• Babe Ruth
• Ted Williams
• Barry Bonds
• Lou Gerhig
• Rogers Hornsby
• Mickey Mantle

This is the company that Albert Pujols keeps atop the career OPS+ stat for a career. The comparisons at this point aren’t with his peers. They are with the greatest players spanning 4 different epochs of baseball history. The debate isn’t whether there is another active player better than Pujols.

It’s whether anyone was better.

We are talking about a man who can hit .360, mash 50 HRs, walk 100+ times, and strike out less than 50 times a season. Through his age-27 season, Baseball-reference.com says that he compares to Joe DiMaggio, and his age-28 season looked just like Jimmie Foxx’s. Perhaps Pujols is the culmination of baseball evolution, the combination of the best players rolled into one. The only things he is missing are Willie Mays’ legs, but he is among the best base runners in the game today. More on that tomorrow.

For now, let us focus on the swing.

Here is an excellent break down of his swing. Pujols has an extremely well-balanced swing, he doesn’t move his head, and his weight is always evenly distributed. He doesn’t waste any movement; every single muscle twitch is with the intent of crushing that little white spherical object that is coming at him.

The swing is marvelous, but even more marvelous are the results. We’ve all no doubt seen the slobberfest going on for the man right now, and while it’s done in a way that only the ever annoying ESPN can do it, it’s all well-deserved praise. The question does deserve to be raised about his place in baseball history.

Afterall, his career line of .334/.427/.630 would be good for 23rd/12th/4th all-time in baseball history. His career OPS of 1.057 is also good for 4th all-time, and he is well on his way to making some serious dents in the counting statistics career standings as well.

We may have reached the midpoint of his career, one where he can combine raw ability with veteran savvy. He has, to this point, suceeded in that regard. There is no player alive today that is better than Albert Pujols. Not Hank Aaron, not Barry Bonds, and certainly not Ichiro.

Things can still go wrong, I remember Frank Thomas in these talks before a strange drop in production—during what should have been his peak years—stopped all that, but given the comps for Pujols, I doubt he will suddenly drop off the face of the earth and fail to hit.

No, I fully expect Pujols to carry on being the best hitter in the world, and while I won’t do anything silly like try to extrapolate his career line, given that he has good legs, is a smart runner and has a genuine gold glove, I doubt that anything short of an injury will stop his meteoric rise to the forefront of baseball’s Mt. Rushmore.

In a sport full of stars, Pujols’ has the potential to be the brightest of them all.

Is the no-DH rule killing you right now with interleague? Are you in need of an extra bat? Is Jim Thome and his pinch hitting limit killing you? Fear not! Here are a few adds that you can make to hold you over until your beefy hitters get to ride the pine for most of the game again.

Ian Stewart

Would it surprise you to find out that while Stewart is hitting a Mendoza like .218, he is still slugging .497? I’d add him because that average is going to go up crazy style in the next few months. I don’t expect him to finish at .300, but he will at least get to .255, which means a hot streak is a comin’. He also has positional flexibility, playing both second and third.

Michael Bourn

For a dude whose only tool is his speed, he’s having a heckuva year. His walk rate is up this year, and while he’ll K about 110-120 times this year, his strikeout rate is actually down. He’s making better contact and already has more XBHs this year than he did last. He doesn’t project out to be much more than this, so don’t go crazy with career projections, but he’s a solid 40-base stealer that isn’t owned more because of a bad reputation.

Casey Blake

He is having a solid year. The adjustments came and it’s translated into a .538 slugging percentage. He can be had, too! Owned in only 47% of ESPN leagues. He’ll continue to hit.

ONLY FOR THE AL GAMES

Jake Fox

The Cubs will go to Detroit first and probably slide Jake Fox into the DH spot. He’s a solid hitter and does well when he only has to worry about his bat and not the glove. He’s the perfect DH and his swing works very well in the Cell, a park the Cubs will visit after a round in DETROIT!

Guys you can drop

Dexter Fowler

He’s not there yet, and if you ain’t in a keeper league you don’t have the time to wait for him to get there. He’s going to be a much better player than this, he has Carl Crawford potential, but it won’t come this year.

Kosuke Fukudome

Good Lord! At least he is consistent. Again, a second half nosedive is going to be his undoing. Don’t wait it out with him unless you have the talent in the OF to do so. He looks terrible at the dish.

Keep an eye on…

Ricky Nolasco

Three straight solid innings and a healthy K rate should propel him to a strong second half. If you need the pitching, you can do worse than adding a Ricky Nolasco.

The Cubs recap is here!

I said that the Hall of Fame is overpopulated with mediocrity and needs a big slim down. I also said that I would have only 50 players in the hall, and I started off with selecting 2 catchers that would make the show. Here are the two center fielders that make it.

There is no question about the top two.

Willie Mays and Ty Cobb

And I’d put them in that order, too. The question isn’t whether these two guys belong, but rather who was truly the better player of the two.

There was a time when crusty old baseball guys used to sit around and shout from the rooftops that Cobb was much better than Ruth. The thinking at the time was that Ruth was only a home run hitter, and home runs were gimmicks. That theory proved to be foolhardy because Ruth brought so much more to the table than just those home runs, Ruth was the first real offensive juggernaut the game had.

The same goes for the comparasions between Mays and Cobb in my mind. I’m not going to take anything away from Cobb—he is one of the top 5 players in MLB history, and that is nothing to scoff at. He just has the misfortune of running into perhaps the most complete player in history, with all due respect to Joe D and Mickey Mantle.

Much was made about Curtis Granderson and his 20-20-20-20 feat in 2007. To be sure it is a rare feat that few have ever accomplished, but when you look at what Willie Mays did in 1955 at the ripe age of 24, well you get the idea of what kind of player Mays was. In an era where the stolen base had yet to be reintroduced in baseball (it started to fade away in the ’20s as the Ruth phenomenon proved that you could win without stealing bases and was completely gone by the 50’s as a viable strategy) he hit 50 home runs, stole 24 bases, had 33 doubles, and hit 13 triples. And he did in in a park that hurt his total home runs.

I mean, Ty Cobb was a great, great player, he did after all have a .366 career average, but when one starts putting those numbers into context, Cobb perhaps did not play against the best competition of the time. Mays was a 40-40 threat in an era that did not steal many bases. He is considered the better fielder of the two. Even when you put their defensive numbers in context, you start to get the idea that while the difference between the two players is not large. Mays is a little bit ahead.

Again, the pluses for Cobb are definitely there, higher average, better OPS+, stole a ton more bases, had more value longer (Cobb still had value into his late 30’s, Mays was essentially done as a weapon at the age of 36), but I believe that the benefits of a Willie Mays are greater.

He was a far more dangerous offensive weapon as he could beat you in several different ways, he played a better defensive CF, he was a progressive player and was definitely ahead of his time.

I can see the case for either player to be put ahead of the other, but in all honesty the unfortunate racism of the time and the barring of black players from playing at the highest level hurts Cobb, perhaps in the same way that modern players are hurt by the inflated numbers of their generation and the stigma of steroids.

Cobb was great, elite even. But Mays was better in my estimation.

A special submission from Robert Bykowski today about Mark DeRosa and the current hitting woes of the Cubs second basemen.

Why does it seem that every time I’m waiting for the Cubs highlights (such as they are these days) on Baseball Tonight I catch Indians recaps, and further, I see former North Sider Mark DeRosa coming through for the Tribe?

Mark DeRosa, the versatile fielder and reliable hitter, sent off to the Indians in the off season following the Cubs’ signing of Aaron Miles for a few pitching prospects, is continuing to do for the Indians what he did for the Cubs the two years he was here: perform. Statistically, his numbers are simply serviceable, and at this point in his career he’s all he’s ever going to be, but who in Cubdom wouldn’t trade anything to have his consistency and clutch play back on the team?

For me, the Cubs trading away DeRosa was one of the worst off-season decisions—if not the worst—the Cubs made this year. DeRosa was one of the most consistent players on that ultimately underachieving 2008 squad, and I believe you only trade or cut players if it’s necessary to improve the club. Trading DeRosa, even on paper, doesn’t make the Cubs a better team in 2009. Perhaps, down the road, the prospects the Cubs acquired for DeRosa will prove to be a prescient move, but now is not the time to be looking toward the future, especially when you’re the two-time defending Central champs.

As for DeRosa’s replacements, the second base platoon of Miles, Scales and Blanco? Their stats combined don’t come close to stacking up with what DeRosa is doing for the Indians. Look at RBIs, for instance, and DeRosa’s 42 in 58 games easily trumps that of a combined 14 for the Cubs second basers over a combined span of 73 games. (Hell, DeRosa has more RBIs than anyone on the Cubs roster this year.)

Now, think about how many games the Cubs have dropped as of late by a run or two, and how many times they’ve had runners on base at key points in these games, and you start to have a newfound appreciation for what DeRosa brought to the plate. All of these one run losses by the Cubs are going to hurt them in the long run. The Central division of 2009 is surprisingly better than it was in ‘08, and winning the division isn’t going to be the relative cake walk it was for the Cubs last year.

Further, that’s just what DeRosa can do at the plate. In the field, he’s proven to be able to play (and play well) at just about every position, which the Cubs could certainly use at this injury-riddled part of their season. Mike Fontenot at third for the ailing Ramirez? You know that’s not an ideal fit. The Cubs desperately need Mark DeRosa this year.

The long and short of it is the players choked in 08, but it’s already starting to look like it’ll be the front office that’ll take those honors this year.

The MLB Draft took place yesterday, and if you’re not an uber nerd like me, you had no idea.

We’re going to look at the first round picks for both teams. Remember, this isn’t the NBA nor the NFL draft, you won’t see these guys for 3 years on average, if they pay out. I’ll also be watching these guys in Rookie ball and give weekly updates.

Chicago White Sox

With the 23rd overall pick in the first round the Chicago White Sox selected Jared Mitchell of LSU.

Mitchell is a two sport athlete, playing the OF in baseball and WR in football. Mitchell is more committed to baseball as he would play with the Baseball squad all the way through and join the football team later.

He was talked about by NFL scouts as someone to watch for in the 2010 NFL Draft. He has blazing speed according to scouts.

Being a two sport athlete he of course has a huge hole in his swing that needs to get fixed before he can even crawl out of low-A ball. The rookie league bears watching with this kid as the White Sox organization hasn’t done too well turning out highly touted prospects in recent memory.

Mitchell has an uphill climb, moreso than most baseball prospects. Two sport athletes have more to fix and more to figure out than most guys who made Baseball their primary sport.

All that being said, if he pays off he can be the leadoff hitter that the White Sox have been looking for ever since the myth of Scotty Po left the first time around. You won’t see him for awhile, it’s likely that he won’t play until 2011, but he is someone to watch carefully in the organization.

Cubs

With the 31st overall pick in the MLB draft the Cubs selected Brett Jackson, OF Cal.

I have no idea why the Cubs drafted this guy when Tim Wheeler, who has a higher ceiling and is developing much better, was sitting there right behind Jackson. The Rockies took Wheeler and the Cubs are stuck with a guy who strikes out a lot, is sorta fast and has middling power. Why does that sound sooooo familiar?

I mean, look at that swing! He’s dipping his shoulder, he’s out in front of an off-speed pitch, he’s rolling his wrists, he’s off balance… I mean, he only hit .238 in the Cape Cod League.

That wasn’t a red flag at all? Not even a little bit, Jimbo? Look, like most all draftees, he has a long, hard road ahead of him, and the Cubs are going to have to change his swing. I’m tired of the Cubs falling in love with that power/speed combo instead of looking for good swings. Scout the player, Cubs.