Justin Verlander had himself a night in Anaheim on Wednesday, throwing his first complete-game shutout since August 26, 2015 and becoming the 33rd pitcher to notch 2,500 strikeouts. What’s more, he did it in a game where the Astros’ sole possession of first place in the AL West was on the line. It’s just the latest chapter of the now 35-year-old righty’s rebirth, one that has returned him to the upper echelon of the game’s starters and positioned him for a run at the Hall of Fame. The pitcher famous for finding another gear with his fastball late in the game has done just that with his career.

Verlander collected his milestone strikeout against none other than Shohei Ohtani, who foul-tipped a 96 mph heater in the ninth inning:

That was one of seven strikeouts Verlander notched on the night, and yes, he was still Bringing It late. He threw his six fastest four-seamers of the night, and nine of his top 11, in the eighth or ninth innings, all 97.5 mph or above according to Brooks Baseball.

Three of his strikeouts came against Ohtani (the second silver sombrero of his brief MLB career), who while avoiding a strikeout in the fourth inning — and even getting the call on this 87 mph slider — nonetheless wound up with his ankles repurposed into a pretzel, with Verlander supplying the mustard:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday was supposed to be the day that Robinson Cano learned of the prognosis regarding the fractured fifth metacarpal he suffered on Sunday. Instead, both he and the Mariners suffered a bigger blow, as MLB suspended the 35-year-old second baseman for 80 games for violating baseball’s joint drug agreement. The news is quite a shock, to say the least, given Cano’s standing within the game. It’s also quite a coincidence given his injury.

Cano will not be paid during the suspension, which means that he stands to lose about half of his $24 million salary. If the Mariners were to make the playoffs — something they haven’t done since 2001, giving them the longest postseason drought in major North American sports — he would be ineligible to participate. He can, however, serve the suspension while on the disabled list, a loophole that should have been closed a long time ago but for some reason has not been. Edinson Volquez (suspended in 2010) and Freddy Galvis (suspended in 2012) are among the players who served their PED suspensions while on the DL. Cano will be eligible to return for the Mariners’ 121st game of the season, on August 14.

According to MLB, Cano tested positive for furosemide, a diuretic better known as Lasix. Via WebMD, the drug can be used to treat high blood pressure, fluid retention and swelling caused by congestive heart failure, liver disease, kidney disease, and other medical conditions.

Via a statement by Cano issued through the Major League Baseball Players Association, Cano claimed that the substance was given to him by a licensed doctor to treat an unspecified medical ailment. (MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports that it was an episode of high blood pressure.)

Here’s the statement in full:

Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, the Mariners announced that Ichiro Suzuki would transition to the role of Special Assistant to the Chairman, effective immediately. While the agreement covers only the 2018 season, it appears quite likely that we’ve seen the last of the wiry, slap-hitting international superstar in a playing role, even given his stated desire to play “at least until I’m 50.” At 44 years old, he was hitting a meager .205/.255/.205, and with outfielders Ben Gamel and Guillermo Heredia now both on the roster, his continued presence created a crunch whose resolution couldn’t even wait until this weekend’s series with the Angels, which might have included a possible encounter with the pitching version of Shohei Ohtani.

From the Mariners’ PR department:

“We want to make sure we capture all of the value that Ichiro brings to this team off the field,” [general manager Jerry] Dipoto said. “This new role is a way to accomplish that. While it will evolve over time, the key is that Ichiro’s presence in our clubhouse and with our players and staff improves our opportunity to win games. That is our number-one priority and Ichiro’s number-one priority.”

Ichiro will work in collaboration with the Mariners Major League Staff, High Performance Staff and Front Office personnel. He will assist, based on his experience, with outfield play, baserunning and hitting. And he will provide mentorship to both players and staff.

The plight of Ichiro wasn’t far from my mind as I wrote about Albert Pujols‘ crawl to 3,000 hits, and the struggles of other players when they made the push for that milestone. Back in 2013, when Ichiro was playing for the Yankees, I had the privilege of covering his 4,000th hit — his combined NPB and MLB total — for SI.com. At the time it was clear that his offensive skills had faded, and the celebration felt like a stand-in for that of an increasingly unlikely 3,000th major league hit. At 39 years old, he didn’t figure to collect the 278 he still needed. I even asked the question myself as to whether the more conventional milestone was in his sights. “I don’t make goals that are so far away,” he said through his translator. “What I do is do what I can every single day and build off that and see where that takes me.”

Lo and behold, Ichrio built off enough days to reach 3,000 while enjoying an unexpected renaissance with the Marlins in 2016. Even having not debuted stateside until he was 27 years old, he was the fourth-fastest player to 3,000 hits in terms of plate appearances, and sixth-fastest in terms of at-bats. As with the 4,000th combined hit and his long-awaited MLB pitching debut from October 4, 2015, the milestone 3,000th, a triple against the Rockies on August 7, 2016, brought a good bit of joy to the game. It also sealed the deal, once and for all, on his future enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. While his anachronistic slash-and-run style rarely produced the value to rival that of the era’s top sluggers, it was a vastly entertaining one nonetheless, and he staked his claim on a plaque via his initial decade-long run, during which he annually made the All-Star team, won a Gold Glove and cranked out at least 200 hits. He led the AL seven times in that category, setting a major league record with 262 hits in 2004 and claiming two batting titles as well as his AL Rookie of the Year/MVP combo in 2001. He will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2024 if he doesn’t return, although Seattle’s 2019 season-opening series in Japan offers a tempting possibility for a cameo.

Ichiro’s awe-inspiring total of 4,367 hits (1,278 in Japan, 3,089 here) will stand as the signature accomplishment for a player who has spent more than a quarter-century serving as a wonderful ambassador for the sport on two continents. Here’s hoping he can continue that ambassadorship in a non-playing capacity for years to come.

I said something that was off base in my most recent FanGraphs chat, which probably happens every week. In this case, however, having done the research in the area that qualifies as my wheelhouse — the Hall of Fame beat — it’s worth setting the record straight.

With Ronald Acuña’s debut fresh in mind, reader BK asked me, “What is the highest probability you would give to a rookie of making the Hall of Fame? Over [or] under 5%?”

My response was, “It depends upon the rookie. An overall No. 1 prospect who’s reaching the majors for good at 20 years old and then succeeding, I might say 5-10%. That’s just off the top of my head; guys who can stick at that age are by far the best HOF prospects.”

Leaving aside the subjectivity that comes with labeling a player an “overall No. 1 prospect,” I should have remembered based upon my reading and research that any playing time in the majors at such a young age gives a player about a 5-10% chance at Cooperstown. Using the Baseball-Reference Play Index, here are the number of position players who had at least one season with a plate appearance at each age from 18 to 21 (using the June 30 cutoff convention) and the rates at which they reached the Hall of Fame:

In calculating the percentages, I’ve excluded active players — such as Adrian Beltre, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Jurickson Profar, Mike Trout and Justin Upton as 19 year olds — because of course they’re not yet eligible for the Hall.

Using a 100 PA cutoff to fulfill the “significant playing time” requirement, here’s the breakdown:

In both tables, players may be counted more than once; for example, Mel Ott is one of three Hall of Famers and 11 players who qualified at age 18, and one of 13 Hall of Famers and 59 players who did so at 19, et cetera. For the 20-year-olds, the list of 33 qualifiers who are enshrined includes Ott, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Jimmie Foxx, Rogers Hornsby, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Al Kaline, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Johnny Bench, Robin Yount, Rickey Henderson, and one from each of the last three Hall classes: Ken Griffey Jr. (2016), Ivan Rodriguez (2017) and Jim Thome (2018). That’s a lot of inner-circle guys, if you care to make that distinction.

For the qualifiers at age 20 who are still active, I present you with the whole list:

Based on the data above, we should expect three or four to wind up in Cooperstown, but I’d suggest taking the “over” on that count. Beltre, with his 3,075 hits, status as one of the game’s greatest defensive third basemen, and the No. 4 ranking in JAWS at the position, is a lock. Cabrera, with 2,662 hits, 464 homers, and the No. 11 JAWS ranking at first base — already above the standard — is pretty close to a lock as well, as is Trout, who already ranks ninth among center fielders in JAWS and fifth in seven-year peak despite having played just six full season and change. Past MVP winners Harper and Stanton are probably the next two players, odds-wise, but they’ve got much more work to do than Trout. And note the presence of Acuña’s teammate, Ozzie Albies. Check back in 25 to 30 years and see which of these guys panned out.

Two thousand hits is not 3,000, and yet there was plenty of reason to celebrate Joe Mauer reaching that milestone on Thursday night at Target Field via a two-run single against the White Sox. If nothing else, it shores up the 35-year-old catcher-turned-first baseman’s case for Cooperstown, because 2,000 hits has functioned as a bright-line test for Hall of Fame voters for the past several decades. Neither the BBWAA nor the various small committees has elected a position player with fewer than 2,000 hits whose career crossed into the post-1960 expansion era, no matter their merits.

Just 34 of the 157 position players in the Hall for their major-league playing careers (including Monte Ward, who made a mid-career conversion from the mound to shortstop) have fewer than 2,000 hits, and only 11 of them even played in the majors past World War II:

Eight of the 11 players on that list had substantial career interruptions that contributed to their falling short of the milestone. Dickey, Gordon, Greenberg, Kiner, and Rizzuto all lost multiple seasons to military service, while Campanella, Doby, and Robinson were prevented from playing in the majors due to the presence of the color line, which fell on April 15, 1947 (71 years ago this Sunday) with Robinson’s debut. Of the other three, Ferrell and Lombardi were constrained by spending their whole careers as catchers; the former, a two-time batting champion, was classified as 4-F by the time the war rolled around, while the latter, one of the Hall’s lightest-hitting catchers (and the lowest-ranked in JAWS), was too old for the draft.

Read the rest of this entry »

With over 3,000 hits and his status as one of the greatest defensive third basemen in history, Adrian Beltre is already a lock for Cooperstown. On Thursday, he claimed a particularly cool slice of history. With his double off A’s starter Daniel Mengden, he collected hit number 3,054, surpassing Hall of Famer Rod Carew, whom he had tied on Tuesday night, for the most hits of any player born in Latin America.

Here’s the record-setting hit, whose significance was acknowledged by the Rangers’ broadcasters a few moments after the clip:

With this hit Adrian Beltre passes Rod Carew as the @MLB career hit leader for Latin-born players. Congratulations! pic.twitter.com/XlISb2HhG1

— Bally Sports Southwest (@BallySportsSW) April 5, 2018

At some point later this season, Beltre will likely overtake Ichiro Suzuki, now a 44-year-old reserve, as the all-time leader in hits for a player born outside of the United States:

Note that I’ve included Puerto Rico-born players here. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated US territory, and its citizens are US citizens, but the Caribbean island is also considered part of Latin America, and its ballplayers have long been recognized and celebrated within that context, particularly during and after the career of the iconic Clemente.

Looking at the above list, it’s remarkable that for all of the talented Latin American players that have starred in the game over the past several decades, only four have reached 3,000 hits (out of 24 such players since World War II), with Pujols poised to become the fifth; none has advanced much further than that. Clemente ranked 11th on the all-time hit list at the time of his December 31, 1972 death, but the total number of players above him has more than doubled in the 45 years since. He was 16th at the end of 1985, Carew’s final year, while Carew himself was 13th. Beltre, who turns 39 on April 7, is still playing at a consistently high enough level to think beyond 2018. Assuming he can total 200 hits over this season and next — a conservative assumption given that he had 106 in just 94 games last year — he’d climb to 14th all time, with 3,248, seven shy of Eddie Murray at number 13, and 35 shy of Willie Mays at number 12. He’d need a total of 3,320 to crack the all-time top 10.

(All of these rankings rely upon the inclusion of Cap Anson’s National Association stats from 1871-75 towards his career total of 3,435, as recognized by Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference. Elias Bureau and Major League Baseball, which do not recognize NA stats, credit him with 3,011 hits.)

Beltre is also bearing down on another very cool distinction within this group. His 84.2 WAR is the second-highest total of any player born outside of the US, trailing only Pujols, who’s at 89.1 but moving backwards (-2.1 since the start of 2017). Beltre will probably need at least another season to close the gap, but if he does, the Hall of Fame will have to break out a very narrow typeface for his plaque in order to fit all of his accomplishments.

The Mariners made the Ichiro Suzuki signing official on Wednesday, returning the 44-year-old outfielder to the team for whom he starred from 2001 until mid-2012, when he was traded to the Yankees. Aside from a genuinely useful 2016 season in a part-time role — highlighted by his 3,000th major league hit — he hasn’t been a very productive player over the past five years, totaling 2.5 WAR over the span, and he may not have much to offer the Mariners beyond wisdom, leadership, warm fuzzies, and other soft factors. Still, there are worse ways to end a storied career, as Rian Watt pointed out when the news of Ichiro’s westward return first broke.

The history of such homecomings among Hall of Fame-bound players isn’t filled with many resounding successes, and in Seattle’s case, the most immediate example that comes to mind represents a worst-case scenario in this realm: an old, underperforming player outright embarrassing himself in some way, as Ken Griffey Jr. did in 2010. Junior hit just .184/.250/.204 without a homer before being released on June 2, shortly after he allegedly fell asleep in the clubhouse and missed a pinch-hitting opportunity. That’s no way to go, whether or not you’re a member of the 600 home-run club.

Via a quick skim through annals of the game, I counted 13 other stints in which a Hall of Famer wrapped up his career with a return to his original team, plus one that deserves an asterisk. That count doesn’t include players who finished with the team for whom they became stars after previously breaking in elsewhere, as was the case with Early Wynn coming back to the Indians, Dennis Eckersley to the Red Sox, or Fergie Jenkins and the Cubs. Nor does it include players who moved on again after their second stint with their original team, such as Greg Maddux with the Cubs, Tim Raines with the Expos, or Ivan Rodriguez with the Rangers. Listed chronologically, these are the most noteworthy.

Eddie Collins (A’s 1906-14, 1927-30)

During his first run with the A’s, the Columbia University-educated Collins played the keystone in Connie Mack’s “$100,000 Infield,” which led the team to four pennants and three championships. But after losing the 1914 World Series to the “Miracle” Braves, Mack broke up the team for financial reasons — one of the earliest tank jobs. Sold to the White Sox for $50,000, Collins spent 12 years on the South Side, helping the team to pennants in 1917 and 1919 (he was not part of the World Series fix), becoming the sixth player to collect his 3,000th hit in 1925, and serving as player-manager for that season and the next.

Read the rest of this entry »

Felix Hernandez’s 2018 season got off to a rough start, as he was drilled on the right arm by a line drive in his February 26 appearance against the Cubs. The Mariners say he’ll miss just one Cactus League start, but on the heels of two subpar, injury-shortened seasons, M’s fans can be forgiven for curling up into the fetal position.

Hernandez took the hill just 16 times in 2017 due to shoulder bursitis and was lit up for a 4.36 ERA and career-worst 5.02 FIP; his 17 homers allowed in 86.2 innings was more than he served up in four of his eight 200-plus inning seasons. His 2016 campaign, which was shortened to 25 starts by a right calf strain, featured a less-than-inspiring 3.82 ERA and 4.63 FIP, as well. His recent decline probably owes something to eroding velocity. Via Pitch Info, his four-seamer has averaged around 91 mph in the past two years, down from a high of 96 in 2008 and 93.6 as recently as 2014. The story is similar for his sinker. He’s not missing as many bats as he used to, and his home-run rate is soaring along with those of just about every other pitcher in baseball. In short, he looks more peasant than king.

Read the rest of this entry »