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As much as we might dream that AP's production will evaporate as quickly as Mo Vaughn's or Andruw Jones's did, surely no one believes that he will finish the year with a .561 OPS. The interesting thing about your post is that the normalized stat line and .744 OPS that you calculate are still quite poor for a first baseman making twelve million dollars this year, much less one who is owed an additional $228M for the nine years to follow.

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"This is a heavyweight bout indeed."--John Rooney, Oct. 27, 2011

He swings at more pitches, he lunges and generally looks like he's just not tracking the ball well. Jon Kruk also noticed that his bat is very quiet, there used to be that little up and down motion as he waited for the pitch, and after he said that I looked and it was a good catch. But mostly ... he looks like himself. I personally just think that he really has slowed down just a tick .. and just a tick at this level makes a difference. Some of swinging at poor pitches isn't just pressing, it's pulling the trigger just a hair earlier due to that slowdown. Remember when Pujols NEVER EVER got fooled? I mean EVER. He would wait so long it was basically like hitting a ball off of a tee.

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"Boy, that was exciting. I always say it ain't over til it's over, but that one should've been over a while ago." ~ Yogi Berra

I was browsing through a copy of ESPN magazine in a doctor's office today and they did a piece on which sluggers hit the most HRs in each part of the strike zone. Albert apparently led all RHBs in the majors last year in HRs on pitches out of the zone with 10. You gotta wonder if pitchers around the league are finally getting the memo that he's chasing all those pitches out of the zone.

The other theory is that his bat speed has been declining and he's basically guessing more often at the plate. I don't know how much of a middle ground lies between smashing pitches for XBHs and missing everything though. His contact rate is still in line with his career numbers.


A few days ago, I was trying to figure out what his BABIP "should be" and stumbled across this THT piece about xBABIP. Supposedly, their calculator gives a more accurate xBABIP than simply adding a constant to the LD%. I punched in Albert's numbers for his first 80 ABs and got an xBABIP around .305 which amounted to 3 more hits. Obviously, those hits may have been of the XBH variety but it doesn't seem like a more normalized BABIP (based on his groundouts/flyouts/popups data) bumps his slash line that much.

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Wow, you're right. There's a lot to what you've said here. It fits with the stats. We know he's expanding the zone and that's steadily increased over the past few years. I assumed it was some mental thing... sort of a prideful "I don't need to walk, I need to hit" attitude.

Never once considered that he was slower and had to start his swing earlier. I remember when Albert first came up he would run the count to 0-2 all the time, but you never worried. He was impossible to strikeout and was never fooled. He would wait for his pitch and then put that pitch wherever he had to to get on.

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He looked like he was guessing at the plate during the playoffs last year. Which is why he was never taking any walks. If you have to make your mind up to swing or not before the pitch is thrown (and you're Pujols) you're probably going to choose swing.

No pixie dust for you!

There's obviously going to be a decline in bat speed as he ages, and I think we all saw that coming/happening. I don't think it's to the point where he has to guess before it's even thrown though. That's not to say it's not happening though.

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Thanks for the link, Felix. Good stuff. Certainly looks more robust than the "12%" rule of thumb.

It's official, zero home runs for an entire calendar month.

HA HA HA HA HA

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"This is a heavyweight bout indeed."--John Rooney, Oct. 27, 2011

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Enjoying Cardinal Pixie Dust since 1982.

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