FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: July 4, 2026
Happy Fourth of July! To commemorate the United States’ Semiquincentennial, I’m going to run through some fun baseball stats that feature the number 250, and also ask a few trivia questions, which you can answer in the comments. As of Thursday morning, there is one player in MLB history with exactly 250 career home runs. He’s an active player for an NL West team. Can you name him? Seven players have recorded exactly 250 doubles in their career; only one of them is in the Hall of Fame. The six non-Hall of Famers are Ozzie Albies, Travis Hafner, Deivi Cruz, Bruce Bochte, Irish Meusel, and Jake Daubert. The Hall of Famer is a 19th century catcher. Who is it?
There are 25 members of the 250 Home Run/250 Stolen Base Club, nine of whom are Hall of Famers. Sorted by home runs, those nine are Willie Mays (660 HR, 339 SB), Andre Dawson (438, 314), Carlos Beltrán (435, 312), Rickey Henderson (297, 1,406), Craig Biggio (291, 414), Ryne Sandberg (282, 344), Joe Morgan (268, 689), Derek Jeter (260, 358), and Robin Yount (251, 271). Two others are active: José Ramírez (295, 311) and Jose Altuve (263, 326). Can you name the other 14 members of the 250/250 Club? Lastly, seven players have tallied at least 250 hits in a season. Six of them — Ichiro Suzuki (262 in 2004), George Sisler (257 in 1920), Bill Terry (254 in 1930), Al Simmons (253 in 1925), Chuck Klein (250 in 1930), and Rogers Hornsby (250 in 1922) — are Hall of Famers. Can you name the one non-Hall of Famer?
I’ll reveal the answers in next week’s mailbag. In this week’s edition, we’ll answer your questions on challenging the first pitch of a game, sustained runs of low playoff odds, a team of Frank Thomases and Luis Aparicios, and more. 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.
Some of these letter-writers need to brush up on what happened in the league with 25 Adam Dunns on a team, 25 Dee Gordons on another, 25 Koji Ueharas on a third, and 25 Bartolo Colons on the fourth!
Thank you Davy and John! Davy, I hope DJ is well.
If I could clone only a single baseball player to run a team with I would obviously clone Ohtani 26 times. I am pretty sure that if I diversified the training a bit I would have all-stars at nearly every position, them being amazing hitters and playing at least competent defense (maybe much better than that) at every spot except maybe catcher.
I could monitor their health and whichever ones seemed like they were having the fewest amount of arm trouble would have the highest usage pitching roles, and the ones with the most issues would primarily become position players.
The bullpen would be savage because I could have position player / DH Ohtanis pitch in long relief in blowouts (of which they would be many) leaving seven other Ohtani relief pitchers to destroy opposing batters when the game was closer.
I don’t know what I would do if they got hurt though, I assume I would have to call up an endless string of cloned Michael Lorenzens. Still, I think this team could win 130 games.
Before the Ohtani rule allowed him to stay at DH after his pitching appearance ended, I thought they should teach him to play the outfield. With his arm, speed, and athleticism I bet he could be a perennial All Star RF. But there were two problems with this. It would mean that they lose the DH so the relief pitchers would be in the lineup and you have to have a lot of pinch hitters and double switches, and it’s probably a lot harder to learn to play the outfield while also being a full time SP then I think it is.
It also would have technically allowed him to go back to pitcher later in the gamer, but that sounds like a dangerously unhealthy thing to try since his arm would have cooled off and he wouldn’t have time to warm up unless it was to start an inning.
Ohtani did play in the outfield for seven games in 2021 before the Ohtani rule–mostly to let him bat another time after he finished pitching, once when he pinch hit, once when he switched from DH to let the outfielder pitch in a blowout. He also played outfield 60ish games for Nippon Ham, albeit as a teenager. He probably doesn’t need to learn to play that much, though I’m sure he’d imporve a lot if he ahd to focus on it full time.
In 1979, the Pirates Kent Tekulve was a top closer (2.79 era,134 IP and 31 saves). In one critical game he was briefly sent to the outfield for one batter while another relief pitcher, LOOGY, had the arm advantage, then he returned to finish the game. It worked. The ball was not hit to him.
Chris Resop, of all people, did that in 2008!
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL200804030.shtml
Whitey Herzog did that on at least 3 occasions in the 1980’s. https://retrosimba.com/2017/09/12/the-night-todd-worrell-played-in-right-field/
Worrell was a top closer in 1987 (2.66 ERA, 33 saves). The pitcher rotated with him – Ken Dayley – was LH but used more as “top set-up reliever” than as a LOOGY.
More recently, Joe Maddon used this strategy multiple times when he managed the Cubs.
Okay, here we go, I plugged this into the FG simulation tool using the ZiPS projections. Ohtani is every position player and every pitcher. I tried to make the most average lineup / pitching group for them to play against. I think I might have accidentally made them above average, but the lineup is Jacob Wilson, Luis Robert, Lars Nootbaar, Randy Arozarena, Kyle Manzardo, Carson Kelly, Jung Hoo Lee, Alex Freeland, and Nick Gonzales. My opposing starter is Sandy Alcantara, and my relievers are Nick Martinez (long), Luke Weaver (middle), Jose Ferrer (setup), and David Bednar (closer). And just to be on the safe side I put the Ohtanis as the road team.
Here are the results:
-The Ohtanis would score (on average) 7.86 runs per game, and the Average Homes would score 3.92. The Ohtanis have a nearly 1/3rd chance of scoring 10 or more runs in a game.
-There would be a 75% chance of winning for the Ohtanis, and 25% for the opponent. The Ohtanis would be about a 121 or 122 win team.
-In the simulated game the Ohtanis would average a little over 10 hits, with about half of them being extra base hits. They would also draw about six walks. They would average about 15 strikeouts on the pitching side.
This is a little high for them though because the entire lineup would have the platoon advantage against the starter. I switched it to Jeffrey Springs at the probability of winning dropped by about 1.5 percentage points. I think we can safely say this is a 120+ win team, especially since this simulation is on the road. And if I could train my team of Ohtanis to play the positions they are assigned to I bet it would be better.
Here’s another way to do it: Ohtani has had five full seasons or close to it, and his wRC+ has been between 142 and 180 in those seasons. Let’s find analogues to Ohtani at every position so we don’t get the DH penalty everywhere.
C: Todd Hundley (1996)
1B: Chris Davis (2013)
2B: Ketel Marte (2024)
SS: Gunnar Henderson (2024)
3B: Josh Donaldson (2015)
OF: Cody Bellinger (2019), Mike Trout (2015), Giancarlo Stanton (2014)
DH: Shohei Ohtani (2025)
Same opponent, led by Sandy Alcantara.
-This team would win 82% of the time, so in between 132 and 133 wins.
-This team would average fewer runs, only 6.13 runs. But the opposing team would only score 2.41 runs because the defense would be way better.
C’mon sad – there’s a quiz! Gimme your guesses on the quiz. . . .
Guesses on the quiz (& I did not look any of it up):
250 career HR – gonna go Devers but Chapman and Marte would be good guesses also, Mookie is even a possibility but I think he would be over. Machado and Freeman are both well over 250 and guys like Teoscar and Adames and Bogaerts have to be well short of 250. Can’t think of any veteran bench guys that would be in that neighborhood. One other name I’d also consider is Ohtani. I know he has been a beast for 4-5 years now but his 1st couple years weren’t at the current level and he’s missed some time and everyone missed some counting stats in 2020. Actually, he is probably right in that ballpark also. Hmmmm. . . .
250 doubles and 19th century catcher? Yeah, no idea
250/250 – not going to try for all 14 but 4 of them are Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonds, Reggie Sanders and Steve Finley who are all 300/300 guys.
250 hits – wanted to guess Carew’s 1977 but he is, of course, in the HOF, so doesn’t fit the clue. Boggs & Gwynn have the same issue of not fitting the clue. Don’t remember the exact year (2000 maybe?), but Darin Erstad had that one insane year and I think that might be the answer.
OK, off to look up the answers 🙂
Just looked up the answers and while I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time on it, if you stop and think about it for a minute or two, you can come up with another 4 or 5 of the 250/250 guys pretty quickly.
Reggie Sanders and Steve Finley are guys I left out but probably should have gotten (assuming you are right on those two up there).
Okay I just looked up the answers and I am surprised how many I missed! I think I got 7 out of 14. Three of them I am a little mad at myself for not guessing (they are listed elsewhere by others in this comment section) and three of them I never would have guessed if I had a whole day to think about it (and one that I am neutral on).
The only ones I had some ideas on were the 250/250 club, but I got fewer guys than you. I had some guesses on what active NL West player might have 250 HR, but they were all wrong.
Fun little item though, when I tried to look up the guy with exactly 250 HR, I found there was no one. The correct answer must have hit a HR since the question was written. I won’t spoil it, but it isn’t hard to figure out by looking at the list of players with just over 250 career HR.
250 HR: Arenado I guess?
250 doubles: No idea, King Kelly?
250/250: Would take forever and I doubt I’d get many right (total cop out)
250 hits: Don’t want to copy and guess Erstad, so I’m going to say Joe Medwick since I can’t remember if he’s a HOFer or not
EDIT: Off by more than 100 with Arenado. Off to a great start
Yeah, went back over the list and realized I left out Arenado but I would have had him well over 250. He was hitting 40 a year in Coors and had the 2-3 good years with the Cardinals after that.
I guessed Freeman for 250 HR, but I am terrible at these.
Think Jim Edmonds likely makes 250/250 club (sans HoF)?
Edmonds was surprisingly not a base stealer, although he played long enough that he could theoretically have gotten there anyway.
Additional 250/250 guesses: Soriano, A-Rod, Abreu, Damon
Someone already mentioned Edmonds
Mike Cameron? Andrew McCutchen?
After that I’m starting to reach. Pedroia, Strawberry, Eric Davis…
My guess on 250 HRs was Freeman, but saw others mention Boegarts and Ohtani which I like better.
Bill Dahlen as the catcher?
Would not have had a guess on the hits in a season. Looks like Erstad is the winner.
I didn’t consider Soriano, Damon, or Strawberry but those are good guesses. Especially the first two.
Soriano, the one non-Bonds member of the 4x 30/30 club! I always forget how good that guy was back in the aughts
Lefty ODoul for the 250 hit guy?
Here are my guesses on the 250 / 250. They fall into three categories:
Steroid Guys: I am pretty sure there are at least two more guys in this group and I am wrong about others, but Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Ryan Braun, and Alex Rodriguez seem like good bets to me.
Active players: Not sure if Trout or Harper have 250 steals but I will guess them. Pretty sure Jose Ramirez, Jose Altuve, and Mookie Betts have topped that.
Not quite Hall of Famers: Eric Davis, Bobby Bonds, Andrew McCutcheon, Bobby Abreu, and Mike Cameron all had very long careers. I think they all stole a ton of bases early in their careers and hit a ton of homers late.
These are my guesses, I would say I got 10 right and 4 wrong.
I am putting in my vote for the “one insane year” of 250 hits for Norm Cash.
Looks like the 250-HR Mystery Man homered last night.
He’s at 253 now, and counting. A trip to Coors does wonders…
10 team NL only keeper. Pitching is thin. I traded Merrill for Woodruff. Will play Church at CF. Only other stud starters I have are Webb and Max Meyer. How did I do?
H2H league I should add
Darin Erstad had more than 250 hits in a season! Like two years after he set the single season hit record Ichiro beat it which was super sad for young Angels fan me. I rember it was like 262 or so? That’s my best guess anyway
And what a weird career. He was an elite center fielder then played first base for a while… leave it to Mike Scioscia to do the weirdest things. Chone Figgens as the team’s 3rd baseman when every other team in the game had a big slugger at third was always wild too
Edit: Nope, was way off
Thomas had the “Knoblauch” and “Sax” mental throwing disorder.
Ozzie took advantage and scored from 2nd during an allstar game on a grounder to Frank.
Point beingThomas would have been an even greater disaster in the field.
Didn’t involve the first pitch of the game, but Randy Arrozarena had mind-boggingly bad early use of ABS challenges in a July 3 game vs. the Blue Jays.
As the Mariners’ 2nd batter in the bottom of the 1st inning, he challenged twice and was incorrect both times.