Diamond Futures Retrospective - What Did We Expect From Albert Pujols?

As Albert Pujols is putting the finishing touches on a ‘decade triple crown’, a feat achieved previously by only Rogers Hornsby and Ted Williams, he is clearly stamping himself as one of the greatest hitters of all-time. The real question is…should we be surprised? To try to gain some perspective, I went to the filing cabinet and pulled out an article we wrote six years ago…

How Good Is He?
Originally published June 13, 2003

In February of 2001, coming off of a stunning MWL debut, we ranked Pujols as the #9 prospect in baseball. Eight months later, I wrote in a column that, not only had we just witnessed one of the better rookie classes in a long time, but that the Rookie of the Year performance, produced by Albert Pujols, was unquestionably the best major league player debut of any post World War II player. Well, as Albert Pujols is now nearly midway through his 3rd season and approaching 1500 career ABs, I am going to go one further…Albert Pujols has gotten off to the best start of any player to lace up a pair of spikes in the last 60 years. While that’s, both, a bold statement and some pretty rare air, the most amazing thing is that it isn’t even close.

Using Bill James’ Win Share formula, I examined all players, beginning their career after 1940, that had more than 70 Win Shares in any decade, or more than 250 Win Shares in their career, or was their league’s top rookie performer. From that list I determined the 20 best 3-full season starts. Then to normalize the numbers, I looked only at each players first 1500 major league At Bats. The following chart is the 20 best career starts, sorted by OPS:

Player,Age – AVG; OBA; SLG; OPS; RC; R; RBI; SB

A. Pujols, 23 - 0.336; 0.405; 0.615; 1.020; 392.7; 308; 335; 3

F. Thomas, 25- 0.321; 0.447; 0.550; 0.996; 409.8; 285; 296; 8

S. Musial, 23 - 0.343; 0.419; 0.537; 0.956; 363.0; 276; 221; 21

E. Mathews, 22 - 0.278; 0.382; 0.557; 0.939; 346.9; 269; 278; 15

M. Piazza, 27 - 0.323; 0.376; 0.559; 0.934; 328.1; 241; 314; 5

V. Guerrero, 23 - 0.314; 0.360; 0.565; 0.925; 320.2; 242; 263; 26

R. Allen, 24 - 0.311; 0.381; 0.541; 0.922; 330.4; 272; 225; 22

N. Garciapara, 25 - 0.313; 0.350; 0.556; 0.906; 307.0; 268; 260; 42

A. Rodriguez, 22 - 0.314; 0.363; 0.536; 0.899; 314.4; 281; 249; 59

F. Robinson, 22 - 0.299; 0.360; 0.534; 0.894; 306.5; 270; 205; 24

T. Oliva, 25 - 0.321; 0.367; 0.522; 0.889; 304.3; 257; 229; 36

M. Mantle, 22 - 0.295; 0.387; 0.499; 0.887; 317.0; 295; 272; 21

F. Lynn, 25 - 0.308; 0.374; 0.503; 0.877; 302.8; 253; 245; 26

M. McGwire, 25 - 0.262; 0.352; 0.524; 0.876; 295.8; 245; 292; 2

C. Jones, 24 - 0.291; 0.378; 0.490; 0.868; 305.1; 266; 266; 35

O. Cepeda, 22 - 0.311; 0.346; 0.513; 0.859; 281.7; 222; 250; 46

K. Griffey, Jr, 21 - 0.297; 0.367; 0.476; 0.843; 286.5; 214; 223; 47

C. Ripken, Jr, 23- 0.290; 0.345; 0.489; 0.835; 265.6; 244; 222; 4

Ba. Bonds, 23 - 0.258; 0.342; 0.471; 0.813; 273.5; 268; 165; 85

J. Bench, 22 - 0.279; 0.329; 0.474; 0.804; 245.7; 208; 256; 10

Not only is Pujols the OPS and SLG leader, but he ranks 1st in RBIs, 1st in Runs Scored, 1st in doubles, 2nd in RC (Bill James Runs Created Formula), 2nd in Average, 3rd in HRs (behind McGwire and Mathews), and 3rd in OBA (behind Frank Thomas and Musial). With a date of birth of January 16, 1980, only Hall of Famers Stan Musial (8th Best player of All-time by Bill James) and Eddie Mathews (26th all-time) have gotten off to as good of starts to their careers… And Pujols is showing this year he is still getting better.

To try to add some perspective, as Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro passed the 500HR mark this year at ages 33 and 37 respectively, Pujols projects to pass 500 HRs at age 32, clearly putting Hank Aarons 756 within his reach. 3000 Hits…look for that around age 35. An all-time RBI mark of 2300…try around age 37. While I grant you that 1500 At Bats is only around 15% of the career total he would have to amass to reach these numbers, and a lot can and likely will happen over the next 15 years or so, IF he would have a career free of significant injury, there isn’t a single career hitting mark (except probably Pete Rose’s 4,257 Hits) that is out of his grasp. We are potentially watching one of the greatest hitters of All-Time. As Barry Bonds begins to fade into the sunset over the next couple of seasons, I know who I am going to be watching.

Author’s Note: One day they may be the answer to a trivia question, but here are the eight players we ranked ahead of Pujols in our 2001 prospect rankings: Josh Beckett, Sean Burroughs, Josh Hamilton, Ryan Anderson, Corey Patterson, Jimmy Rollins, C.C. Sabathia, and Nick Johnson