Watch out, American League. Albert Pujols is coming for you.
That’s what he and the Los Angeles Angels would have everyone believe, anyway. And as far as threats go, this one appears credible.
If you haven’t been paying attention, you’ve missed Pujols catch fire. The 35-year-old slugger came into Friday’s action with six hits in his last 18 at-bats, including four dingers (take that, The Associated Press) and a double. This hot stretched upped his spring average to .326, and his spring OPS to .968.
Now, this isn’t totally out of left field. As Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com was quick to note, it’s not unlike Pujols to punish the ball in spring training. As you’d expect for a guy with a .317 career average and 520 career home runs, it’s long been a hobby of his.
But what Pujols is doing this spring is an encouraging follow-up to what happened in 2014. Though he did post a respectable .790 OPS with 28 home runs, he sputtered to the tune of a .745 OPS over his final 127 games.
He looks poised to improve greatly on that, and those who are watching up close say it’s no accident. The Angels shared highlights of Pujols’ on-field performance:
As Angels hitting coach Don Baylor told Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times: “He’s driving off his back leg, swinging with conviction and hitting balls out on a line. He could lead the league in runs batted in because he’s swinging the bat a lot better this spring than he did last spring.”
And Angels third baseman David Freese told Gonzalez: “He looks strong right now. His lower half looks strong; as strong as I’ve seen it over the last few years, watching him and obviously seeing it in person. I think he’s taking care of himself.”
And Angels shortstop Erick Aybar told Gonzalez: “You could tell the difference when you’re in good health, and he is right now.”
There might also be a mental-health component at play. Go and read what Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports has to say about Pujols and you’ll come away believing that he’s in a much better frame of mind than he was heading into more recent seasons.
This is where we acknowledge that this may be nothing more than standard spring training fluff. Since nobody is broken down yet, it’s easy to look healthy in spring training. And as good as Pujols has looked, Baseball-Reference.com rates the quality of the competition he’s faced below MLB-caliber.
However, there might be something to the idea of a rejuvenated Pujols. Health has a lot to do with why the only two sub-.800 OPS seasons of his career have come in the last two, as he was coming off right knee surgery in 2013 and had to rehab from plantar fasciitis after the season. After playing in 159 games in 2014, he got to enjoy a normal offseason for the first time in two years.
If that means that Pujols indeed has his legs under him for the first time in a few years, there are darn good reasons for the competition to be worried.
When you look at what’s gone wrong with Pujols in the last two seasons, the thing that immediately stands out is that his power just hasn’t been the same.
Take, for example, his isolated slugging. As FanGraphs can show, the .179 ISO he posted in his injury-wrecked 2013 season was the worst of his career. And even in his bounce-back 2014, his ISO only rose to .194.
And even a modest rise like that looks misleading when we focus on the average distance of Pujols’ batted balls. Courtesy of BaseballHeatMaps.com, here’s some data:
As recently as five years ago, Pujols was routinely hitting balls farther than 300 feet. But there was a notable decline in his first year in Anaheim, and he actually hit a new low in 2014, despite his increased power production.
Sure, being old doesn’t help. But not having a strong base to hit off could also feed into a decline like that. If Pujols’ lower half is as healthy as he and others say it is, then it really wouldn’t be that surprising to see him put a charge into the ball more regularly in 2015.
The result could very well be him pushing his isolated power north of .200 again. Practically speaking, that could mean a run at 30-35 home runs instead of 25-30 home runs.
But there’s another potential benefit of Pujols having a strong base underneath him. In addition to improved power, it could lead to improved consistency.
That Pujols posted the lowest on-base percentage of his career (.324) is testament enough to how he struggled with consistency in 2014. A big reason why has to do with how teams had him figured out.
As Gonzalez noted in February, Pujols was shifted to pull 224 times in 2014. That’s over 30 percent of his 695 plate appearances, which is an absurd rate for a right-handed hitter.
But it’s justified in Pujols’ case. According to FanGraphs, a reasonable 54.4 percent of his career batted balls to his pull side were on the ground before 2014. But in 2014, 63.2 percent of his batted balls to his pull side were on the ground.
That can happen when a guy doesn’t have strong legs underneath him. He’s forced to use more upper-body strength, and that can increase the risk of a hitter rolling over on pitches.
Pujols did a lot of that in 2014, as BaseballSavant.com can show he hit a career-high number of pitches away from him on the ground to the left side. And with so many shifts and so many ground balls, it’s no wonder he only had a .250 average on balls in play to his pull side.
As told by Gonzalez, the Angels haven’t seen as much of that this spring. What they’ve seen instead is Pujols regularly hitting the ball to right field and with authority to boot. It’s hard to confirm that without data, but it’s definitely a portrait of a guy with a strong hitting base.
If Pujols keeps that up, it won’t be so easy to shift on him in 2015. That could allow him to complement his increased power with more base hits, thereby rescuing both his slugging and his on-base habit from downward spirals.
It bears repeating that this is all in theory. Glowing reviews of a guy’s appearance in spring training have been known to go “pluh” once the games start to count. And at Pujols’ age, the odds of him suffering that fate aren’t exactly small.
But then again, a guy who’s able to enjoy a normal offseason for the first time in two years would be healthy. And considering the guy in question, the result would be more power and less predictability.
So, the Angels darn well should be optimistic. Doubly so, in fact, as Pujols returning to something like his vintage self in 2015 would be a huge boost to their chances of authoring a worthy follow-up to last year’s 98-win effort.
What made the Angels tick in 2014 was their offense, as they finished seventh in OPS at .728 and first in runs with 773. But with Howie Kendrick gone via trade and Josh Hamilton potentially missing much of 2015 due to injury and a suspension, repeating last year’s dominant offensive effort figured to be no easy feat if Pujols could only duplicate his good-not-great 2014 season.
So, you could put it this way: By being whole again, Pujols may be able to make the Angels’ offense whole again. Good for them and bad for all those playing against them in 2015.
Given that Pujols is 35 and we’re still only in spring training, this is no promise. It is, however, a warning worth heeding.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.
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