The Nature of Albert Pujols’ Revival

Watching all-time great baseball players age is both a frustrating and fascinating experience. Albert Pujols will never be able to recapture the dominance that gave him one of the greatest first decades in MLB history, as the aging process is unkind and irreversible. Even Barry Bonds with his late-career surge into the record books was a much different player than he was earlier in his career. Albert Pujols has seen something of a revival in 2015, hitting his American League-leading 21st home run of the season on Sunday. The 35-year old Pujols will never be able to get back to the form he had a decade ago, but he is hitting better than he has at any time in an Angels uniform.

With 10 home runs in June, Pujols already has his first double-digit home-run month since August 2010, when he hit 11 homers. His 149 wRC+ is higher than his final season in St. Louis, although the season did not begin as Pujols would have liked. After going 0-for-4 with a strikeout against the Rangers on April 24, Pujols was hitting just .177/.261/.355 in 69 plate appearances. In the 210 plate appearances since, Pujols has been on a tear, hitting .301/.352/.622 with a 173 wRC+ providing Mike Trout a worthy partner in an otherwise punchless Angels’ offense.

Pujols is not the first 35-year-old to have a good season in an attempt to fight decline. Victor Martinez pulled it off last season and former St. Louis Cardinals’ teammates Mark McGwire, Jim Edmonds, and Lance Berkman all played well in their mid-30s. As Rob Neyer noted in a video over at JABO, Pujols’ home run totals are at previous levels — as is his high 22% home-run per fly-ball rate (HR/FB%) — but Pujols does not spray the ball all over the field like he once did, nor does he hit the ball hard as often as he once did. He has swung at more pitches out of the zone since joining the Angels and this year has been consistent with that trend, perhaps resulting in seeing fewer pitches in the strike zone over the last few years.

Some of the difference in walk rate is due to a drop in intentional walks. From 2006 to 2010, pitchers intentionally walked Pujols 166 times, roughly 5% of his plate appearances. In the five years since, Pujols has been intentionally walked in less than 2% of his plate appearances. His 10% strikeout rate is right in line with his career average. Pujols is hitting more fly balls, and his batted-ball distance has improved over last season, but it is not anywhere near his playing days with the Cardinals. He still ranks among the MLB leaders in average batted-ball velocity .

Pujols has maintained that nothing has changed since the beginning of the season, and that he has just gotten more “breaks” over the last month. He has just a .231 BABIP so far this season, although some of that is likely due to the high number of fly balls that have left the park this season. He has just 10 doubles to go along with his 21 home runs after hitting 37 doubles and 28 home runs the season before. Pujols has generally kept the same swing throughout his career, but he has tinkered with his hand placement.

See his stance below in 2011:

Pujols’ hands are high with his elbow back and the bat not quite parallel.

In 2013, his stance is fairly similar.

His hands look to be just a bit higher with the bat going slightly above his head, based on the above angle. In 2014, the stance looked a lot more like the one from 2011, except with the left arm not extended quite as far back.

In 2015, Pujols has made yet another change to his stance.

This season Pujols has dropped his hands and moved his left elbow closer to the pitcher with his bat much further from parallel than in previous years. He is also utilizing more of a leg kick than he did last year, although his front-leg movement is also something that has at times differed throughout his career.

Here he is in 2013 with a slight leg kick:

Here is his swing in 2014 with no leg kick:

Here is the swing on his recent grand slam against the Oakland Athletics:

He does not use the leg kick on every swing, but tinkering with his timing could be helping him square up more pitches this season while his hand placement could be getting him ready to swing earlier. His flat swing that stays in the strike zone has long helped keep his strikeout rate low and so far this season, he has used the same swing to hit more balls out of the yard than he has been with the Angels. Even when he struggled through injuries in 2013, his 112 wRC+ was solidly above average for a hitter.

Pujols’ place in history is secure with three MVP awards, two World Series rings, and his continued climb up the leaderboard in career home runs. Pujols currently sits at 16th with 541 home runs with Manny Ramirez and Mike Schmidt in his sights this season and potentially moving into the top ten by next year. Only Babe Ruth has more home runs and a higher batting average than Pujols’ career .316 average, although Barry bonds, Jim Thome, and Manny Ramirez sport higher on-base percentages than Pujols’ stellar .401 career mark. Consider the following players through their Age-35 season.

Name	PA	HR	BB%	K%	BABIP	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+
Willie Mays	9266	542	11.0 %	10.5 %	0.298	0.312	0.387	0.591	160
Hank Aaron	10527	554	9.1 %	9.9 %	0.303	0.313	0.374	0.563	156
Albert Pujols	9520	541	11.9 %	9.8 %	0.300	0.316	0.401	0.587	158

Pujols still has time to add to his home-run numbers before the year is out. The main difference between Mays and Aaron compared to Pujols is that Mays and Aaron averaged more than seven wins per season from ages 33 to 35, while Pujols will come closer to producing seven wins total during those years. Pujols’ contract is not a good one, with more than $175 million remaining to be paid, but over the first three-and-a-half years of the contract, Pujols has been paid $63 million and been worth around $66 million according to Fangraphs dollar values.

If he can stay healthy, Pujols figures to have his best season as an Angel. ZiPS projects Pujols to finish the season with 39 home runs, his highest total since hitting 42 in the 2010 season. He is projected to finish the season with 4.3 wins according to ZiPS, which is the same figure projected for Freddie Freeman. Pujols had a long ways to fall from his eight wins per season average that he managed to sustain for an entire decade, but declining to the level of 25-year-old Freddie Freeman is still pretty good company.