2015 Player Projection: Albert Pujols

Albert Pujols showed that when healthy he can still be a productive middle-of-the-order bat, but he also showed that he can’t be the Pujols of old. At age 35, can Albert remain productive or will his decline only accelerate in 2015?

What happened in 2014?
The main thing that happened in 2014 is that Albert’s legs didn’t disintegrate into dust. Turns out that Pujols is a lot better when he has functioning legs and feet. Granted, they weren’t always at maximum health throughout the year, but Albert still managed to play 159 games, including 116 starts in the field. That’s progress.

Even with his improved health, it wasn’t a return to vintage form for Pujols. Yes, smacked 28 homers and passed some milestones, but his ISO and HR/FB numbers were the second-worst of his career, besting only 2013’s injury-ravaged season. He also had the lowest walk rate of his career, which put a big dent in his OBP. Overall, he had a 124 OPS+ and was perfectly fine, but because he’s Albert Pujols, the season was a bit of a disappointment.

The one other development worth mentioning is that Pujols had a terrific defensive season, which is probably the best indicator of all that his feet were feeling a lot better.

[table id=72 /] *The MWAH projections are simply my best guess based off my own personal opinion and research (my wOBA calculation is approximate because my math skills are only “meh”)

What do the projections think he will do in 2015?
They think that not much will change. He might walk a little more and strikeout a little bit more, but the power will remain about the same and the batting average results would only fluctuate a little bit. The only change they predict is fewer PAs for Albert. That shouldn’t be a surprise for a guy getting on in age. Playing 159 games again is not something that should ever have been expected of him.

Does the Monkey agree or disagree?
About the same, really. I’m slightly more pessimistic in that I think his power will dry up by a marginal amount as Albert has a harder time keeping his lower half healthy and generating power. I wrote a lot last season about the shift in his batted ball profile and how he was succeeding in spite of that change. I don’t see him being able to sustain that nor do I see him correcting the changes to his batted ball profile.

THREE OPEN QUESTIONS FOR ALBERT PUJOLS IN 2015
1) Can Albert Pujols do anything about being shifted against so much?
Nobody in baseball saw more infield shifts than Albert and the shift took a big wet bite out of his BABIP on pulled balls, bringing it down to .250 compared to .278 up the middle and .284 to the opposite field. That doesn’t seem to phase Albert though as he basically dared defenses to “bring it on.” He isn’t going to change his game and try to go the other way more, though he probably should.

However, what he can do is not hit so many grounders. That’s another way to beat the infield shift. 45.7% of Albert’s balls in play were on the ground in 2014, which was far and away a career-high. So, if Albert insists on remaining pull happy, he could help himself out by trying to get under the ball a little bit more.

2) Where did all of his walks go?
This is actually the scariest part of Albert’s season to me. Albert had a very dangerous combination of his highest swing rate ever and the most pitches seen in the zone of his career. The latter surely influenced the former, but it says a lot about what pitchers think of Pujols now that he is getting older. They aren’t afraid to challenge him anymore and with his flagging power stroke, they don’t really have a reason to start feeling scared again.

The good news it that Albert is at least still making a ton of contact, but he’s going to have to start making more powerful contact if he wants to reverse this trend.

3) Is he going to be healthy again this year?
Your guess is as good as mine. He’s 35 years old now but he did finally seem to come around to the idea of DHing on a semi-regular basis to keep himself healthy. The Halos also have C.J. Cron and possibly Efren Navarro or Marc Krauss on the roster, so they actually have players on the roster capable of manning first base, which they didn’t really have in 2013 when his foot problems started. That should hopefully make it easier to rest Albert, but he needs to remain a willing participant in that arrangement.

The Final Word (and GIF)
“DERP!”

Hehe. There’s not analytical bent to this one. I just like how surly Albert is and frankly wouldn’t mind if it rubbed off on some of the other Halos to give them more of a competitive attitude.