Rating Albert Pujols among the greats

Assuming Albert Pujols has played his final Major League game, his career will go down as deserving a place among the greats in baseball history.

To take the measure of how great Pujols was, one need only compare his statistics with the game’s best.

For example, he ranks:

• Third in runs batted in, with 2,112. Only Hank Aaron (2,297) and Babe Ruth (2,214) stand ahead of him.
• Fifth in home runs with 667. Only Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714) and Alex Rodriguez (696) are ahead of him.
• Fifth in total bases with 5,955. Only Hank Aaron (6,856), Stan Musial (6.134), Willie Mays (6,066) and Barry Bonds (5,976) are ahead of him. Pujols also ranks 15th all-time in runs scored.

Virtually without exception, however, those statistics are situation-dependent. To truly assess where Pujols ranks among the game’s greats, we need to look at some era-normalized numbers.

There are three excellent ones for that purpose: OPS+, WAR and Win Probability Added. We’re going to measure Pujols against about two dozen of the acknowledged greatest batsmen of all time in those three categories.

Beyond that, we’re going to assess him twice: Once for career data and again for peak performance. We’re defining a player’s peak as his best period of five consecutive years.

Our two dozen comparable greats, with the exception of Rodriguez all Cooperstown enshrinees, are: Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Barry Bonds, Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Rickey Henderson, Rogers Hornsby, Nap Lajoie, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Joe Morgan, Stan Musial, Mel Ott, Frank Robinson, Alex Rodriguez, Babe Ruth, Mike Schmidt, George Sisler, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner and Ted Willliams

Peak O-WAR

WAR stands for Wins Above Replacement. The figure represents a calculation of the number of wins a player’s performance added to the team above that which would have been expected to be attained by a replacement-level pickup.

For context, a 2-WAR player is a useful player, and a 5-WAR player is playing at All Star-calibre.  In a given season, the game’s best player might be expected to generate seven or eight WAR. In the last full season, 2019, Houston’s Alex Bregman led all major leaguers with an 8.9 WAR.

WAR can also be sub-categorized by skill. Because our context deals entirely with the offensive side of the game, this analysis is based on Offensive WAR, or O-WAR for short.

For O-WAR, Pujols’ peak performance occurred between 2005 and 2009. During that five-season span, he averaged a 7.0 WAR, an exceptional average.

Still, it looks ordinary by comparison with our two dozen greats. In fact it ranks only 17th on the list just behind Eddie Collins (7.94 from 1911-1915) and just ahead of Mike Schmidt (6.88 between 1979 and 1983). Schmidt is his closest comparable.

Here is the top 10 for five-season peak O-WAR

Rank      Player                     Avg.       Seasons

1              Babe Ruth           10.60     1920-1924

2              Barry Bonds        10.34     2000-2004

3             Rogers Hornsby    9.94     1921-1925

4              Lou Gehrig             9.38     1927-1931

5              Mickey Mantle     9.34      1954-1958

6              Honus Wagner    9.30      1905-1909

7              Ty Cobb                 9.16       1909-1913

8              Joe Morgan          8.74       1972-1976

9              Stan Musial         8.66       1948-1952

10           Willie Mays          8.64       1961-1965

Peak Win Probability Added

The definition of Win Probability Added is the change in probability of victory created by the batter’s performance. It is normally expressed as we will express it here, as an estimate of additional victories created by the player, although it can be expressed in other forms and fashions.

Pujols’ best period of five consecutive seasons based on Win Probability Added occurred between 2006 and 2010, when he averaged 6.78 wins for the Cardinals.  Give any reasonably competent team one or two such greats and they will likely run away with their division flag.

Because the calculation for Win Probability Added depends on full and accurate play-by-play accounts,  data Is not available for players prior to the second decade of the 20th Century. That reduces our field of 24 eligible players to just 20.

But Pujols does very well in this category. In fact, he rates higher than in any other peak or career category we’ll look at.

His closest comparable is a flattering one, indeed; Willie Mays, at 6.80.

For the record, here is the top 10

Rank      Player                   Avg.       Seasons

1              Barry Bonds        9.84        2000-2004

2              Babe Ruth           8.10        1920-1924

3              Lou Gehrig          7.68        1932-1936

4              Willie McCovey 7.18        1966-1970

5              Mickey Mantle  7.16        1954-1958

6              Jimmie Foxx       7.02        1932-1936

7              Willie Mays         6.80        1962-1966

8              Albert Pujols      6.78        2006-2010

9              Ted Williams       6.54        1954-1958

10            Hank Aaron       6.48        1959-1963

Career OPS+

Career OPS+ is simply the average OPS+ calculated over the course of a player’s career. Depending on the player, obviously, that can be a few years or a few decades, although all the greats we’re looking at had substantial careers.

One of the telling aspects of Pujols’ career is that he was predominantly a peak player. That is, his best seasons were almost without exception attained during the St. Louis portion of his career. In Anaheim, his performances tended to decline into the realm of ordinary with age.

Pujols’ career divides almost perfectly between St. Louis and Anaheim; 11 seasons in the Gateway city, 10 in Disneyland. Yet his best Anaheim season as measured by OPS+, 138 in 2012, was statistically worse than any of his 11 seasons in St. Louis.

As a result, Pujols’ performance on the career leader boards is generally weaker than his performance on the peak leader boards.

At 145, he ranks only 19th for career OPS+, his closest comparable being Willie McCovey at 147. There’s nothing wrong with being compared to McCovey, but here’s the top 10.

Rank      Player                   Career

1              Babe Ruth           206

2              Ted Williams       191

3              Barry Bonds        182

4              Lou Gehrig           179

5              Rogers Hornsby 175

6              Mickey Mantle    172

7              Ty Cobb                168

8              Jimmie Foxx        163

9              Stan Musial         159

10           Tris Speaker        158

Career O-WAR

Simply put, Career WAR is the sum of a player’s WAR contributions over the course of his playing days. As with peak performance, this is an offense-based analysis, so when we used the term WAR we mean O-WAR.

Again, the continual decline in Pujols’ performance in Anaheim damages his standing on this career chart by comparison with his position on peak charts. For the record, that’s a major reason why we do both peak and career assessments; they are two different things, and a player’s standing in one can be far different from his position in the other.

As this is written, Pujols’ career O-WAR is 85.1. That stands him 22nd on the list. His closest comparable is Jimmie Foxx, at 91.7. Mike Schmidt, 91.8, is one hairsbreadth farther ahead.

But it’s worth noting that on the day he left St. Louis for Anaheim, Pujols’ career O-WAR was 74.4. Had he maintained the pace of the St. Louis portion of his career in Anaheim, he would rank at or close to the top of the category. Instead, he produced only a 10.6 career O-WAR in Anaheim, concluding with five non-productive seasons.

For that reason, his career score does not stack up well by comparison with the leaders. Here’s the category top 10.

Rank      Player                   Career WAR

1              Babe Ruth           154.5

2              Ty Cobb                150.9

3              Barry Bonds        143.6

4              Willie Mays         136.6

5              Hank Aaron        132.6

6              Ted Williams       125.1

7              Stan Musial         125.0

8              Tris Speaker       124.4

9              Honus Wagner  123.3

10           Rogers Hornsby 121.7

Career Win Probability Added

Again, data accessibility only permits us to measure that portion of the immortals who played all or most of their careers after 1911. That excludes some fascinating names Cobb, Wagner and Lajoie among them.

Among those we can assess, Pujols ranks 13th in career WPA with a score of 71.16. Again, the St. Louis-Anaheim splits are striking: 63.7 in St. Louis, 7.5 in Anaheim.

His best season in Anaheim was 2014, 2.8. His worst season in St. Louis was his Rookie of the Year 2001 season, 4.0.

His closest comparable is Frank Robinson, 73.0. Here’s the top 10.

Rank      Player                   Career WPA

1              Barry Bonds        127.7

2              Babe Ruth           108.7

3              Willie Mays         102.4

4              Ted Williams       101.9

5              Hank Aaron           99.2

6              Mickey Mantle     94.2

7              Lou Gehrig             88.1

8              Stan Musial          84.8

9              Mel Ott                  80.2

10           Jimmie Foxx        74.8

Here’s the bottom line: Albert Pujols is an easy fit among the game’s offensive greats. He categorizes as a “peak” rather than “career” performer with ratings that are generally, if not uniformly, higher during the St. Louis portion of his career.

But based on the data there is little doubt that he deserves first ballot Hall of Fame election five years from now. Statistically, the guy was a cross between Willie McCovey, Mike Schmidt, and Frank Robinson, with a hint of Willie Mays thrown in. That’s decidedly plaque-worthy.