by Tom

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Albert Pujols hit his 697th career home run on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The two-run blast to center field not only gave the Cardinals the lead in the 9th, but also solidified Albert as #4 all-time on the home run charts. Pujols has had a resurgence this year at the age of 42, belting 18 blasts in only 252 plate appearances, while some would say this is a field good story as The Machine chases 700, others like to rehash the same truthless allegations that Pujols is really juicing.

The latest round of these scurrilous accusations came from ESPN’s Max Kellerman. I usually like Max because he’s pretty #based and #woke on some shit that bugs me, but he is a talking head on a Fox News equivalent sports channel. There is more to Max’s point than what is shown; modern baseball is, and will, forever be tarnished by PEDs, but also he implied that 42 year-old Albert Pujols is doping. So let’s take a look at some stats to see if any of this holds true!

In terms of wRC+, Pujols is having his best year since 2011, his last with the Cardinals. If you’re new to sabermetrics, weighted Runs Created Plus attempts to provide a more accurate assessment of a player’s offensive value to his team, this is done by comparing their wOBA–oh Christ, now I’ll have to explain wOBA, here just look at the glossary–against league averages. A league average wRC+ is measured at a 100, anything below that is below league average, anything above is Albert Pujols.

It’s not an end all be all stat, but one of many analytics available to measure how good of a season a player is having. Despite having seasons with the Angels where he posted a higher batting average, home runs, and RBIs, Albert is hitting in Busch Stadium, a harder park to generate home runs in. If you look at Expected Home Runs by Park, Albert would have only 16 home runs in Busch alone, with only Comerica Park and Oriole Park being lower. In terms of Park Factor–a collection of all offensive stats collected by Statcast–Busch Stadium has never been higher than 17th in terms of hitter favorability in the last 13 years, which should put to rest that it’s neither a pitchers or hitters stadium.

You might see this as evidence that Albert may be juicing, but Angel Stadium was one of the hardest places to hit bombs at, especially when Albert arrived in 2012. Pujols went from one pitcher-friendly park to another, as Anaheim never ranked higher than 22nd in home run favorability until 2018–and even still, their 17th ranking in 2018 came as a result of ground rule changes that lowered the left field home run boundary from 18 to 8 feet. Albert’s 162 game home run average in Anaheim from 2012-2020 was 30, and his current 162 game “pace” for 2022 is 32.

Albert’s 6.3 HR% is higher than any season he had with the Angels, and the last time he posted a percentage greater than that was in 2009. His Statcast numbers for 2022 have all increased compared to last year, although how much is too much I’ll leave to you. Pujols’s 91.2 average exit velocity is at its highest since 2016, and his HardHit% and Barrel% highest since the integration of Statcast–2015, and his Sweet Spot% since 2018. Depending what your barometer for possible juicer is, you could imagine PED conspiracies off these numbers alone, or since 2001 for that matter.

However there are some discrepancies to take issue with. Pujols has also seen an increase in average exit velocity annually since 2019. He has been nagged by numerous injuries during his time with the Angels, having arthroscopic knee surgery in 2018–which ended that season–and 2016 on his right foot for plantar fasciitis. 

Whether this opens the conjecture hole to say that Albert could have juiced during this time, who knows, what we do know is that there’s not a failed test on his behalf during that time. What is most likely is that he was healthy for the first time in three years, enough so that he still started most games at first base for the Angels following 2017. 

Albert’s high exit velo is certainly not the highest for someone his age. David Ortiz posted a 93.2 EV in his age 40 season. Joey Votto endured a similar period of power regression from 2018 to 2020, only to post a 36 home run and 92.9 EV in 2021. Miguel Cabrera, despite not hitting over 20 homers since 2016 has never posted a season EV of less than 90 mph since the integration of Statcast. Hall of Famers age differently than the Ike Davises, Jay Bruceses, and Adam Dunns. 

Albert’s offensive surge is likely because of rest, platooning, and lack of shifts. The shift has been deployed only 33.6% this season against him, the lowest of his career since Statcast. His three seasons prior to that he was shifted on 44.6, 45.7, and 48.6% of the time. His wOBA against the shift during that period was .295, .191, and .315. His expected batting average and slugging–xBA and xSLG–during that span are lower than they are now, but not by much. His 2022 xBA sits at .261, whereas last year it was .256 and .267 in 2018. His xSLG in 2021 was .460 compared to his .483 for this season. While better than last year, this is a trend for Pujols since being DFA’d by the Angels. 

Pujols is also being used frequently against left handed pitching. Pujols’s career OPS against LHP is 50 points higher than RHP; during his time with the Angels performed better against righties than lefties, however by 2019 his OPS against RHP and LHP literally swapped. His .830 OPS against LHP was more of an omen for his 2021 and 2022 seasons. In fact, Albert hasn’t posted an OPS over .700 against RHP since his .708 mark in 2018, but he has posted a .939 and 1.180 in ‘21 and ‘22 so far. This season alone, over 40% of Albert’s plate appearances have come against left handed pitching. In 2021 that number was 49%. Last season he hit 13 home runs in 146 PAs against LHP, this season he’s at 12 through 116. In addition to his platoon role, Pujols has mainly been relegated to pinch-hitting or DH’ing, playing only 18 of his 90 games in the field this season. 

For steroid-obfuscators this raises an interesting question for them. How come these PEDs only work against left handed pitching? If Pujols was taking performance enhancing drugs, wouldn’t we see similar numbers against right handed pitching as well? It’s not like the Cardinals front office weren’t clear on why they signed him.

At this point it’s been twenty fucking years, can we give it a rest? The allegations against Albert came to light when Jack Clark said something so dumb he publicly retracted it. This isn’t the first time he’s shown up to a new season in shape, what has changed since then?

Pujols legacy overlaps with the crackdown on PEDs in baseball. His association by simply playing during this era will forever be tarnished, PEDs or not–honestly I’m surprised more people don’t jump on if he’s lying about his age. Honestly whether he did or not doesn’t affect me one way or the other, I understand why athletes do these sorts of things there’s a lot of money on the line.

If anything, these detractions really mar a great final season by a legendary player. Who knows if other factors have improved his play, but it seems his presence and performance has surely inspired his teammates. If something can be introduced without evidence, it can be dismissed without evidence, I’m sure we’ll be waiting a long-time on that one.