Maybe Albert Pujols is mortal after all. The man who has never batted lower than .312 in a single season is currently batting .261. His previous career worst walk rate was 10.2 percent way back in his rookie season, but thus far he’s only walking 8.9 percent of the time. Pujols has averaged nearly 41 homers and 123 RBI per season for a decade, but through 51 games he’s only on pace for 25 and 83. Could we really see King Albert finish a season batting .261 with 25 homers and 83 RBI?
Forget all of the earthquakes, tsunamis and tornados. Pujols’ sudden decline is the strongest evidence those damn Mayans might be right.
But for every struggling star there’s an equally unexpected positive performer ready to take his place. Below is a list of the top 15 first basemen through the season’s first eight weeks according to Yahoo!
Here are a few of my thoughts on just what’s happened at the game’s premier offensive position:
- I guess drafting Adrian Gonzalez with a mid-first round pick wasn’t so crazy after all. The power was slow to develop as many expected, but right now he’s the game’s fifth best player with a league-leading 43 RBI and a Pujolsian .340 average. As a Red Sox fan I can attest to the fact that Gonzalez is abusing the Green Monster and that bloated batting average is no fluke. With eight home runs in May alone, Gonzalez has a serious shot at a 40-homer, 140-RBI season that would make even Ryan Howard jealous.
- Lance Berkman has collected just one home run and three RBI over his last 10 games, but he’s also batted .321 (9-for-28) over that span with 12 walks to just five strikeouts. I’m still on the “sell Berkman ASAP” bandwagon because his age and the lack of a DH in the National League make me wonder how long he can keep this up. People in head-to-head leagues should be very wary of Berkman because of the strong possibility of a poor September when he would have already put 120-plus games on those old knees of his.
- Joey Votto appears to be more of a 25-30 home run guy and not the 37-homer monster we saw last season. He doesn’t hit enough fly balls (just 31.5% this season, career 34.9%) and his HR/FB rate was insane last year (25.0%). He’s better than what he’s shown thus far, though.
- I expected to see Mark Teixeira rebound in the batting average department after he batted .256 last year with a .268 BABIP, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Right now he’s batting .253 with a .244 BABIP. Maybe that’s just who he is now.
- It’s rare to see a player with second base eligibility rank so highly in the first base rankings, but Howie Kendrick is doing just that with an absurdly well-rounded season. Pause for a moment, though. After hitting four home runs in the first eight games on the season, Kendrick has homered just three times in his past 37 games.
- Gaby Sanchez is the real deal and it’s a crime he’s owned in just 84 percent of leagues. Remember when we all raved about Billy Butler and his ability to hit for a good average with doubles gap power? Butler never cashed in on all those doubles and became a hollow .300 hitter by first base (and now DH) standards. Sanchez hits a good amount of fly balls with a modest HR/FB rate, and while I don’t expect him to become a consistent 30 home run threat, he does a little bit of everything and could be a 100 RBI hitter.
- Ben Zobrist had 10 of his 28 RBI in one day, meaning he has just 18 in every game that wasn’t on April 28. Regardless, I do still like Zobrist a lot because of his great position eligibility, his ability to score a ton of runs, his high walk rate and his potentially lethal power/speed combo.
- Kevin Youkilis is really turning his season around. He’s improved his average from .240 to .275 over the last 10 games and is batting .333 with 3 homers, 17 RBI and an OPS of 1.000 in May.
- I mentioned Howard earlier, but where has the power gone?! He recently went seven games without a hit and, after his game-tying 10th inning blast last night, has just two RBI since May 13 (both solo homers). Thankfully he has hit in five straight games now with three multi-hit efforts and those two solo homers during the mini-streak.
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