The Dord of Darien

Hey hey hey

Dave asked me the rhetorical question earlier today "why would anybody ever pitch to Albert Pujols?" I’m sure he didn’t really expect an answer, but I’m bored, so I’m going to answer it anyhow. You’re welcome.

In 2004, the San Fransisco Giants won 91 games, scoring a mildly outrageous 850 runs (second in the NL to the Fatinals, who scored 855). The Fatinals that year had Pujols, but they also had Jim Edmonds’ best year (in which he was honest-to-god almost as good as Pujols), Scott Rolen’s best year (which wasn’t behind by a lot), and everybody else on the team (except the catcher) very near league average offensively. They hit 168 HR that were not by Albert Pujols.

The 2004 San Fransisco Giants had Barry Bonds. They had J.T. Snow’s best year, which was good, but didn’t compare to what Edmonds and Rolen did in Fat Louis. Everybody else on the team was near league average. The Giants hit 141 HR that were not by Barry Bonds. A few things to note about Barry Bonds that year. He walked 232 times. He scored 129 runs — precisely six runs fewer than he had hits. A quick survey of his teammates indicates that the average rate that the other players came home per time they got a hit was almost exactly 1/2 (51%), which was just about spot-on the league average. Barry Bonds’ was 96%. He walked 232 times.

Now, historical precedent aside, let’s talk about the smartness of intentionally walking Fat Albert himself. First things first — let’s look at the number of times Pujols does something other than walk. So far this year, he’s had 601 plate appearances, and he’s walked a major-league leading 104 times. That’s 497 plate appearances that have not resulted in a walk. Pujols has 159 hits, which means that if you don’t walk him, he’ll make an out 69% of the time. Pujols has 83 XBH, which is very very good, but means that he has an XBH% when not walking of only 16.7%. If you don’t walk Pujols, he’s 69% likely to make an out, and only 16.7% likely to accomplish anything more dangerous than the one base you’d give him anyway if you walked him. That’s the raw data. Let’s look at situations.

It is insane to walk Pujols with the bases empty and no outs — looking at this same handy chart, we can see the big jump in expected runs with a man on first and nobody out. That’s extreme one. On the other end of the spectrum would be runners on second and third with two outs; walking him there seems a lot more sensible, no? Careful; there’s an elephant in the room we’ve been ignoring, and that elephant’s name is Matthew Thomas Holliday, who, for the half-season he’s spent with Fat Louis, has been even better than Pujols, believe it or not. Holliday is slugging .706 with Fat Louis. There are nineteen non-pitchers in MLB right now who have enough AB to qualify for the batting title who have an OPS lower than that. Matt Holliday’s SLG is higher than the OPS of, among others:

B.J. Upton
Rafael Furcal
Alex Rios
Dummy Rollins
Jeff Francoeur
Aubrey Huff

You sure you want to put an extra man on base to face that?

I might agree that it’s a good idea to IBB Pujols in the specific situation that you have a runner on third, two outs, you’re leading by one, and it’s the ninth inning. Then you also IBB Holliday and pitch to whichever scrub is hitting behind him (Ryan Ludwick? Skip Schumaker? Whoever it is, he sucks, because this is a team that is relying on Pujols and Holliday for almost literally all of its offense). In most situations, though, I have to say you’re better off going for your 69% chance of getting Pujols out.

Unless you’re Kevin Gregg. But, in that case, you’ll probably walk him whether you mean to or not, since you can’t find the fucking plate.

September 9th, 2009 Posted by Darien | Baseball | 2 comments