Pujols at 3001

Albert Pujols collected two hits Friday night, and his single in the fifth inning gave him 3000 hits for his career.

Pujols is the rate slugger who doesn’t strike out much. His high in a season is 93. He set that his rookie year, and didn’t come close again until he equaled that number in 2017. His career BABIP of .291 is meh, but since he doesn’t strike out much, plenty of batted balls fall for hits, and his great power added 620 home run hits. Low strikeouts and high home runs lead to a batting average above BABIP, and Pujols is a career .304 hitter.

Note that he only reached 200 hits in a season once. He almost never misses games, however, and he topped 170 hits his first 12 seasons and in 13 seasons total.

Pujols pretty much gathered every Hall of Fame plank a player needs. With 600 homers, 3000 hits, World Championships, multiple MVP awards, Rookie of the Year, a .300 BA, a .500 slugging percentage, and 600 doubles, it would be hard to imagine anyone not voting for him on the first ballot when that comes around.

Congratulations to Pujols on an amazing career and another impressive milestone.

from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2FL3CyU