FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: August 22, 2026
As you all probably know, at the start of every season, the FanGraphs staff puts together our bold predictions for the coming year. Each is, to varying degrees, plausible but unlikely, which is what makes it such a fun exercise. Anyway, entering the 2025 season, my bold prediction was: Corbin Carroll will become the fifth-ever 20/20/20/20 player — 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 home runs, and 20 stolen bases in a single season — joining Frank Schulte in 1911, Willie Mays in 1957, and Curtis Granderson and Jimmy Rollins, who both did it in 2007. Carroll ultimately fell just three triples short of the threshold, while tallying 32 doubles, 31 homers, and 32 steals.
I decided not to run it back this year, figuring that wouldn’t be as fun, though I am very much still rooting for it to happen. The 20/20/20/20 Club is one of the most exclusive baseball has to offer. Pulling it off requires a precise combination of power, speed and instincts, and it has to happen at the exact right moment in a player’s career. As I wrote in my bold prediction: “A player needs to have enough pop to hit 20 homers, but not so much that the majority of his extra-base hits land in the seats. He also needs the speed to steal bases and stretch singles into doubles and doubles into triples. His instincts must be sharp, so he can know when to attempt the extra base without running into outs.”
Last Saturday, when I saw that Carroll had doubled and tripled in a 10-3 Diamondbacks win over the Braves, I pulled up his player page to check on his progress. He was up to 26 doubles, 15 triples, 18 homers, and 16 steals. He stole a base the next day, and after going without an extra-base hit in Arizona’s three-game series against the Red Sox, Carroll entered play Friday at 26 doubles, 15 triples, 18 homers, and 17 steals with 34 games left to play. This prompted my own question for this week’s mailbag, which I will get to momentarily. We’ll also answer your questions on the worst player to ever hit three home runs in a game, the biggest drop-off for a player in the season after finishing second in the MVP voting, and teams missing the playoffs despite leading the league in run differential. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com.
Matt is the associate editor of FanGraphs. Previously, he was the baseball editor at Sports Illustrated. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Men’s Health, Baseball Prospectus, and Lindy’s Sports Magazine. Follow him on Twitter @ByMattMartell and Blue Sky @mattmartell.bsky.social.
Let’s remember som (bad) guys who hit 3 HR in a game:
Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes hit 3 on opening day for the Cubs in 1994. He hit 8 for the year, 13 in his career, totalled -0.1 fWAR in 225 total games, and was out of MLB Before the 1995 All Star Break.
Dan Johnson had a 14 game stint with the White Sox to close out 2012 and hit all three of his White Sox HR on the last day of the season, causing Ed Farmer to exclaim “He’s on the team for next year!” He was not. He played only 3 games in 2013, all for Baltimore, and only 27 more in the two years after that for Toronto and St Louis before finishing his professional career in the Mexican League. He did have a career wRC+ of 100 in 1625 PA.
I remember the Tuffy Rhodes game. WGN and TBS made for some great after-school baseball watching. While Tuffy only had 13 MLB homers, he did smack over 450 in Japan.
I was hoping he was related to Edwin (he isn’t as far as I can tell) who apparently used to launch balls in BP nearly out of safeco
As far as I can tell, Paul Waner is the career leader in triples after the dead ball era with 191. Carroll has a small but not insignificant chance to take that from him someday.
Carroll currently has 58 and at only 26 years old, he should have a fair number of peak triple years left. Lance Johnson reached his peak at age 32, Brett Butler at 29, Willie Davis at 30, and Lou Brock at 29.
Assuming he ends this year at 61, Carroll would need to average 13 per year for 10 years. Not easy, and I wouldn’t bet on it, but some more ~20 triple years would make a big difference.
He’s also in one of the best home parks for triples, so a move would like change the odds some. I do hope he keeps his elite speed for a long time, à la Trea Turner.
There was an article on FG his rookie year that calculated an outfielder had 7.5 seconds to get the ball to second base or Carroll had a double. His ability to go from home to second is amazing.
Thanks, found it. There are some great videos in that article.
Turner doesn’t seem to be as good of a player any longer but watching him consistently be one of the fastest runners in the game as he ages is impressive. 2nd in 2015 when he broke in, got his first 1st in 2021, and got another first in 2025. A lot of sprint speed is really just hustling, not peak, but cool to see nonetheless
Jose Reyes (less power, not as good a ballpark) looked like he had a strong chance but his speed significantly declined around 30 and so did the triples. Better fielding today (than 50+ years ago) makes it so much harder once you lose the top end speed.
I think it’s fair to say that anyone who hits 3 home runs in a game is a better than 50 / 50 bet to be an adequate MLB player of some kind. There aren’t that many Michael Toglias or Ernie Youngs on that list.
But I definitely would think that Baez has a better chance of being the next Geronimo Berroa, Dmitri Young, or Lonnie Chisenhall than someone like Juan Gonzalez or JD Martinez. Baez is a bit like Mark Reynolds but in a corner outfield spot.
My follow up question would be “What one-game achievement is best correlated with HoF/MVP/other unquestionably good career outcomes?” For example, it’s not throwing a no-hitter or a perfect game, because there are plenty of pitchers who had a career day whose overall career was nothing special. Is a 3 HR game or a 4 HR game the best correlation?
I was going to suggest something like 15 K game for a pitcher, and that’s how I found out about Tom Cheney.
I guess “they let you pitch 16 innings and strike out 21” is correlated with “your arm blows out after two good years.”
4/4 or 5/5 OBP on the day with all of those 4 or 5 being walks? And if that sample isn’t big enough, allow 1 of those 4 or 5 to be HR?
I love this question. I hope it’s answered!
My follow up question would be “What one-game achievement is best correlated with HoF/MVP/other unquestionably good career outcomes?” For example, it’s not throwing a no-hitter or a perfect game, because there are plenty of pitchers who had a career day whose overall career was nothing special. Is a 3 HR game or a 4 HR game the best correlation? You’d want something that’s kind of common (
4 HR game and throwing a perfect game are both quite good predictors of having a good career, better than a 3 HR game. Not a HoF/MVP career, necessarily, but a good career.
In particular, literally everybody with a 4 HR game was much better than replacement level for several seasons at least. Scooter Gennett is maybe the worst player with a 4 HR game and he was worth 9.9 fWAR in a career that was ended by injury at age 29, with a peak season of 3.5 fWAR. Mark Whiten played 11 years and had 13 fWAR with a peak of 3.3 fWAR.
Ok, only a bit more than 20 players have 4 HR games, I’m sure it’s not literally impossible that a replacement level guy will ever have a 4 HR game. But a *lot* of players have played a *lot* of games, and a *lot* of those player-games were played by replacement level-ish players. It seems meaningful that none of those replacement level-ish players has a 4 HR game yet.
Striking out 18 or more batters in a game is a good predictor of a pitcher who will have a good-to-great career. Since 1900, the worst pitcher to do that is probably Ramon Martinez, and he was worth over 20 fWAR for his career.
This seems better than a perfect game, honestly.
Yeah, it is! Which kind of makes sense, I think. A perfect game might require some help from your defense. But if you K 18+, that’s all you.
If you relax the criteria slightly to two historically-great games rather than one, you end up with lists of guys who were mostly great players. For instance, the list of pitchers who’ve thrown a no-hitter includes a fair proportion of mediocrities, but the list of pitchers who thrown at least two no-hitters is almost all good-to-great pitchers.
If a perfect game isn’t the best indicator of career greatness, I can’t think of what would be superior in one game? 20 Ks? That’s like 3-4 guys though.
It’s just one guy, but Philip Humber had a perfect game and only had 2.5 fWAR and 1.0 bWAR.
Dallas Braden had 5 bWar.
Baez is way faster than Reynolds ever was. I really think the best comp for him is another J. Baez, at least in terms of offensive profile. Obviously playing a much less premium position, but from what I’ve seen in AAA this year, he’ll be at least perfectly adequate as a corner outfielder and probably could be not-awful in center.
I happened to be in attendance at that Michael Perez 3 homer game in Pittsburgh when I was doing a ballpark tour trip. One of the most random amazing performances I’ll ever see!
I still think it’s funny that Scooter Gennett, he of the career 7.1 bWAR and 106 OPS+, had a four-homer game.
It’s funny cuz they call him Scooter
I think his name automatically makes most stories about him at least 10% funnier.
Baumann if you ever figure out what that 4 HR book is called, please let me know. I’ve been trying to think of the title for years but haven’t been sufficiently motivated to actually look it up
I am shocked that Mark McGwire never had a 3 HR game.
Ordonez hit 363?!?! File that under things I don’t remember