, and people don't process three things at once, 3) people take Pujols for granted (especially in a year where, compared only to his own established levels, his numbers are down), 4) Joey Votto's still not well known enough, or 5) coming out of the PED era, people simply don't get excited anymore about anything involving a hitter (or, here, two hitters) chasing some benchmark?

in my case, it's cuz BA and RBI aren't too important

also, you know, there's PRESEASON FOOTBALL, the Ground Zero Mosque of sports.

BA and RBI aren't too important

I come from a universe were they were, and I haven't abandoned them yet. They still have their uses. But you'll be glad to know that Albert's up there in the VORP/WAR/OPS+ race too.

ha ha. i'm sure the rise of sabermetrics might have something to do with disinterest in the triple crown.

Probably--certainly among writers. And I didn't mean to sound snarky. My head knows that BA is overrated, and that RBI are far too context-driven, but the Triple Crown still holds a lot of irrational aura for me. I started watching three years after Yaz's, so it's something I've been waiting forever to see.

the MSM is still obsessed w/ trad stats.

it would be funny if Pujols won the TC for his 6th- or 7th-best season (guessing)

And also, if Pujols does it--as opposed to, say, a Dante Bichette cosmic illusion, or even a Carlos Delgado having a career year--it will actually feel like something significant. Which is the main reason I'm pulling for him over Votto.

It's his 6th- or 7th-best for raw numbers, but is it in the context of the rest of the league? I don't know. This is the year of the pitcher (I made that up myself, just now), so intuition tells me that the mere fact he's so close to a Triple Crown must mean that he's dominating as much as ever in the context of league-wide stats.

is offense really down all that much?

Like I say, I don't know. But when you've got a guy leading the league with a .323 average, and a few starting pitchers with E.R.A.s in the low 2.00s, I have to believe so, at least in the N.L. Would .323 have even put you in the Top 10 seven or eight years ago?

probably - but i think avg leaders are usually roughly 25 points higher.

I'm amazed, but you may well be right. Here's a quick comparison of the NL this year to 2002, the year Bonds hit .370, and to '98:

1998: .262/.332/.410, 4.23
2002: .259/.331/.410, 4.11
2010: .257/.325/.401, 4.06

There's been some decline in offense, but not nearly as much as I would have guessed.

I seem to recall there are a lot more pitcher friendly parks in the league these days (SF, SD, ?), not that those slowed Bonds down much.

SF is a hitter's park according to bbref park factors... not sure where it got its reputation as a pitcher's park, i think it's just because the giants' offense has been so horrible since bonds left.

By the way, I'm pretty partial to "Clemenza," but if I do ever change my handle, I'm claiming ownership of "The Ground Zero Mosque of Sports" right now--thank you, Morbius.

Nothing stopping you from being "The Ground Zero Mosque of Sports (clemenza)"

EXCEPT THIS!

well that did not work out at all.

ok, it's yours.

after tonight's game, pujols is at .322 and joey votto is at .323

anyone see anything about what was the latest in a season that anyone's been leading for the triple crown since the last one?

There's a link somewhere upthread to a piece I wrote about Triple Crowns a few years ago, the year Delgado made a run at one, where I tried to weigh who's come the closest since '67. But I would think it'd be hard to find out who's led all three at the latest date since then, because my guess is that it wouldn't be very late at all; I wouldn't be surprised if no one's led all three after June or July. As opposed to chasing .400, where I know there have been at least a couple who where there in August and beyond (didn't Brett nudge over .400 in early September?).

Anyway, Votto had a big night last night, and Albert was 0-4. Canadians--I hate them.

Bonds would have won a couple times if he wasn't intentionally walked a zillion times. I think that's when people stopped caring about the triple crown.

Really? Bonds was so manifestly unpopular, I find it hard to believe he would have affected anybody one way or the other. If you didn't care about the Triple Crown to begin with, you still don't; if you did (like me), you still do. We went through the intentional walks upthread; without them, I don't think he ever would have won that batting title.

Batting titles, plural. He had 403 AB for the first one, 373 for the next one.

That's cool dude. Must be refreshing in a rip van winkle stylee to live in a world where AB > PA, BA > OBP, RBI > VORP. Keep on keepin on.

if you're hitting so well that people are walking you that often, then how do you not deserve a batting title if you manage to qualify for it regardless

SS: You're absolutely right--other than the intentional walks, Bonds had every indication that he was primed for a couple of 225-hit seasons in his late '30s. Thanks for setting me straight. (I sometimes get the feeling that Bill James must feel like Dr. Frankenstein when he takes a look around at what he unleashed unto the world.)

(I'm not saying that Bonds didn't deserve the batting titles that he clearly won. What I am saying is that he wouldn't have won them without the IBB--that there was no way he was going to maintain those averages in the normal course of events.)

Well thanks for your opinion...

I guess you'll always have Carlos Delgado...?

ironically, if he wasn't going to maintain those averages then the IBBs were probably mostly incorrect moves

I don't know the ins and outs of analyzing IBB. Bonds was hitting HR at such a phenomenal rate that, even if his average had dropped, probably there was a net gain for the teams that were walking him. I did feel at the time that a complete panic had overtaken the league with regards to pitching to Bonds that was a little out of proportion.

i just did some quick math, and if NO ONE had IBBed bonds in 2004 when he got IBBed 120 times, he would have had to hit .308 in those extra 120 PAs to maintain his batting title lead over Helton. and that's making the stupidly conservative assumption he draws 0 unintentional walks in that span, otherwise the number dips down below .300.

Now, if we could only determine each instance of an intentional "unintentional" walk...

in 2002 he was IBBed 68 times, and he would have needed 11 hits in those 68 PAs (.162)

i think it's safe to say he would have won the 2002 one, 2004 is less clear-cut but who cares

Good point--maybe he would have won the batting title after all. Here's a slight variation for 2004. Since a whole bunch of his non-intentional walks were, realistically, intentional walks too, I looked at his season in terms of 100 walks period, adding back 132 AB. That would have given him 505 for the season, in which case he would have needed 176 hits to beat Helton; he would have needed to go 41/132, or .310. Yeah, I think you can safely say he would have done that. That would still leave the RBI leg of the Triple Crown, where he finished 30 behind Castilla. So he would have needed 31 RBI in 132 AB--a pretty good clip, but manageable. Home runs, he would have cleaned up. So: in a more normal 100-walk season, he might indeed have won the Triple Crown.

Curiously enough, I'm still excited about Pujols' run.

I made a silly mistake in my 225-hit comment upthread--that'd be true only if nobody walked him all season. Duh.

"Bonds would have won a couple times if he wasn't intentionally walked a zillion times. I think that's when people stopped caring about the triple crown."

I thought that BA was based on plate appearances not at bats?

BA titles that is.

Eligibility is based on PA--3.1 per game, I think. I seem to recall there's a provision that if you fall short of that, but would have won anyway with the minimum PA, you still get the title. That happened once...Ted Williams?

"I think that's when people stopped caring about the triple crown."

I think the general rise of sabermetrics had more to do with this than Bonds actually.

If the Reds win the division, the TC is Albert's best/only hope for being MVP again, assuming Votto stays on track

If Pujols and Votto are still really close in three weeks, we'll find out whether people care or not. I say they will. Because so few players ever get close, it's just not on the radar. And because it involves three things instead of just one, it's not as accessible as some guy making a run at .400, or going on a 30-game hitting streak. If people turn out not to care, I seriously doubt whether sabermetrics will have anything to do with it. For some writers, probably; for the average fan, who still does not care or even know anything about VORP, no way. A much simpler explanation would be record fatigue, and the general distrust of offensive numbers that I think still (rightly or wrongly) exists.

i think it's weird how much people associate steroids with offense, when pitchers were taking them too! throwing a ball really hard to me seems intuitively more closely linked to pure strength than squaring up a baseball. i guess it's because it was hitting records that were broken during the era rather than pitching records.

i mean, people are starting to raise eyebrows at jose bautista, but no one would have suggested that ubaldo was using after his absurd first half, nor was greinke accused at any point last year.

Possible explanation: the power of first impressions. Steroids first became a story with McGwire, and from there it just kind of stuck that it was an offensive issue. (Not saying that you're wrong.)

guess it's because it was hitting records that were broken during the era rather than pitching records.

Pedro broke records and was arguably the greatest pitcher ever during his peak, and Randy Johnson took his game to a new level and was pitching out of his mind in his late 30's. Nobody cared because they didn't look like muscled freaks (just ordinary freaks) and OF COURSE every sportswriter and casual fan can spot a steroid user from a mile away.

RJ sort of looks like a freak.

Yeah I'd def say dude looked like an extraordinary freak.

Johnson didn't come into the league at 5-10, though; he didn't grow a foot.

they didn't look like muscled freaks (just ordinary freaks)

there was nothing ordinary about RJ. i was thinking more like carnival freak.

Pedro didn't break any of the Sacred Pitching Records (which are all unbreakable due to changes in pitcher use and the deadball era and nolan ryan's freakish rubber arm)

What sacred pitching records? I guess the closest thing would be the single season strikeout records, but no pitching record comes close to being as sacred as 56 or 755 762.

Pedro owns the single season and career records in Adjusted ERA+, which levels the playing field between him and the dead ball guys. Bob Gibson's 1.12 ranks "only" seventh all-time (and behind Greg Maddux's two best seasons).

i was thinking single-season and career for the pitching "triple crown" stats of strikeouts, wins, ERA

Where did this Joey Votto dude come from.

he's been around for a couple years

he hit about this well last year but missed a couple months so he didn't have the counting stats to get him noticed

Etobicoke.

Pedro owns the single season and career records in Adjusted ERA+

Well...he was phenomenal during that time frame, but that's what I meant earlier about Sabermetrics not being on the radar of the average fan (not today, and even less so then). If you think interest in Pujols and Votto is minimal, I can guarantee that someone chasing the Adjusted ERA record this year would be greeted by the sound of less than one hand clapping.

just hit #400.

Joey Votto has been pretty good hitter since he got his Sept call up in 2007. He was kind of streaky for his power hitting his first couple of years, seeming to hit his homers in bunches. The guy has been a freaking witch going to the opposite field and he hits lefties pretty well. That homer he hit off Kershaw and both yesterday against the Giants were to left field. While I am sure over his career, Great American will help his power numbers, so far his HR splits are actually better on the road (helped by this west coast swing). I'm sure not having Encarnacion playing third has helped, but Votto has really noticably improved at first base this year. One of the questions for next season is whether Votto would perhaps consider being moved to left field, as the Reds top prospect Yonder Alonso might be ready for the bigs, but they say the guy doesn't have the speed or arm to play in the outfield.

Pujols is in another category, the guy has been so good for so long. I'd love it if Votto could end up with a decade like that.

he's the only ball player i can think of from my hometown. if he had a decade like that i would likely become locked in perpetual orgasm.

yonder can't play any position at first, where he is actually pretty decent

the kid can really, really hit, but he's pretty much going to be a worse version of all star -- potential to be a perennial all star but votto is a potential perennial MVP -- i wouldn't jeopardize that by trying to move votto to another position

what they need to do is evaluate a position of weakness (maybe an OF prospect as insurance against stubbs/bruce flaming out) and trade yonder for a player at that position

lol at that whole post

can't play any position BUT first

he's pretty much going to be a worse version of VOTTO

they are gonna be a potential powerhouse tho -- yasmani grandal is fucking sick

I STILL BELIEVE in jay bruce

he's gonna hit 35HR next year (i've said this the past 2 years too but This Time It Counts)

yeah i mean he's not having a horrible season or anything

stubbs i think is teetering on the brink of major bust

or maybe he's just sophomore slumping, idk

stubbs is a good defensive CF though, he doesn't have to hit that well to be an average player.

also true

is this actually happening

just this whole game

this game is a literal nightmare

whoops, too many cards threads at once

I think Joey Votto could do OK in left, the guy can run quite well and seems to have enough arm to hit a cutoff guy. I think if the Reds prime the pump and come up with a big enough contract, I think JV might consider the move as he seems like a dude that really wants to WIN. I love Gomes as a personality, but left is kind of a black hole for the club. Alot of Reds fans are wanting to give Alonso away on tons of dumbass trade ideas, I just know they let him go they will regret it unless it is tied to bringing back Hanley Ramirez.

Stubbs could do better just by even putting the ball in play, his speed would get him another hit a week. The guy is a K machine, then again so is Chris Heisey and Jay Bruce for that matter.

i would likely become locked in perpetual orgasm

TMI

i was thinking single-season and career for the pitching "triple crown" stats of strikeouts, wins, ERA

I figured that ... I guess it's a bit strange that the people always make a big deal about guys chasing the hitting triple crown, but nobody says anything about the pitcher's triple crown. I think Clemens, Pedro, and Santana have all done it in the past 15 years, and maybe Johnson did too? It should be a big deal even to people who only care about conventional stats. It should be an even bigger deal when somebody does it during a hitter's era.

Adjusted ERA+ is fairly basic stuff, it seems like it wouldn't be too hard to get more people to start using it (even OBP and SLG are standard these days). Unless people really do think that Bob Gibson in 1968 was twice as good as any pitcher in the game today.

Pitching triple crown winners:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/awards/pitrip.shtml

(all the guys I mentioned, plus Jake Peavy)

And over the last 30-40 years, it's been just as rare as the hitting TC. Between 1972 and Clemens in 1997, only Dwight Gooden managed it (1985). In the AL, Clemens was the first to win the TC in 52 years! (as a Jays fan, I should have remembered that)

as a J's fan i've been purging Clemens from my memory.

As a Jays' fan (I think we just completed a Triple Crown), I do remember some coverage of Clemens' two TCs, but you're right, not a whole lot. I have no explanation as to why. There was a wire-service story in one of the Toronto papers this morning about Pujols and Votto chasing the TC, so maybe it's just about to get some attention. The story reminded me that Yaz and the other most recent TC winners were all in the AL; no one's done it in the NL since Medwick in '37.

One thing that jumped out at me when I looked at the Wikipedia list of TCs (they put hitters and pitchers on the same page) is the quality of names on there. The majority of players were first-tier, overwhelming HOF'ers, and the rest, almost without exception, were career stars of one magnitude or another. More than the MVP or Cy Young lists, I'd say (partly, but not wholly, explained by the fact that awards are subject to the whims of voters). The list of AL hitters is especially daunting: Lajoie, Cobb, Foxx, Gehrig, Williams (twice), Mantle, Robinson, Yastrzemski. When Yaz is the worst player on the list, that's some list.

I'm going to pretend I didn't just find out from an ILE thread that Pujols will be at the Glenn Beck rally this weekend.

I STILL BELIEVE in jay bruce

he's gonna hit 35HR next year (i've said this the past 2 years too but This Time It Counts)

― ciderpress, Thursday, August 26, 2010 10:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

apparently batting him leadoff was the secret catalyst

great timing huh

I'm going to pretend I didn't just find out from an ILE thread that Pujols will be at the Glenn Beck rally this weekend.

― clemenza, Friday, August 27, 2010 2:07 PM (6 hours ago)

wow, just when i was starting to get lukewarm to the guy... lol.

apparently batting him leadoff was the secret catalyst

i like to call him "Jay the Bruce". that is all.

JR (Vegas)

Regarding the Triple Crown, I know RBI is a meaningless stat, having said that, I think it would still be fun to see Votto or Pujols win the Triple Crown. What are your thoughts?

Klaw (1:24 PM)

Mixed. On the one hand, it's fun to see someone chase a record or milestone that hasn't been touched in 40 years. On the other, won't it lead to a new emphasis on or love affair with RBI?

That's like every bad stereotype about "stats" guys summed up in two lines. That might be the dumbest thing that KLaw's ever said in a chat.

B-b-but it WOULD reinforce the notion that RBI is a valuable stat.

I like that little exchange; I think it's fine to have mixed feelings about the significance of a TC. (I guess I consider mixed feelings a victory from a sabermetrician.) The one part I find silly is the questioner's blithe description of RBI as meaningless. They're not meaningless! Flawed, sure, like a lot of stats. But if you were to go through everything Bill James has ever written, and I'd be surprised if he ever described RBI as meaningless. (Law's concern that a Triple Crown will lead to mass stupidity is kind of funny, though.)

RBI make Joe Carter's career look Hall-worthy. They are meaningless in terms of evaluating players comparatively, so I don't know what other meaning they could have.

...unless it's "I was attached to them in my youth, just like w/ Laverne & Shirley"

I wrote a mammoth thing for my old fanzine on how wildly deceptive Carter's RBI counts were (using mostly situational stats from the old Elias annuals); I'm well aware of that. But again, it's a big leap from flawed to meaningless. An RBI means that someone was on base and you did something to get him (or, with a HR, yourself) home. That's not meaningless. As to whether you got a zillion chances to do so because you had Rickey Henderson and Roberto Alomar and Tony Gwynn batting ahead of you, like Carter did throughout his career, that's another issue, and you take that into account when necessary. But I still think you'll find that Joe Carters are outnumbered by guys who have high RBI counts because they're very good hitters.

We keep ending up at the same place: you're a true believer, I'm not.

I'm a true believer that you are trolling this board with stale ideas about 5-7 years after people got tired of talking about them.

RBIs are purely circumstantial, with the exception of the HR.

Let me go back to the Jennifer Doyle quote I posted on the sabermetric thread: "and know how to hold contradiction in their head without trying to resolve it." I don't think it's that difficult to navigate your way through the idea that RBI are another indicator of value with some players (most, I'd say), and not so much with others. Instead, "RBI are meaningless" seems to me to be grounded in a belief that because you sometimes get a case like Carter's, you better just throw the whole stat out for fear that anybody mistakes Joe Carter for a Hall of Famer. (A mistake the writers rather easily avoided.) That's why I find the Law's "won't it lead to a new emphasis on or love affair with RBI?" so funny. It's like he's afraid that, having internalized the idea that RBI should not be taken at face value, we're going to unlearn that because Albert Pujols wins a Triple Crown.

Shasta: geez, that's really a shame. Someone's questioning some ideas you hold dear, and you don't want to be questioned. Give me a break.

Trolling? Really? Come on.

RBIs are purely circumstantial

Well, no--RBI opportunities are purely circumstantial; to get the RBI, you have to do something.

I have no idea what constitutes trolling; I'm sure there's a sabermetric formula that makes that clear. But I've been posting on ILM and ILE for six or seven years (formerly under my real name); just started posting on ILB maybe six months ago. I mean, is there some kind of hazing ritual I was supposed to sign up for beforehand?

rbi's are a fine descriptive stat. when i read a box score it's cool to know who drove in the runs. i'm not sure that the only value of a stat is that you can use it to compare players.

or do u guys find wpa completely meaningless too

This whole Capt. Save-a-trad-stat is funny, maybe I'm taking you too seriously. What sacred cow are you going to reclaim next Clemenza, perhaps Wins as the absolute measure of a pitching performance? I have no problems with trolling, it's just a bit anachronistic on this board which maybe has a long history of debating trad vs. sabr and IMHO feels a bit played out in 2010, but i think I mentioned on that other thread might be worth revisiting...? Not sure if your arguments are really shifting the paradigm though tbh.

Now I have a hot chick waiting in my bed busy weekend y'all, enjoy your day!

If some of this stuff has been debated before, fair enough. But it's not like I'm pulling it out a hat--on this thread, the question of whether or not RBI mean anything ties in directly with the question of whether or not the Triple Crown means anything, which ties in directly with the subject's thread, Albert Pujols. It's not a mission; it just kind of evolved.

I do find your irritation at having your worldview questioned highly ironic. I'm trying to remember the Abstract where Bill James wrote, "We should question everything. Until my ideas pass into conventional wisdom, though--we can stop questioning at that point and just start congratulating ourselves about how smart we are. And if anybody doesn't fall into line, we'll just yell 'Troll!'" Maybe I missed that one.

B-b-but it WOULD reinforce the notion that RBI is a valuable stat.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 28 August 2010 13:25 (2 hours ago)

No it wouldn't ... people already view RBI as a valuable stat, I don't see how someone would argue that it becomes even *more* valuable because somebody leads the league in RBI + a few other categories.

I was really LOLing at the way Klaw framed his response -- as if RBI was some kind of evil political entity that could rise up and destroy the foundations of baseball.

Clemenza -- I don't know if anyone is really arguing that RBI are completely meaningless, but it's really difficult to use RBI as a metric for comparing players (never mind comparing across eras, but even for comparing players on the same team in the same year ... Joe Carter is a good example of this). Having numbers as a basis for comparing players is like, 99% of the reason that there are so many stats in baseball. What's the point of relying on data that doesn't help to show why Player A is better than Player B?

RBI is also a fairly arbitrary stat ... as you prob know, it was one of the last major official stats to be instituted (in 1921, I think). When you think about it, the definition of RBI is pretty contrived. There's no obvious reason why it should have the kind of importance that it does.

i would argue that stats were developed to describe the events of a game and comparing players is a secondary use.

Stat categories were invented to keep track of what happened in a game, but we use stats for comparing players. You don't really learn anything about players from a single boxscore, but a season's worth of boxscores is meaningful.

Thanks to both of you for your sanity.

NoTime: We both seem to find Law's comment funny for the same reason, so we're starting on the same page. I took "meaningless" right from JR in Vegas's question, and it developed from there. I really and truly am cognizant of the inherent flaws in RBI, and have been for quite some time. Even if I hadn't been, I think any Jays fan who experienced the Carter years would quickly arrive at such an understanding. I think my argument with those guys is simply that I don't want to throw RBI out the window altogether, and, if I'm understanding them correctly, they do.

One thing I like about the Triple Crown is that it ensures RBI do not exist in a vacuum--you also have to hit home runs, and you have to hit for a high average. You're not going to see a Joe Carter-like player win a Triple Crown.

Someone who makes a living evaluating prospects (like Klaw) probably has even fewer reasons to care about RBI ... even old school scouts would probably get laughed at for saying that so-and-so is 2nd on his college team in RBI's, that shows he's a gamer and we should draft him. What do RBI's tell us about a player's raw ability? (answer: probably nothing) So why should we use RBI to gauge ability at the major league level?

(sigh)

You're watching a game. Your team has a runner on a second and the next guy gets a hit and knocks him in. You get excited, he gets an RBI. At the end of the year, there's a number that more or less describes how many times that happened. That's all--not how many times as a percentage, not whether or not he's a better or worse player than they guy he knocked in, and not whether or not he has character. Just how many times. If other people read those things into the number--and I will agree with you that they do--that's their problem; I know how to apply some context, so I don't feel there's any great need to get rid of the number.

ntbt you keep shifting the argument--no one is saying we should use rbi's to evaluate a player's ability.

I wasn't arguing with you guys in my last post, I was trying to make the case for a guy like Klaw (I have no idea if he'd agree with my post or not), at least based on what he implied in his chat comment. Although I think it's a reasonable point -- what happens between amateur and pro baseball where RBI's suddenly matter a lot more to so many people?

I totally agree with clemenza's last post ... if a guy knocks in the winning run in the ninth, he's the hero. If he does it a bunch of times in the season, then that a nice story, and it's worth keeping track of those things.

Last post before I head out for some...what's that called again?..."fresh air." One thing I desire in a statistic is that I have the ability to calculate it myself. One of the reasons that WAR and VORP and Win Shares have limited appeal to me is that they involve a series of calculations that are well outside my scope. Conversely, I think James's RC/27 outs is the greatest stat ever invented because a) it avoids most of the blind spots of traditional stats, b) it produces a number that's very easy to get a handle on (a team of this player would be expected to score this may runs), and c) if I have a calculator handy, I can figure it out myself quickly and easily. I'll give WAR and VORP the first two, but not the third. (Actually, I would always use the easier and slightly less accurate RC/25.5 outs.)

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/116207-albert-pujols-picks-up-award-at-glenn-beck-rally

When will Albert stop winning awards???

(sigh)

You're watching a game. Your team has a runner on a second and the next guy gets a hit and knocks him in. You get excited, he gets an RBI. At the end of the year, there's a number that more or less describes how many times that happened. That's all--not how many times as a percentage, not whether or not he's a better or worse player than they guy he knocked in, and not whether or not he has character. Just how many times. If other people read those things into the number--and I will agree with you that they do--that's their problem; I know how to apply some context, so I don't feel there's any great need to get rid of the number.

― clemenza, Saturday, August 28, 2010 12:28 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is pretty otm, i generally think that no stats are completely worthless as long as you understand exactly what they measure and how they correlate with other measures. i think the attitude of a lot of people like Law is "people aren't gonna stop using this number to evaluate players unless we get rid of it completely" which i don't think is the only approach here.

Heretic. Apostate. Troll. On behalf of Steve Shasta, I cast thee out!

(Fresh air is good. Sunshine is fine.)

on the other hand, i'm not quite sure which i find more gross aesthetically - a stat which tells you something that's unhelpful (RBI) or a stat which tells you something incomplete (AVG)

Unless you believe in a single, all-encompassing stat like Win Shares or WAR claim to be, then all stats are incomplete. I don't think any stat is inherently unhelpful either. RBI does tell you something about the season a player is having, it just doesn't measure what a lot of people think it measures.

An RBI means that someone was on base and you did something to get him (or, with a HR, yourself) home. That's not meaningless.

No; driving in the run during game X is NOT meaningless. Toting em all up and saying Joe Shlabotnik had 12 fewer than Roy Hobbs this year, THAT'S meaningless.

How can something that has meaning at the game level not have any meaning at the seasonal level? Provided, once again, you're aware of context. I'm not trying to be difficult; I sincerely don't get that.

cause over the course of a season the fact that roy had 12 more than joe basically becomes random--a function of the opportunities that they both had etc. etc.

i mean hell if in a single game joe had 5 and roy had none that doesn't say anything about if joe is a better ballplayer--just that he contributed more in that one game.

btw Shlabotnik's still not a deserving All-Star

a function of the opportunities that they both had etc. etc.

Yes; that's the context. I'm not arguing that we lose that--it's crucial. But the fact that Shlabotnik did this great thing to win last night's game, and he went on to do it 99 more times over the course of the season, I don't want to lose that, either.

This is exhausting. I think I need to go find an argument about racism or abortion or religion, something genial like that.

except not all RBIs are equally "great things"

xp

well I'm tearing you a new one over on the Scott Pilgrim thread :)

yeah clemenza we shouldn't "lose" it but do you see how over the course of 162 games there are so many variables that make it hard to isolate the *meaning* of x rbi's--a problem we don't have in a single game

Acknowledged--six times over!

Thanks for the heads-up, Morbius; answered.

Since this is now the unofficial Triple Crown thread ... I just realized that Halladay has a chance to win the pitching TC this year (he leads in ERA and K, and is one off the lead in W).

I'm assuming that's for both leagues, too. Wow.

0-3 for Albert, down to .316; Votto up to .327, with 3 RBI tonight. I'm ready to switch my allegiance. I'm that loyal.

i like them both but its pretty likely that they'll kill each other's chances at it

Omar Infante (.341) still has an outside shot at the batting title even if he doesn't hit 502 PA.

Will he be close? If not, he'll get charged with a lot oh-fers to bring him to 502.

He's at 370 with 30 games to go...hits leadoff, so he'll probably manage four PA/game. I'm guessing he'll finish right around 500. He's crazy hot this year, I can see him doing it.

I think Ciderpress is probably right, but if one of them does break free of the other, that'll be almost funny if Omar Infante gets in there and mucks things up. Poor guy--he was a villain for getting picked for the All-Star Game, now he can be a villain for winning the batting title.

Ahem, Carlos Gonzalez is htting .326, let's not rule him out quite yet.

That "ahem" was rather prescient--after today's game, Gonzalez is at 31/97/.340. But I guess I'm not as excited by the idea of a Triple Crown per se as I thought I was. I was excited about Pujols winning one. He's out of it now. If Gonzalez were to win, though, it'd be every bit as suspect as most every other great season out of Colorado. He's got a 350-point differential in home/road slugging; he's Ruth at home, Vernon Wells on the road.

This has been some bizarre up-and-down story, though.

Yep, there's no two ways about it - the Triple Crown is a title that Coors will always be a big help with. On the other hand, Matt Holliday, Todd Helton, Larry Walker and Dante Bichette never won a triple crown, and you still need sustained excellence to even get close, so I can live with Cargo getting the plaudits.

I discovered earlier that he's not even on the ballot for 5-tool Player of the Year? Now *that* is dumb.

"Vernon Wells on the road"

Vernon Wells doesn't have an 8 to 1 SO to BB ratio.

75 K, 9 BB--yikes, hadn't noticed that. I just meant that Wells' home run rate and slugging pct. were comparable. And I didn't mean to be dismissive of Gonzalez's season; it'd still be an accomplishment, albeit a compromised one.

As has been pointed out, the fact that players like Cargo are SO strong at Coors makes them (and forgive me if this is stating the bleeding obvious) fantastic players for Colorado to sign. Cargo IS in consideration for the triple crown (and, if you believe some of the more ardent Roxkies fans, the MVP), and if he didn't play at Coors, he wouldn't be. So hallelujah, as a Rox fan, that he does!

Nothing especially startling here, but it does lay out numerically what's pretty clear: Pujols out, Votto longshot, Gonzalez improbably alive.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/cliff_corcoran/09/08/triple.crown.chances/index.html?eref=sihp

(This followed an exchange where KLaw said tying LaRussa staying to Pujols' re-signing was absurd)

John (St. Louis)

Pujols' future is not all about money, you're absolutely wrong about that . . . He isn't a greedy person

Klaw (1:15 PM)

Right. That's why, after the Cardinals overpaid him by a factor of 2.5 for his last pre-arbitration year, he cut them absolutely no discount on the long-term deal, and made a stink about how they had to give him that deal or he'd go year-to-year and leave as a free agent. (I'm not criticizing that stance. Just pointing out that he, like just about every other human being in history, has an inherently greedy streak.)

via Clem Comly of SABR:

Divisional Triple Crown Winners 1969-2009 (196 divisional races)

Williams 1972 E NL 37 122 .333
Foster 1977 W NL 52 149 .320
Rice 1978 E AL 46 139 .315
Bagwell 1994 C NL 39 116 .368
Belle 1998 C AL 49 152 .328
Ramirez 1999 C AL 44 165 .333
Guerrero 2000 E NL 44 123 .345
Holliday 2007 W NL 36 137 .340
Pujols 2008 C NL 37 116 .357

James did something similar a few years ago...I think he may have looked at guys who won or came close to winning their league Triple Crown. I checked Delgado for 2000: he took HR and RBI in the A.L. East, and finished second in BA (almost 30 points behind Garciaparra, though, so he wasn't really close).

It looks like a dead issue now, unless Gonzalez has at least a couple of multi-homer games. Which, if nothing else, shows that whatever you think of RBI or BA, this is a very hard thing to do.

I cant wait to see the list of assholes who dont vote for Pujols as MVP because the Cardinals dont make the playoffs.

well, there are other defensible reasons to list him second or third.

like hitting an infield pop up this year.

i can think of two reasons: Joey. Votto.

Ditto to Thinwall and Morbius. I'd normally agree with you about Pujols, but surely all votes for Votto (vote-o's?) this year are perfectly reasonable. Even a vote for Halladay seems fine, although somewhere along the way they stopped giving MVPs to pitchers.

If you subscribe to James's site, he has a big thing up today in the "Ask Bill" section about why he thinks no one wins the Triple Crown anymore.

Only NL players w/ WARP3 of 8+ are Wainwright, Halladay, Hudson.

is WARP just WAR using BP stats instead of fangraphs/etc ones?

I don't keep track of these things anymore

That's when I'm no longer a by-the-numbers guy. To me, whether Wainwright's WARP or VORP or whatever is a little higher or a little lower than Pujols', he can't be the league MVP because he's not the MVP of his own team. Absent any drastic fluctuations, Pujols is.

i just realized the relevance of the pop-up thing! wow!

^^^ yeah, this kinda blew my mind too

I STILL BELIEVE in jay bruce

he's gonna hit 35HR next year (i've said this the past 2 years too but This Time It Counts)

― ciderpress, Friday, 27 August 2010 02:35 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

has now hit 7 HR in his last 5 games

anyway, Verducci's emphasis on the "value" of TC stats for "casual fans" means about as much to me as "casual" movie fans who think the Academy Awards are definitive.

Surely you'd agree that Verducci is much smarter than, say, a hack movie writer who takes the Academy Awards really seriously.

I surely can't imagine why anyone would care about that accomplishment.

let's put it this way: was Ducky Medwick the last great NL hitter?

Muscles Medwick.

Again, I didn't want to open this up again, because we reached an impasse last time. All I'm saying: Verducci's a smart guy and a good baseball writer, and in that stuff I mitakenly quoted on the steroids thread, I think he does a really good job of conveying why those of us who have fully absorbed 30-some years of Bill James are interested in, even excited by, the (virtually non-existent at this point) Triple Crown chase. I'll read it again, but I don't think Verducci claimed anywhere that Ducky Medwick was the last great N.L. hitter. Once again, I think you're taking our perhaps nostalgic attachment to the concept of a Triple Crown and inferring all sorts of other stuff into that that simply isn't there. James himself has recently written two or three times about the Triple Crown. Not dismissively, but as an interested fan.

I never knew that smart people could be interested in stuff that I'm not interested in.

I'm not saying don't care about it. I'm just saying don't try to convince me that it means anything beyond "this guy had a great season".

It means at least one thing more: "this guy had a great season, and he also did something that no one's done since 1967 because it's a really hard thing to do." I don't think I've made any claims beyond that. And for what it's worth: comparing one's response to an Academy Award winner and one's response to a Triple Crown Winner is perfectly valid, and that's all that Morbius said, and hopefully all that he meant. Because to compare the achievment of winning an Academy Award to the achievement of winning a Triple Crown would be a non sequitur. One is based on the votes of a group of people and is wholly opinion-based; the other measures the actual accomplishments of an individual and is wholly factual. You may not like what it measures, or the way that it goes about measuring it, both those are separate issues.

I wanted Pujols to win because I knew that all of your objections would be taken care of by the fact it was Pujols. Pujols wins the Triple Crown, and I'm pretty sure that when I start looking at home/road splits, and RBI opportunities, and all the rest of it, it won't be a case of "God, no--this guy Pujols is a total fraud!" If Gonzalez wins one, great--I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I'll think, "He had a great season, and he did something that no one's done since 1967," and I'll also think, "He wouldn't have done it had he played somewhere other than Colorado, which really inflates his home stats." That's a lot to keep track of at once. I can do it.

If Gonzo gets the Triple Crown I won't have any objections whatsoever, but if he gets the MVP that's another story.

Comparing MVP winners or Hall of Fame inductees to Academy Award winners, now that would be valid. Baseball writers, for all of the specious picks you can charge them with, are infinitely smarter and more reliable than whoever the hell it is who votes on Academy Awards, especially the past 20-25 years. (I know: "members of the Academy.")

There is only a certain degree to which you can ignore greatness in baseball. Baseball writers know that Alex Rodriguez and JD Drew and Manny Ramirez exist and are useful players, even if they don't always appreciate aspects of their efforts. Meanwhile, Oscar voters generally haven't even heard of the best movies of the year, or appreciate what is good about them.

it's alot easier to make an obscure movie that's very good than it is to be a very good obscure MLB player.

The major difference, undoubtedly, is that Academy Awards are (most of the time) hugely interconnected to box-office and advertising campaigns and lots of other matters that have nothing to do with the films themselves. Even when they appear not to be, they probably are; I figured that "the Academy" was trying to make a statement last year by giving The Hurt Locker best picture over Avatar. (Not saying anything about the films themselves--thought the first was overrated, no interest in the second.) No such economic push-and-pull influences baseball writers, although I suppose that now and again you get a writer tilt towards an underrated/underpaid player in the MVP voting over a 15-million-dollar guy.

Having said all that--here I go being a nostalgic dimwit again--when something I love is nominated for an Academy Award (Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, Man on Wire, etc.), I root for it, and if it wins, I'm irrationally happy.

Joe (Milwaukee)

Just curious as to how long of a deal you would, were you the Cards GM, offer Pujols. He'll age well won't he?
Rob Neyer (12:05 PM)

Look, I'm going to say this now and maybe never again in this space, but ... There are still some reasonably intelligent people with reasonable doubts about Pujols' age. Just for the sake of argument, if he's actually 33 or 34 would you give him eight years? Nine years? Ten?

SHASTA BAIT

'To watch Pujols interact with fans is to watch a prototypical spoiled, arrogant 21st century sports star at his absolute worst'

So glad Pearlman doesn't have a big gig anymore.

haha tru

2011 capsule:

.156/.243/.250
MLB leading 6 GIDPs
2-10 w/ RISP (haha, actually better than w/o RISP)
2 Errors (total of 4 in 2010)

#arbitraryendpoints

#captsaveapoohole

#shastasbestweekever

btw what were they jeering in sf? "Get one hit" or something?

Story on 60 Minutes coming up--is this new?

maybe he reveals something TERRIBLE in the 60 minutes segment...maybe that's why he's been sucking ass all week...just knowing that everyone will know his terrible secret as soon as the segment airs...god what could it be!

It'll be interesting to see him sitting under a high-powered lamp, sweating, getting the third degree from Leslie Stahl.

Maybe he'll finally admit that he's really 34 years old, right Shasta?

7 GiDPs...

i think he noticed how much the yankees overpaid jeter and is trying to emulate his game at all costs

man.

even when the cardinals are winning, it's just not much fun when pujols isn't effortlessly dominating

sorry, it's just a comment from some random on albert's fangraphs page but:

Fun Fact:

ALBERT Einstein had an IQ of 160. That means he is 60% more intelligent than the average human.

that is wrong on so many levels

wait, sorry, albert einstein, not pujuls...so the 160 part may be correct. the other part, not so much. i will stop talking to myself on this thread...when albert finally gets a hit.

didn't he open cold a couple of seasons back and wind up with 40+ HRs?

I think it was 2007, when his final line was .327/.429/.568

One thing that wouldn't surprise me would be if, at 31, Pujols is on the other side of his peak, and that last year's slightly less imposing line is where he settles in for the next couple of years. He starts at a place where he could probably decline 5% a season and still be the best hitter in the game five years from now.

he could have entered a decline phase, for sure. i mean beyond the age issue, one only needs to look back to who was arguably the previous "best righthanded hitter in the game", frank thomas. 7 eye-popping offensive seasons, a couple of off years in his 30-31 age seasons, one more MVP-caliber year, and the rest of the way he was dealing with injuries and only had two more seasons which could be considered HOF-caliber or even approaching his peak. i think big hurt had other issues that pujols does not have (body size, nagging injuries, lost seasons) but sometimes these epic hitters just drop off out of nowhere.

2 AB hitting streak right now

xp no doubt big first basemen have an annoying habit of falling completely off a cliff.

yep, really falling apart

all the cards needed was to feast on the nl west to get it together

2011 capsule:

.156/.243/.250
MLB leading 6 GIDPs
2-10 w/ RISP (haha, actually better than w/o RISP)
2 Errors (total of 4 in 2010)

― City of Jorts (Steve Shasta), Sunday, April 10, 2011 1:52 PM (1 month ago)

Is it okay to talk about this yet? Free agency looming and all...

.267/.336/.415
MLB leading 13 GIDPs
.327 w/ RiSP (major improvement)
5 Errors (total of 4 in 2010, projecting to 16, a career high)

This is a pretty major statistical depression compared to his career #s for a supposed 31 year old ya? Is he hurt again?

errors are a subjective irrelevancy

13 XBH, 14 GIDP

back to full market value, haters?

I realize he's still only slugging .473, but if you think that's gonna last...

Albert usually takes it upon himself to prove Shasta wrong.

i'm a hater, not because I think he sucks or anything, but because he calls out other teams for celebrating too much on the field and untucking their jerseys while constantly admiring his own home runs and doing things like high stepping his way to home plate, it's like fuck you dude, you can't have your cake and eat it too. btw I'm almost always pro-celebration

see I pretty much don't pay attention to that stuff (unless it's the Phillies or Braves)

I think Hinske is the only guy we've got right now who really likes the look of his own HRs, and he's not really egregious about it.

I miss Reggie Jackson: "The only reason I don't like playing in the World Series is I can't watch myself play."

For that love/hate question that was posted last week, I should have slightly expanded my answer: I love not just stats in general, but also the statistical symmetry of certain careers. Those few players who never have a less than good year--I've loved looking at the career boxes of such players since I first started obsessing over stats as a kid. He'll have to finish strong, but Pujols is still within range of another .300/40/100 year. I expect Morbius or someone else will point out that who cares if he finishes .297/39/98, the difference means nothing. True enough--but .300/40/100 looks nicer.

.300/40/100 would be nice - but .300/30/100 is his gold standard - he's never failed to reach it.

ZIPS projects him for .289/38/100, fwiw

he's been on fire (aka his normal self) ever since his injury, and in fact for the week leading up to his injury. his at bats have that old inevitability of greatness that they always have

hilarious that .289/38/100 is a "down season" for albert. but it's true that he's been noticeably worse this year. particularly with his walk rate (8.5%). normally he's up around 15-16%.

he got another hit as I was typing that. and earlier tonight, he crushed a HR for ~460 ft - longest HR in nu-Busch Stadium history

Yeah, I forgot he's had a few seasons under 40 HR. Seeing as he's almost cleared the HR bar, I hope he singles in and doubles in enough runs the rest of the way to get to .300/30/100 then. He's got the most perfect career box ever, without even the normal blips, gaps, and slow starts you see in with Ruth, Williams, Bonds, etc.

yeah looking at his year-by-year stats is just beautiful, the man is a machine

my favorite stat about Pujols is that if you take his worst years for BA/OBP/SLG/HR/RBI (not including this season) and assume THAT as his career average, he's still a hall of famer.

okay, that's not really a stat. but still - and I did post this in another thread - but here are the numbers:

.312/.394/.561 with 32 HRs

What happened to his walks?

he's chasing more balls & making contact on more balls out of the zone than he ever has

i'm not sure why that is -- maybe he's pressing? his walk rate has actually been worse in the past two months even tho he's boosted his statline considerably. idk what to make of it.

Perhaps pitchers are sensing he's more vulnerable this season and pitching more strikes to him? I'm pretty sure there's a way to find out somewhere but I wouldn't know where to start.

The games I've seen with him it seems like they're able to get him to chase a lot of high fastballs and good curveballs in the dirt, but he seems to have made some adjustments as of late.

Huge game last night. .300/40/100 definitely within sight; .400/.600, not going to happen.

16 rbi the harder part now. pretty amazing 11 years.

He's a little on the fence there--16 in 25 games works out to almost exactly a 100-RBI rate--but he just needs to maintain his current pace, which is historically below normal.

Currently sitting at .303/36 HR/97 RBIs.

I check the boxscore every night; .300/40/100 still within reach, although 4 HR in 8 games a stretch. He's definitely moved up the MVP ladder the past few weeks--6th or 7th?

.300/30/100 is the benchmark that he's hit the last 10 years though, and it looks like he'll come close, pending a few more RBIs.

he'd deserve MVP votes only if he manages to carry the cards to the wildcard. otherwise, i'm just remembering all of those inning-ending ground ball double plays he hit into during the doldrums of April and May.

He's up to 29 GDP, a career worst--most years he's been in the 19-23 range. .300/30/100 should be a cinch on the RBI front (3 more); if he misses, it'll be average that does him in. The Ted Williams scenario: he goes into the last game of the season hitting .299573 or something--would he play or sit (assuming the wild card's not at stake)?

How did the Cardinals end up 2.5 off the Braves in the Wild Card?

They've won 11 of their last 13 while the braves have lost a handful of close games and been kinda mediocre down the stretch

jeezus clem, sitting to protect .300, a true dinosaur-era chestnut

He'd be protecting the beauty and symmetry of his career box, not the actual (and meaningless) difference between .299 and .300...but I know you don't care about such stuff!

plus they finish at Houston, so if he can't light them up...

ha ha