Fun With Statistics

Numbers are a funny thing. They never lie, provided the ones you're using are accurate and calculated correctly. But they can definitely not tell the whole truth, when not put in the proper context. Here are two examples.

Incontrovertible Fact #1: Albert Pujols had by far the worst season of his career this year. In fact, the past two years have been undoubtedly the two statistically worst of his career.

Incontrovertible Fact #2: Albert Pujols had a season this year - and an average season over the past two years - that, by using fairly common stats, was matched by very few hitters.

Well, that makes no sense, right? We all know Pujols is a machine - but come on. Both facts are equally accurate on their own, however, although not altogether truthful. It's when you put them together and in context that you begin to understand them better.

Remember that Pujols' average season from 2001-2010 was more or less this: .331 average,  41 home runs, 123 RBIs, 119 runs, and a 1.050 OPS. To put that in perspective, an average Pujols season that decade has been matched or bettered 59 times in baseball history (at least, as far as I can tell from my non-subscription to Baseball-Reference). So the guy, clearly, had a lot of room to have the worst season of his career.

Still...his batting average this year was almost 50 points below that decade-long average, while his OPS was nearly 200 points down. Over the past two years, it's 40 and 160, respectively.

Pujols is no longer the best hitter in the majors. But just look at the stats and try arguing that he's not still elite.

His average season over the past two years is .292/34/102/95/.882. Again, clearly a large drop-off from his previous 10. But want to know how many players have managed that average line in the same time frame?

Two.

Just two guys have matched or bettered Pujols' line, and their names won't surprise you. One of them - Miguel Cabrera, at .337/37/122/110/1.017 - just won the Triple Crown and will likely be the AL MVP, while the other - Ryan Braun, at .326/37/112/109/.990 - was the NL MVP last year and could very well be named it again this year.

Other came close, including Josh Hamilton and Robinson Cano, but only Miggy and Braun outhit Pujols by those standards.

But what about this year? Pujols was very close to another .300/30/100 season last year despite missing time with a wrist injury, but never really threatened this year. He ended up with a line of .285/30/105/85/.859, clear career lows in every one of those categories except RBIs (and even then only six more than his career low). And yet...

Four guys matched or better those stats. Four.

Cabrera again, at .330/44/139/109/.999. Braun again, at .319/41/112/108/.987. Hamilton, at .285/43/128/103/.930. And Chase Headley (!), at .286/31/115/95/.875. That's it.

Now granted, this is solely dealing with a few fairly conventional statistics. Anybody looking to disagree with me would likely find several other statistics to back them up. Here, I'll even give you a few - his walks are down sharply the past two years, and his HR/flyball rate took a nosedive this year. Also, as you may have noticed, Pujols is rather at the low end of the spectrum compared to the other guys mentioned, with the exception of Headley. So I'm not saying that he is having comparable seasons to Cabrera and Braun, simply that they are among the only other ones to hit the same statistical benchmarks. 

But again, there are two incontrovertible facts here. 1) Albert Pujols had his worst season this year, and has had the worst two-year stretch of his career. 2) Albert Pujols' statistics were matched by very few hitters over the last two years.

And because facts/statistics by themselves are merely accurate, but truthful when placed in context, here's the truth of the thing: Albert Pujols is one hell of a hitter.