Phat Albert
Old man look at my life
I’m a lot like you were
Old man look at my life
I’m a lot like you wereOld man look at my life
Twenty-four and there’s so much more
— Neil Young, Old Man
Exactly one year ago today, I wrote a column about just how amazing Albert Pujols‘ numbers were through his first three big-league seasons. At the time, Pujols was coming off a year in which he hit .359/.439/.667 with 43 homers, 51 doubles, 124 RBIs, and 137 runs to finish second to Barry Bonds in the National League MVP voting — his third straight top-five MVP finish and second straight year finishing second to Bonds. Pujols is now a year older — he turned 25 over the weekend, if you believe his published date of birth — and has another incredible season under his belt. He finished third in the NL MVP voting last season, hitting .331/.415/.657 with 46 homers, 51 doubles, 123 RBIs, and 133 runs, while leading the Cardinals to the World Series.
Pujols’ numbers through his first four seasons are ridiculously good and his yearly production has been incredibly consistent: 47, 40, 51, and 51 doubles; 37, 34, 43, and 46 home runs; 130, 127, 124, and 123 RBIs; 112, 118, 137, and 133 runs scored. Add it all up and you get numbers that are extraordinary for someone who just completed his age-24 season.
YEAR G PA AVG OBP SLG H 2B HR RUN RBI 2001 161 676 .329 .403 .610 194 47 37 112 130 2002 157 675 .314 .394 .561 185 40 34 118 127 2003 157 685 .359 .439 .667 212 51 43 137 124 2004 154 692 .331 .415 .657 196 51 46 133 123 ===================================================================================== TOTAL 629 2728 .333 .413 .624 787 189 160 500 504
Pujols’ ability to fill a stat-sheet with huge numbers in every column is astounding and his career numbers through the age of 24 put him in some pretty good company. As I did this time last year (with the help of our own Lee Sinins‘ must-have Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia), I’d like to take a look at just where Pujols stacks up among the all-time greats through this stage in their careers.
HOME RUNS THROUGH AGE 24 DOUBLES THROUGH AGE 24 Eddie Mathews 190 Joe Medwick 202 Alex Rodriguez 189 Ty Cobb 201 Mel Ott 176 Mel Ott 195 Jimmie Foxx 174 Cesar Cedeno 195 Mickey Mantle 173 Ken Griffey Jr. 194 Ken Griffey Jr. 172 Alex Rodriguez 194 Frank Robinson 165 Robin Yount 193 ALBERT PUJOLS 160 Vada Pinson 193 Orlando Cepeda 157 ALBERT PUJOLS 189 Johnny Bench 154 Buddy Lewis 178
Pujols ranks eighth all-time in home runs through the age of 24. Of the seven players ahead of him, six have at least 500 homers and the one who doesn’t, Alex Rodriguez, just finished his age-28 season with 381 homers. Orlando Cepeda and Johnny Bench, who round out the top 10 behind Pujols, finished their careers with “only” 379 and 389 homers, respectively. Eddie Mathews is the all-time leader in homers through both age 23 and age 24, but ARod takes over at the top of the age-25 list (he owns 26 and 27 too, but not 28). To pass Rodriguez on the age-25 list, Pujols would have to hit 82 homers in 2005; to pass him on the age-26 list, he’d have to hit 139 homers over the next two seasons.
Only Mel Ott, Ken Griffey Jr., Rodriguez, and Pujols rank in the top 10 for both homers and doubles through age 24. Unlike the home run list, being in the top 10 for doubles through age 24 doesn’t guarantee a huge career total. While Joe Medwick, Ty Cobb, and Robin Yount all finished their careers among the top 25 all-time in doubles, none of Ott, Cesar Cedeno, Vada Pinson, or Buddy Lewis did better than 50th all-time. Though he still has time to add to his total, Griffey Jr. isn’t in the top 100 for doubles (whereas he ranks 20th in homers), while Rodriguez needs 120 more two-baggers just to break into the top 100.
EXTRA-BASE HITS THROUGH AGE 24 RUNS BATTED IN THROUGH AGE 24 Mel Ott 402 Mel Ott 711 Alex Rodriguez 396 Jimmie Foxx 666 Jimmie Foxx 390 Ty Cobb 601 Ken Griffey Jr. 385 Alex Rodriguez 595 ALBERT PUJOLS 358 Mickey Mantle 575 Mickey Mantle 352 Joe DiMaggio 558 Vada Pinson 345 George Davis 555 Hank Aaron 338 Hal Trosky 553 Frank Robinson 337 Orlando Cepeda 553 Joe Medwick 336 Al Kaline 544 Orlando Cepeda 336 Ken Griffey Jr. 543 Ted Williams 515 Johnny Bench 512 ALBERT PUJOLS 504
The extra-base hits list is an interesting one, because it shows Pujols’ unique ability to both hit for huge home run power and slash doubles all over the field. It is fairly rare to find a hitter who does both in this era (only four hitters ranked in the top 20 for both homers and doubles in 2004), but Pujols has ranked among the NL’s top 10 in both homers and doubles in three of his four seasons. Pujols ranks a relatively modest 12th all-time in RBIs through age 24, and ranks just 23rd in runs scored and 38th in hits through age 24 (lists I didn’t show here).
Part of the reason for Pujols’ surprisingly low rankings in a few categories (and part of the reason guys like Ott, Rodriguez, and Griffey Jr. show up near the top of multiple lists) is that Pujols didn’t start putting up his massive numbers until he was 21 years old. That may seem very young, but quite a few of baseball’s greatest players got their start even earlier than that. Ott, for instance, got his first big-league at-bats as a 17-year-old and accumulated 61 homers, 72 doubles, 251 RBIs, and 237 runs before Pujols had even stepped on a major-league field.
If you look only at what hitters have done from age 21 to age 24 (rather than through age 24, which gives guys like Ott a head start), Pujols shoots to the top of nearly every category. He ranks first in extra-base hits and total bases, second in doubles and homers, third in runs, fourth in RBIs, and eighth in hits. In other words, not a whole lot of players in baseball history have put up the sort of monster offensive numbers that Pujols has at the same ages, and the few who have are guys with names like Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Ty Cobb, and Eddie Mathews (with a special nod to Ted Williams, who dominated like no other through the age of 23 and then spent his age-24 season in the military).