300, 500, 3,000 AND BEYOND

NOTE: ALL STATS ARE AS OF AUGUST 4, 2010

I’m sure that many of the baseball fans out there reading this have some inkling about what the numbers in the title of this piece mean. Without attempting to draw out the suspense too much, we’re going to be talking about the most prominent counting stats in baseball; hits, home runs, wins, and strikeouts.

Before I get started, I know the pitfalls of basing someone’s Hall of Fame candidacy on stats as subjective as hits and wins as well as home runs in recent years. Frankly, I don’t care. These are benchmarks that have been used, either consciously or unconsciously, for a very long time in measuring a player’s career. Also, it’s a bit interesting when you start making projections.

Basically what I’m looking at is among the game’s best young (and not so young) players, who are the most likely to reach these milestones, who would be the most helped by achieving these levels in terms of their HOF candidacy.

Let’s go ahead and start with the elephant that’s been in the room for 10 years and get it out of the way…

HOME RUNS

As of August 4th, seven active players had 400 or more home runs and strange as it seems, I would actually say that they number of marquee sluggers with huge career numbers is actually down significantly from a few years ago when we had this current crop (albeit with lower career numbers) as well as guys like Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Griffey, and Palmeiro. Quick, what links four of the five previous names and who is the one who doesn’t fit in?

No, this post isn’t about steroids but anyone who said steroids and Ken Griffey Jr. are correct. Anyways, seven different players have 400 home runs, three have 500, and Alex Rodriguez just became the 7th member of the 600 home run club. The question that I’m asking is given their careers and ages, how many of those guys are likely to reach the next milestone?

My guess is three of the seven and at very most four. The seven players are:

Alex Rodriguez – 600
Jim Thome – 577
Manny Ramirez – 554
Chipper Jones – 434
Vladimir Guerrero – 428
Jason Giambi – 412
Andruw Jones – 403

Of those, the most likely to hit the next milestone are Rodriguez, Thome, and Jones.

- Manny Ramirez does have 554 career home runs but he’s also 38, he hasn’t played a full season since 2008 and in the last two years, he’s played 165 games and has hit 27 home runs, well below his career rate of 39.6 home runs per 162 games played. On top of the age, there are all the issues that come along with employing Ramirez and I just find it doubtful that he’ll be able to stick around long enough (without PED’s) to hit another 46 home runs.

- Chipper Jones could go down as one of the best third basemen of all-time and the list of hot corner specialists who have hit 500 or more home runs is quite short: Mike Schmidt (Alex Rodriguez has only 245 career home runs while playing third base). However, Jones is 66 home runs shy of 500 and there have been rumors flying around about his retirement after this year. He’s a first ballot Hall of Famer without 500 home runs.

- Vladimir Guerrero is the most interesting case out of these seven because last year after hitting 15 home runs in 100 games, many people gave up on him except for the Texas Rangers. Guerrero is a viable MVP candidate again and has hit 21 home runs in his first 100 games this year, bringing his career total to 428. The real question is whether or not he can continue to play like he did earlier this year, with a slash line of .319/.364/.554 in the first half of the season, or whether he will continue his slow decline which has seen him not post an OPS over .900 since 2007 when the last time he was below .900 before that was 1997. I’m inclined to believe the latter and if he does fall short of 500 home runs, he will make a very interesting candidate for the Hall of Fame because while his defense is suspect, he’s had one of the most feared arms and bats in baseball over the last ten years.

- Jason Giambi is battling against time. He has 412 home runs and is 39 years old. On top of that, last year he managed just 13 home runs in 102 games and this year, he’s played well in 60 games for the Rockies, but he has just 3 home runs. In short, it just ain’t gonna happen.

The big difference between these four and the other three is time. Alex Rodriguez is still only 34 so he could potentially have a few more good home run years ahead of him. Jim Thome is 39, but he’s still hitting the ball out and he’s close enough to get over the hump and hit 600. Andruw Jones has 403 home runs and absolutely can’t hit the ball for average which greatly reduces his playing opportunities, but he’s just 33, the youngest player with more than 400 home runs so if he can get his average back into the .250 range, I would say that he’ll pass 500 home runs.

Lastly, there are a pair of 30 year olds that don’t yet have 400 home runs (though they soon will) and are very intriguing when looking at the future. The first is Adam Dunn who has 342 home runs and is frighteningly consistent in how many home runs he hits. These are his home run totals for the past 6 years: 46, 40, 40, 40, 40, 38. A little simple extrapolation says that if he does that until he’s 35, he’ll be in the range of 550 home runs, well within range of hitting 600. Is he a Hall of Famer if he hits 600 home runs? It will definitely be interesting to see because he will probably retire in the top ten (if not near the top) in home runs, strikeouts, and walks. His defense will certainly hurt him, but his bat has been very good since he came to the big leagues in 2001.

Even more intriguing is Albert Pujols. He has 392 home runs and the fewest he’s ever had in a season is 32. If he averages about 40 home runs a season over the next five years, he could very well be where Alex Rodriguez is right now; 35 years old with 600 home runs. In other words, Pujols could have a very good shot at hitting 700 and possibly more when all is said and done. My prediction is that both Rodriguez and Pujols will end up with more than 700 home runs.

HITS

7 active players have more than 2,000 career hits currently and of those players, two will pass 3,000 hits and one has a very good chance. With all due respect to Ivan Rodriguez (2,783), Omar Vizquel (2,759). Manny Ramirez (2,553), and Johnny Damon (2,524), time is running out and they aren’t going to make it. The fact that the youngest of those four is 36 might have something to do with that.

The one who has a chance is Ichiro Suzuki and the biggest reason for that is despite the fact that he entered the big leagues at the late age of 27, he swings at everything. In ten seasons and 1,536 games, he has walked a grand total of 447 times. By comparison, Albert Pujols has played 1,507 games over ten years and has walked 877 times. Ichiro has accumulated 2,169 hits and could very well pass 3,000 if he plays until he’s 40 which considering his level of fitness and his ability to play the outfield, he’ll be able to if he wants to. Here’s the question though; does he want to?

If you combine his time between Japan and the United States, he is a .339 career hitter with 3,450 hits and 205 home runs. What really matters when answering this question is does he want to win a World Series title or does he care about individual numbers? If he gets to 3,000 hits in the US, he would pass Rose’s mark of 4,256 hits when you added in his playing time in Japan.

My gut tells me that he will play until his physical skills deteriorate too much and that is going to be a while. He will pass 3,000 hits and he will be a first ballot Hall of Famer five years after his retirement.

The two I haven’t mentioned are definitely going to get to 3,000 unless they have a catastrophic injury of some kind. Derek Jeter has 2,872 hits and his pace (measured in hits per 162 games played) has stayed right up near his career mark of 207.4 in recent years so sometime next year, he’ll hit this milestone. Alex Rodriguez has 2,633 and even though he’s slowing down in recent years, at his current paces, he’ll only need two seasons and maybe a little more to pass 3,000 hit and when he does, he will join Hank Aaron and Willie Mays as the only players with 3,000 hits and 600 home runs.

WINS

Now, on to the pitchers. Yes, wins is a terribly overrated statistic that depends much more on the other eight (or nine) guys in the starting lineup than on how well you’re pitching that particular day. Yet, the fact remains that the starting pitcher has more influence over the path of the game than any other single player on the field. One can easily argue that the catcher has this level of influence or more but that depends entirely on whether or not the catcher actually calls the game. If not, they aren’t close to the starting pitcher. Therefore, given this logic, it does make some sense that starting pitchers are often judged by wins since 20 wins has universally been considered a good season for many decades while an ERA of 3.00 might be good today but in 1968, it was worse than average (yes, I understand the pitfalls of ERA as well… back off).

Along with 20 wins in a season, 300 wins in a career has been seen as an automatic ticket to Cooperstown for a very long time and I believe that still applies. I’m not saying that because a pitcher won 300 games, he’s a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, I’m saying that if he pitched long enough and well enough to win 300 games, the odds are extremely good that all the more advanced metrics will support his candidacy.

Here’s the problem; are we ever going to see a 300 game winner again? The answer gets murky but of the ten pitchers I looked at, only one is on pace to reach 300 wins before turning 40. Since Jamey Moyer is a freak of nature (103 wins since turning 40) and a Roger Clemens type (61 wins after turning 40) will likely never happen again, it would seem that if you’re going to get to 300 wins, you’ve got to do it before turning 40.

Amongst active players, CC Sabathia stands the best chance. He has 149 wins and is only 29 years old and given the number of games he starts every year and the percentage of starts in which he gets a victory, right now it would be a tenth of the way through the 11th season from now, just before he turns 40, that he will win his 300th game.

The other component that goes into how many games a pitcher may win has to be addressed and that is the team around him. Sabathia stands a good chance to get to 300 wins because through his late 20’s and early 30’s, he’s going to be pitching for the Yankees and the team has a very solid core of position players so they are going to be a good team throughout his current contract. Even if he is remembered as a great pitcher and not just a good pitcher, there is no doubt that Sabathia will benefit greatly from being on playoff caliber teams.

Even if you lower that threshold to 250 wins, only Andy Pettitte joins Sabathia as being on pace for more than 250 wins before age 40 (Pettitte currently stands at 240).

How will the pitchers of today and tomorrow measure up against those of past generations? Well, at first glance, the answer is not well. Even just taking the batch of players that are recently retired, the group includes a 270 game winner (Mike Mussina) and four 300 games winners in Randy Johnson (303), Tom Glavine (305), Roger Clemens (354), and Greg Maddux (355). The answer to the dilemma is we need more advanced metrics such as OPS+ which can measure the career performances of the all-time greats against the great pitchers of today to put them in a proper context. Otherwise, pitchers could become rarer and rarer in the Hall of Fame.

STRIKEOUTS

If there’s a silver lining about starting pitchers getting fewer career wins, it’s that there are more strikeouts for the taking these days. As one scout said when asked about the drop in offensive numbers in recent years, “all the players are clean and they’re still swinging for the fences”.

If we assume that there is no steroid use in baseball today (I know it’s a pipe dream but still, let’s just say…) we can draw several conclusions from that assertion, including the large amount of strikeouts being piled up. One of the uses of performance enhancing drugs isn’t necessarily to get stronger and hit the ball farther but rather to be at the top of your game day in and day out. In the NFL, if you have a really bad Tuesday and you’re only at 50% of your ability, then you have a bad practice and your coach comes up to you and asks if everything is alright. If you have the same bad day in Major League Baseball, you go 0-4 with 3 strikeouts. One of the uses of PED’s is to be on the field every day and playing at a high level every day. Without PED’s, you have more off days and the most direct effect of that is batting performance.

Also, knowing that you are clean (where perhaps, at one time, you weren’t) could make you try harder to hit those home runs. This creates longer, slower swings with more holes and more holes can equal more strikeouts.

That would be one theory for why the strikeout rates have climbed so high. Another is that managers are just accepting them more and more because of the good things that a player does. In his career, Adam Dunn has struck out 1,566 times, already good for 33rd all-time. However, he also has 346 home runs and a career .252/.382/.525 slash line, very good numbers considering the relatively low batting average. I can certainly say that if Adam Dunn was available to me, I would put him in the line-up every day despite the strike outs.

So, back to the original query; how many pitchers are on pace for more than 3,000 strikeouts? Out of the 11 pitchers I looked at (assuming the 40 year age limit as with wins), 6 of them are on pace to reach 3,000 strikeouts and two of them are even on pace to reach 3,500. Some of you might ask why this is such a big deal and the answer is simple; while 27 players have accumulated 3,000 hits in their career, just 16 have struck out 3,000 batters. To add as many as six to that list from a generation of pitchers would constitute a large increase.

Those six pitchers are Javier Vazquez (2,342 strikeouts, 34 years old), Johan Santana (1,838, 31), CC Sabathia (1,717, 29), Jake Peavy (1,459, 29), Felix Hernandez (959, 24), and Tim Lincecum (828, 26). I know that it’s really premature to be talking about career projections for 24 and 26 year olds but Hernandez and Lincecum are the two who have the potential to reach 3,500 strikeouts at their current paces, a level that only 9 pitchers have ever gotten to.

HALL OF FAME

So now the obvious question is which of these milestones gives a player their best shot at the Hall of Fame?

In a nutshell, anything that doesn’t have anything to do with home runs. Of the 25 players that have 500 career home runs, only 15 have been enshrined in Cooperstown. However, 3 of those players (Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Jim Thome) are still active and five (Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, and Gary Sheffield) aren’t eligible for the HOF yet. So actually, 15 of the 17 eligible 500 home run hitters are enshrined in the Hall of Fame, leaving only Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro out in the cold.

Here’s the proverbial rub though. If the Hall of Fame doesn’t vote in anybody that has been linked to steroids (other than playing in the steroid era), then six of the ten mentioned above will not make it to the Hall of Fame. Whether or not that will be the case remains to be seen but so far Mark McGwire hasn’t come close to the 75% needed to get in.

3,000 hits has been a one way ticket to the Hall unless you’ve been linked to steroids or gambling (on baseball). Of the 27 players with 3,000 career hits, only Craig Biggio (not eligible since he retired in 2007), Rafael Palmeiro, and hit king Pete Rose are not in the Hall of Fame. Biggio has a very good chance to get in when his turns comes up in 2012. As for the other two, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

24 pitchers have won 300 games and so far, only four of them are not enshrined in Cooperstown. However, all 20 eligible pitchers with 300 wins are in the Hall of Fame. Only Roger Clemens (retired 2007), Greg Maddux (2008), Tom Glavine (2008), and Randy Johnson (2009) aren’t in yet and with the exception of Clemens (back to the PED’s again), they all stand a very good chance of getting in.

The oddest one seems to be strikeouts. Of those 16 players who have struck out 3,000 batters in their careers, only 10 are currently eligible and of those, 9 are in the Hall of Fame. Only Bert Blyleven remains on the outside looking in. As for the rest, when their turn comes up Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Greg Maddux have very good odds, Curt Schilling has a pretty good shot, and the last is none other than our good friend Roger Clemens.

What this last bit shows is that the Hall of Fame voters have no idea what to do with the steroids era players. Granted, some guys like Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson are locks once they are eligible. However, six of the ten players with 500 or more home runs not in the Hall of Fame have been in some way linked to Performance Enhancing Drugs and the question is how is the Hall of Fame going to deal with them?

I don’t have an answer but I do have an opinion. In a nutshell, one of the greatest pitchers ever (Clemens) and one of the greatest hitters ever (Bonds) are neck deep in steroid questions and accusations. All that says to me is the playing field might just have been somewhat level after all. Who are the biggest culprits in the offensive explosion that cheapened some of America’s most hallowed records? In my opinion, smaller ballparks, better training, expansion of the league, contraction of the strike zone, and the American infatuation with the home run are just as much to blame as steroids.




Well, my ranting is at an end for the day. Until next time…