Pujols' Historic Decline Revisited

[Angelsjunky]

^Maybe a bit of both, and maybe also pitchers fearing him less and throwing more strikes. 

[MacNasty]

I agree his decline is strongly related to his plate approach.  And I also suspect we're going to see a change there, interestingly enough.  Course it's not like he'll go back to being the old Pujols or anything but I do think he will have a better than (an Angels) average season this year.

[disarcina]

he got off to a very slow/ terrible start with us that first season in Anaheim and did not get turned  around until almost the second half of the season - by that time the Halos were pretty much out of the race playing meaningless games. He picked it up enough over the second half to have respectable stats on paper.

have not looked lately but his first five years stats looked OK (not great) on paper.  But once again, he didn't seem to have much offense when it mattered.

Now his biggest threat at the plate seems to be as a GIDP rally killer. 

And, yes, he'll be on our roster for 2019, 2020, 2021.  But hopefully not in the line up every day.

[Angel Oracle]

15 hours ago, disarcina said:

he got off to a very slow/ terrible start with us that first season in Anaheim and did not get turned  around until almost the second half of the season - by that time the Halos were pretty much out of the race playing meaningless games. He picked it up enough over the second half to have respectable stats on paper.

have not looked lately but his first five years stats looked OK (not great) on paper.  But once again, he didn't seem to have much offense when it mattered.

Now his biggest threat at the plate seems to be as a GIDP rally killer. 

And, yes, he'll be on our roster for 2019, 2020, 2021.  But hopefully not in the line up every day.

He actually kicked butt from mid-May on in 2012, OPS of around .950 after mid-May.   That was the last that we saw of vintage Pujols. 

The Halos did stick around until the last week or so of the 2012 season, finishing just 4 games out of the 2nd WC spot with 89 wins.

[ten ocho recon scout]

On 3/11/2019 at 10:46 PM, Angelsjunky said:

I wish it was just the "back side" of the contract.

 

The whole contract is back side, pretty much.

[ten ocho recon scout]

On 3/12/2019 at 11:06 AM, GrittyVeterans said:

I do wonder if his decline in taking walks is simply a result of his approach or a decline in his reaction times and ability to see/recognize balls and strikes

Youd think hed forget trying to hit for power, and focus on contact now. But hes so broke and slow now, he could hit singles to left field now and get thrown out at 1B.

His career spirit animal has basically been marlon brando.

 

[IEAngelsfan]

14 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Youd think hed forget trying to hit for power, and focus on contact now. But hes so broke and slow now, he could hit singles to left field now and get thrown out at 1B.

His career spirit animal has basically been marlon brando.

 

Pujols had sex with Richard Pryor?

[Angelsjunky]

15 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Youd think hed forget trying to hit for power, and focus on contact now. But hes so broke and slow now, he could hit singles to left field now and get thrown out at 1B.

His career spirit animal has basically been marlon brando.

 

I call those BBJ and ABJ: Before Ben & Jerry's and After Ben & Jerry's. 

Ben & Jerry's was founded in 1978 and went national in the 80s. Brando got fat in the 80s. Take that, Snopes.

[Inside Pitch]

On 3/12/2019 at 2:06 PM, GrittyVeterans said:

I do wonder if his decline in taking walks is simply a result of his approach or a decline in his reaction times and ability to see/recognize balls and strikes

Biggest reason for the decline in walks is the lack of intentional passes he gets -- he was never this super patient Tim Salmon batting eye guy.   You also don't have to pitch him smart with the shift on -- nobody has been impacted more by the shift than AP -- Conversely, he's one of the guys that would have likely seen the biggest benefit (improvement) had MLB decided to limit shifts...

 

Edited March 16, 2019 by Inside Pitch

[ten ocho recon scout]

13 hours ago, IEAngelsfan said:

Pujols had sex with Richard Pryor?

Not sure, but he did almost inherit $300 million. Artes millions.

[Lou]

PUJOLS !

[Puget Sound Angel]

Albert is Exhibit A on why you should never sign a player to a 10 year deal.

Unless it's Mike Trout.

[Angelsjunky]

23 minutes ago, RBM said:

This is awesome research, analysis and a really good read. However, I was left with the thought that we are judging Pujols unfairly because of the amazing start of his career. He was better earlier than most like a Ken Griffey or a Robin Yount. I mean I wonder how he would fare if you compared him to the top 400 players through age 31 instead of the top 27. It seems there may be a skewing of the results with the limited sample you used. 

Regardless, as an Angels fan I’m dissapointed how it’s worked out but I still think Pujols can have a big year in 2019. He looked good today - a nice dinger in his second at bat and he just got under on another two swings. 

Thanks. 

I did touch upon players as a whole, if only in brief. For instance, Albert's 110 wRC+ being 380th among all players age 32 and over. 

The bottom line is that while Albert was akin to Johnny Mize and Frank Thomas in their primes, he aged like a Cecil Cooper or Adam LaRoche. He went from being one of the greatest all-time to a fairly pedestrian player. This has been exacerbated by his huge contract which has extended his starting job artificially.