Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera: Their Hardest and Easiest Pitching Opponents

Issues #5

The 2022 All-Star starters were just announced, with pitchers and backups to be revealed on ESPN on Sunday at 5:30pm ET.

In addition, MLB has announced that future hall-of-famers Albert Pujols of the Cardinals and Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers will be active at the 2022 Midsummer Classic. I don't have a strong opinion on MLB doing this sort of thing—honoring players near the end of their careers who clearly aren't going to make the All-Star rosters based on their performance in the current year. I wouldn't mind if they didn't do this, but I guess on balance I kinda like it—a nice gesture, and a chance to see these all-time greats in a spotlight game, even if it does artificially inflate their career All-Star game tallies.

I'm taking this opportunity to look into Pujols and Cabrera's careers from a specific angle: which pitchers did they overpower, and which pitchers overpowered them? But first, here is a review of each players major career accomplishments to date.

Albert Pujols:

• 22-year career

• 3x MVP (2005, 2008, 2009) + 4 times runner-up

• Rookie of the Year (2001)

• 11x All-Star

• Batting Title (2003)

• 2x World Series champion (2006, 2011)

• 2x Gold Glove at 1B (2006, 2010)

• 14 seasons of 100+ RBI (including his first 10)

• 14 seasons of 30+ HR (including his first 12)

• 10 seasons of 100+ Runs

• Lifetime slashline: .296/.374/.541

• Lifetime OPS and OPS+ of .915 and 144

• WAR 99.1 (32nd all-time)

• Games played 3,017 (8th)

• At-bats 11,240 (7th)

• Runs 1,883 (13th)

• RBIs 2,168 (3rd)

• Hits 3,326 (10th)

• Total Bases 6,084 (3rd)

• Doubles 677 (5th)

• Home Runs 683 (5th)

• Intentional Base on Balls 315 (2nd, though far behind Barry Bond's total of 688)

• Postseason slashline: .321/.426/.581

• Postseason total of 19 HR in 86 games

Not too bad for a 13th round draft ick by the Cardinals in 1999. There are really only two knocks on Pujols:

• A lack of speed has led him to be the all-time leader in double plays grounded into with 419 (far outpacing Cal Ripken's 350). He also maxed out at 16 SB in a season as a career high (twice). That said, he has been a smart base runner given his lack of speed, totaling 117 SB vs. only 42 times caught stealing, a 74% success rate.

• There is a well-known first-half/second half split to his career. During his first 11 seasons with the Cardinals, his slash line was Ted Williams-like at .328/.421/.617, with 445 HR and 170 OPS+. But then he signed with the Angels and over the second half of his career he's put up a more a Tony Armas-like slash line of .254/.310/.445 with 238 HR and 107 OPS+.

Miguel Cabrera:

• 20-year career

• 2x MVP (2012, 2013) + runner-up once

• 12x All-Star

• 4x Batting Titles (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015)

• World Series champion (2003)

• Triple Crown Winner (2012)

• 12 seasons of 100+ RBI (including 11 in a row)

• 10 seasons of 30+ HR

• 8 seasons of 100+ Runs

• Lifetime slashline: .310/.386/.528

• Lifetime OPS and OPS+ of .914 and 143

• WAR 68.8

• Runs 1,523

• RBIs 1,835 (17th)

• Hits 3,065

• Total Bases 5,218 (17th)

• Doubles 604 (16th)

• Home Runs 505

• Intentional Base on Balls 237 (9th)

• Postseason slashline: .278/.368/.517

• Postseason total of 13 HR in 55 games

Of note: Cabrera's and Pujols' OPS and OPS+ are almost identical (Cabrera has the higher BA and OBP, but Pujols the higher SLG).

Another commonality is Miggy's lack of speed. He comes in third all-time in double plays grounded into, behind Ripken and Pujols. And he has only rarely attempted to steal bases (39 SB vs. 21 CS).

One difference is that unlike Pujols who is hitting only .198 this year, and who hasn't hit over .275 in a season since 2012, Cabrera is batting .304 this year, and has only hit below .250 once in his career (and just barely, at .249 in 2017).

What Pitchers Fared Best and Worst against Pujols and Cabrera?

Albert Pujols had the most plate appearances against Roy Oswalt, Bronson Arroyo, Aaron Harang, and Carlos Zambrano—and he did pretty well against all four. But the guys he really dominated were (20 or more Plate Appearances):

• Ryan Dempster: 8 HR in 79 PA, .339/.456/.807

• Chris Capuano: 5 HR in 48 PA, .525/.604/1.000

• Ian Snell: 5 HR in 44 PA, .429/.546/.914

• Odalis Perez: 5 HR in 32 PA, .609/.719,1.391

• Randy Johnson: 5 HR in 26 PA, .458/.500/1.208

• Zach Duke: 4 HR in 48 PA, .422/.458/.800

• Kendall Graveman: 4 HR in 38 PA, .429/.447/.829

• Tim Hudson: 4 HR in 37 PA, .429/.460/.771

• David Weathers: 4 HR in 23 PA, .550/.609/1.300

• Paul Maholm: 2 HR in 46 PA, .564/.609/.897

Indeed, the great Randy Johnson is on this list! Many hitters were intimidated by Johnson during his Hall-of-Fame career, but not Pujols clearly.

On the flip side, some pitchers have had Pujols figured out. Some are current pitchers who are facing Pujols during the second half of his career:

• Sean Manaea: 1-22, .046 BA

• Cory Kluber: 1-20, .050 BA

• Nick Martinez: 1-20, .050 BA

• Chris Sale: 2-24, .083 BA

• Marco Gonzalez: 4-38, .105 BA

But what about the first half of his career with the Cardinals? His toughest opponents then included:

• Jason Schmidt: 2-17, .118 BA

• Chad Billingsley: 3-18, .167 BA

• Cole Hamels: 4-23, .174 BA

• Bud Norris: 5-26, .192 BA

• Andy Pettitte: 5-23, .217 BA

• Brandon Webb: 5-23, .217 BA

Interestingly, over his career there is no pitcher that Prince Albert faced at least 20 times that he didn't get at least one hit off. In addition to Manaea, Kluber, and Martinez above, Ryan Madson (1-21) is the only other 20+ PA pitcher to only give up 1 hit to Pujols.

In fact, you have to drop the minimum PA requirement all the way to 15 before you find any pitchers that Albert failed to ever get a hit off:

• John Axford: 0-14, 1 BB

• Joe Saunders: 0-13, 2 BB

• Jose Valverde: 0-12, 3 BB

What about for Miguel Cabrera? He's had the most plate appearances against James Shields, Corey Kluber, Chris Sale, and Jeremy Guthrie—and he did pretty well against all four. In fact, unlike Pujols, Cabrera has done very well against Kluber, as he makes the following list (against, 20 PA as minimum):

• Phil Hughes: 7 HR in 49 PA, .435/.469/1.044

• Corey Kluber: 6 HR in 76 PA, .361/.395/.667

• Bruce Chen: 5 HR in 52 PA, .390/.500/.854

• James Shields: 4 HR in 79 PA, .380/.430/.690

• Chris Capuano: 4 HR in 26 PA, .375/.385/.917

• Scott Baker: 3 HR in 46 PA, .400/.457/.750

• Luke Hochevar: 3 HR in 44 PA, .463/.500/.781

• Nick Blackburn: 3 HR in 36 PA, .412/.444/.706

• Steve Trachsel: 3 HR in 28 PA, .546/.643/1.182

• Scott Feldman: 3 HR in 21 PA, .600/.619/1.150

• Derek Holland: 3 HR in 20 PA, .500/.600/1.188

No Randy Johnson-like figure here. But poor Chris Capuano... he appears on both the Pujols- and Cabrera-domination lists. A few other prominent names didn't given up many dingers to Cabrera, but he still hit them pretty well, including Cole Hamels (.579 average in 28 PA), John Lester (.536 average in 37 PA).

As with Pujols (and any hitter really), some pitchers have done pretty well against Miggy in his career (minimum 20 PA):

• David Price: 1-18, .056 BA

• Aaron Sanchez: 2-17, .118 BA

• Chris Young: 3-25, .120 BA

• Ryan Madson: 4-30, .133 BA

• Lance Lynn: 3-19, .158 BA

• Reynaldo Lopez: 3-18, .167 BA

• Dan Haren: 4-22, .182 BA

• Kelvin Herrera 4-22, .182 BA

• Lucas Giolito: 6-33, .182 BA

With Cabrera you have to drop the minimum PA requirement even further, all the way to 13, to find a pitcher who managed to keep him hitless: Chad Billingsley, against whom Caberera went 0-12 with one walk.

All data is from Baseball-Reference.com, and also their subscription service Stathead.com. If you are a big sports fan, be sure to check out the latest features at Stathead and the Sports Reference family of sites.