NEWSLETTER
I don’t really have anything against Albert Pujols as a person, but after years of watching him torment my beloved Chicago Cubs, I also have no sympathy for everything that follows.
In 2017, Albert Pujols was kinda-sorta the single worst player in baseball. There are legitimate arguments to be made against this, but his -2.0 WAR was the single worst mark in the game and indicates that he actually and actively made the Angels two wins worse than your run-of-the-mill, scrap-heap, Joe-nobody, replacement player.
And part of the reason he was so bad was that he grounded into a league “leading” 26 double plays. But the funny thing is, this isn’t some new development for Pujols. He’s always hit into a ridiculous number of double plays – including a personal best 29 GDPs during his final season with the Cardinals (2011).
Don’t believe me? Before we continue, please enjoy 10-straight minutes of Albert Pujols grounding into double plays:
But as I continued to dig deeper on this stat, I noticed something even BETTER (well, for all of us, that is). Pujols hasn’t just led the Majors in grounding into double plays a few times over his illustrious career, he’s the ALL-TIME LEADER in that category:
- Albert Pujols: 362
- Cal Ripken: 350
- Ivan Rodriguez: 337
- Hank Aaron: 328
- Carl Yastrzemski: 323
- Dave Winfield: 319
- Jim Rice: 315
- Eddie Murray: 315
- Julio Franco: 310
- Brooks Robinson: 298
Now, to be fair, that’s a top ten list including eight current members of the Hall-of-Fame, so, like, I get it: you have to be pretty damn good to play this long and rack up that sort of GDP totals, but still … LOL.
Albert Pujols has grounded into more double plays than any player in baseball history. And I’ll never forget that.
