Not that anyone needed reminding of this fact, but Albert Pujols is really, really good at baseball. However, let's depart from Fangraph's quality analysis of what Albert has done this year in terms of WAR, OPS and WPA and look at something else that he's doing. As of this writing, Albert Pujols has 85 extra base hits (XBHs) -- 47 HR, 37 2B, 1 3B. Only twelve hitters in the history of the game have ever hit 100+ XBHs in a single season. Only three people (Albert Belle 1995, Todd Helton 2000 and Barry Bonds 2001) have accomplished this feat in the past 60 years. One of those people (allegedly) was on steroids, one of them played in a baseball field that was on steroids and the other was a huge asshole. Albert Pujols, by contrast, is characterized by pure talent (dual MVPs in his eight year career) and humanitarianism (Roberto Clemente Award winner in 2008). Let's just hope that Pujols has never juiced.
What do you think? Will Pujols get 15+ XBHs over the Cardinals' final 21 games?
Interesting Factoid: Albert Pujols only played baseball for one season while attending community college. During that season, he turned an unassisted triple play and hit a grand slam in the same game.
Yeah, but did he pitch a perfect game too? Def should not deserve the community college MVP
ReplyDeleteYeah, he's no Babe Ruth
ReplyDelete