Albert Pujols, Robinson Cano, and Approaches To Pitching

I'll give you one guess as to who the best fastball hitter in the majors is. Not only has Albert Pujols done the most destruction to heaters this season, but it's not even close. Pujols is 4.07 runs above average against every 100 fastballs. The second-best fastball hitter of 2009, Indians catcher Victor Martinez, is 3.02 runs above average. The gap between Pujols and Martinez is bigger than the gap between Martinez and 17th-place Derrek Lee (2.00 runs above average). Pujols also excels on sliders (2.90 runs above average) and changeups (1.88 runs above average). However, Albert Pujols does struggle a little bit with curveballs, coming in at .28 runs below average. The best curveball hitter this season has been Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano, who is a whopping 5.85 runs above average against curves. There's also a sizeable difference between Cano and second-place (Royals 2B Alberto Callaspo at 4.60 runs above average). The difference between Cano and Callaspo is gr...