Prince Albert and the Crown...Again

It was about a year and a week ago that I wrote that Albert Pujols had the best chance at a triple crown that we'd seen in a very long time. I did a few little quick-and-dirty things to try to gauge how plausible it was, and later in the day, David Pinto chimed in with his real-life math and determined that his chances were actually even quite a bit better than I would've thought.

Well, it didn't happen, of course. But it was fun to follow along while it lasted. And he did lead the league in OBP and SLG, which is really a lot more important in terms of runs and wins, but it's just not the same, is it? I don't care about batting average or RBI -- or even home run totals, really -- but I really want to see another triple crown winner at some point. It would just be cool.

Last year, though, Pujols was on fire right out of the gate, hitting around .340 in the first two months and his 30th homer by the end of June. This season he had just 18 homers on the same date, and his batting average hit a low of .295 as late as July 30. There have been debates over whether Pujols was on the decline, and whether he was even the greatest player in baseball anymore.

Well, don't look now, but he's actually in an even better position to win the triple crown than he was a year ago.