The 3,000 Hit Club Is Closed for Maintenance
Batting average may have rightfully lost its sex appeal in player evaluation, but not everything that’s fun needs to be a measure of a player’s overall value. We’ve been treated to eight new members of the 3,000 hit club over the last 20 years; that’s a quarter of the 3,000-hitsmen in baseball history, with a few more just outside that arbitrary endpoint. Miguel Cabrera almost certainly won’t get the 21 hits he needs to reach the milestone over Detroit’s nine remaining games this season, but he should get there sometime in early 2022. After he does, however, baseball won’t have to print any more membership cards for a while.
By definition, players who end up with 3,000 career hits necessarily must have had 2,000 hits at some point. In 2021, we have fewer active 2,000-hit hitters than at any other “normal” time in baseball history:
There was only a single batter with 2,000 career hits after the 1952 season: Stan Musial, who had 2,023. But that bottleneck is hardly surprising given that many of baseball’s stars missed multiple seasons due to service in World War II. There were 10 active 1,500-hit hitters that year and six of them (Musial, Johnny Mize, Enos Slaughter, Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, and Mickey Vernon) went to war. Baseball set a record for the most active players with 2,000 hits fairly recently, with 27 after the 2004 season. Right now, there are only five: Cabrera, Robinson Canó, Yadier Molina, Albert Pujols, and Joey Votto.
The 1990s have the well-deserved reputation of being a home run era but people don’t always remember that it was a high batting average era as well. The league’s batting average during that decade peaked at .271 in 1999, the highest figure since 1939. Part of the reason the 90s don’t have a reputation as a batting average-heavy era is that you didn’t see many players flirting with the .400 mark, especially compared to the last time league batting averages had gone that high. Except for the occasional small uptick — including all of the expansion years — the spread of batting average among hitters has become narrower over time:
That weird outlier blip in 2020 is, naturally, due to the 60-game season. Now, if the decline in league batting average was just due to a less talented pool of hitters, we’d expect there to be more dispersion, not less. Unless league offense changes, ZiPS projects only a single active player, Cabrera, to finish his career past the .300 mark.
So, when will we see another player get 3,000 hits once Cabrera does? None of the other players with 2,000 hits are great candidates. Canó needs two full excellent seasons or three full middling ones to get to 3,000, a tall order for a player who will be 39 and coming off a year-long PED suspension. Last month, Molina announced that he plans to retire after the 2022 season and it seems rather unlikely he’ll get the 900 hits he needs before then. Votto’s had a terrific 2021, but with a thousand hits to go, the calendar is likely too daunting. To get a sense of the rest, I turned to ZiPS to crank out some projections, like treehouse elves churn out cookies:
| Player | Current Hits* | 2,000 Hit% | 2,500 Hit% | 3,000 Hit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albert Pujols | 3,300 | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Miguel Cabrera | 2,979 | 100% | 100% | 99% |
| Jose Altuve | 1,766 | 98% | 66% | 34% |
| Freddie Freeman | 1,693 | 95% | 72% | 28% |
| Fernando Tatis Jr. | 293 | 63% | 55% | 20% |
| Juan Soto | 476 | 79% | 49% | 18% |
| Ronald Acuña Jr. | 426 | 69% | 40% | 13% |
| Robinson Canó | 2,624 | 100% | 100% | 12% |
| Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | 364 | 70% | 38% | 11% |
| Wander Franco | 70 | 43% | 14% | 7% |
| Mike Trout | 1,419 | 96% | 47% | 5% |
| Manny Machado | 1,417 | 87% | 28% | 3% |
| Bryce Harper | 1,264 | 76% | 14% | 2% |
| Mookie Betts | 1,145 | 84% | 30% | 2% |
| Xander Bogaerts | 1,233 | 83% | 24% | 1% |
| Francisco Lindor | 990 | 77% | 26% | 1% |
| Trea Turner | 819 | 71% | 11% | 1% |
| Rafael Devers | 583 | 53% | 12% | 1% |
| Cody Bellinger | 542 | 13% | 4% | 1% |
| Yadier Molina | 2,108 | 100 | 0% | 0% |
| Elvis Andrus | 1,861 | 85% | 5% | 0% |
| Andrew McCutchen | 1,819 | 60% | 2% | 0% |
| Evan Longoria | 1,815 | 54% | 2% | 0% |
| Starlin Castro | 1,722 | 92% | 16% | 0% |
| Michael Brantley | 1,568 | 70% | 1% | 0% |
| DJ LeMahieu | 1,449 | 83% | 12% | 0% |
| Christian Yelich | 1,199 | 38% | 2% | 0% |
| José Ramírez | 974 | 66% | 4% | 0% |
| Tim Anderson | 785 | 63% | 4% | 0% |
| Alex Bregman | 672 | 41% | 2% | 0% |
| Ozzie Albies | 599 | 52% | 9% | 0% |
| Gleyber Torres | 410 | 18% | 1% | 0% |
| Bo Bichette | 272 | 57% | 15% | 0% |
| Luis Arraez | 256 | 35% | 5% | 0% |
| Luis Robert | 132 | 37% | 6% | 0% |
In this table (which is sortable), we have everyone with a 1% projected shot at 2,500 hits or better. After Cabrera accomplishes the goal next year, ZiPS only projects 1-2 currently active players to finish their career with 3,000 hits (1.6 to be exact). Over the next 12-15 years or so, only three players are currently on what I’d call a reasonable approach pattern. Freddie Freeman’s going strong, but needs to age well; Jose Altuve has wiped out the memories of his miserable 2020 season, though without a batting average like those he posted in his prime years. Canó’s a bit of a wild card, but a player who needs fewer than 400 hits and played solid baseball the last time we saw him is inevitably going to have at least some chance of attaining the milestone, though the caveats I mentioned above still apply.
But beyond that, the ranks are thin. Even Mike Trout has largely fallen away. He’s already a Hall of Famer based on what he’s done in his 20s, but he hasn’t had a 150-hit season since 2016 and he basically needs 10 of those and then some to get to 3,000 hits. In all-time hits, Trout was 15th through his age-22 and 22nd through his age-25 seasons. Assuming he’s done for the year, he now ranks 113th all-time in hits through a player’s age-29 season, behind such names as Juan Pierre, Justin Upton, and Ruben Sierra. After Altuve, Freeman, and Canó, it’s basically a wait to see what happens with the three Juniors and Juan Soto.
That is, unless baseball is changed somehow, whether in terms of equipment or rules, to incentivize hitters to trade power for contact. And baseball might change. While I can’t imagine voting for a player for the Hall of Fame based on his hit total, as I said up top, it’s still fun. Baseball’s numbers do have an aesthetic value beyond the value of the performance they reflect. I couldn’t care less about 3,000 hits or 300 wins as an evaluative measure, but it’s still cool to see a guy hit those pretty, round numbers. Numbers like that link what goes on in today’s game with baseball’s past, which is useful for a sport that tends to have more sepia-toned sentimentality than football or basketball. Cal Ripken Jr. would not have been any less of a player if he had taken a day off in 1991 and hadn’t caught Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game streak, but I’d be missing the memory of watching him do it in September of 1995, when the game was halted for what seemed like a half-hour because of the tumult of the crowd. I couldn’t tell you which game pushed Barry Bonds’ career WAR past Willie Mays‘, but seeing Juan Soto or Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a milestone that Mays, Hank Aaron, and Ty Cobb achieved would be fun.
So enjoy Cabrera collecting his 3,000th hit; it could be the last one we see for a while. And that’s too bad. After all, records are made to be broken, and milestones to be attained.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Is it too late for a Nick Markakis comeback?
Only if Adam Dunn comes back to hit 500 home runs.
Fred McGriff gets first shot.
Imagine if he had played 4-ish more years and got to 3,000. Would he be a lock for the HOF?
It would be super interesting, and you know there would be article after article written about it haha. I’d like to say no, but I have a feeling he probably would get voted in.
He would get voted in and Still should. Crime Dog is a Legend
I was rooting for Johnny Damon to reach 3000 hits, as it would create a juicy HOF case.
Entering 2012, Damon was 38 years old and he had 2723 hits. He had 152 hits in 2011, so it seemed entirely reasonable to expect him to hit 138 hits in each of his age 38 and age 39 seasons to reach 3000. If he couldn’t muster that, fine come back as a 40 year old pinch hitter.
As I recall, he insisted on playing for a contender, and ended up signing with Cleveland after the season started. He had no spring training and had to rush to get ready. He really sucked and didn’t play after getting only 46 hits in 2012.
If Damon had said, “I have my two WS rings, and plenty of money, now it is time for ‘Operation 3000 Hits!'” I am sure everyone would prefer that.
This is essentially the plot of the movie Mr. 3000 starring Bernie Mac
May he rest in paradise. I watched a Bernie Mac show episode the other night, first one in a very long time. I’m glad I did, in the fragile up in arms times we live in, it was great to be reminded of the good ol days where everything isn’t microscopical analyzed for whatever not picky reason one has. Amazingly enough I don’t think Bernie 3000 would appreciate Analytics
He would have had even more to talk about when he gets pulled over.
Through age 35 Damon had a shot at 3,000 hits AND 2,000 runs scored. He had 2,425 hits and 1,483 runs scored. Here are the only players with 3,000 hits and 2,000 runs scored in all of major league history.
Ty Cobb
Willie Mays
Hank Aaron
Pete Rose
Rickey Henderson
Alex Rodriguez
Can you imagine if Johnny Damon joined this group?!
Damon would’ve had to score 517 more runs after age 35. No problem there.
“Assuming he’s done for the year, he now ranks 113th all-time in home runs through a player’s age-29 season, behind such names as Juan Pierre, Justin Upton, and Ruben Sierra.”
Think you mean hits 😛
I’m not positive *I* rank behind Juan Pierre in home runs.
[checks FanGraphs dot com]
I do rank behind him. BARELY, though.
If I had a time machine like Bill and Ted I’d do a home run derby but with Juan Pierre, Ben Revere, Otis Nixon, and Ozzie Smith.
I should finally be recovered from the last great four-way baller competition, in case you didn’t know. Just sayin’.
Duane Kuiper!
And Nicky Lopez!
You would think that in the midst of writing “hits” about 5,000 times, I wouldn’t accidentally put in another word once. You’d have thought wrong!
Two things, one semi-positive and one semi-negative:
When reading this:
“That is, unless baseball is changed somehow, whether in terms of equipment or rules, to incentivize hitters to trade power for contact. And baseball might change.”
I would have loved the next sentence to read, “And if not the ball itself probably will.” Or something else along those lines. Probably both cleaner and catchier than my suggestion.
Second, regarding this:
“Last month, Molina announced that he plans to retire after the 2022 season and it seems rather unlikely he’ll get the 900 hits he needs before then. ”
“rather unlikely”? I assume that is an intentional gross understatement used as irony and meant to be funny? But if so I don’t think it came off with the comedic effect you desired. It just seemed to be too casual an assertion for something that is really impossible and so needed either played up more or else downplayed in combination with a little dose of realism. I mean just consider that to do it he would need do play all 162 games next year and AVERAGE 5.5 hits per game. Or put another way he would have to produce in one year a hit total equal to 5.4 times his best year of 164 hits in 2016.
In fairness I don’t write for a living and if I did I would provide you 900x the opportunities to criticize my writing for more blatant and less subjective faux pas, but this was jarring and grated at me in away that had a slightly negative effect on my overall enjoyment of an otherwise pleasant and informative read so I thought I would ask and share and leave it to you to decide if my thoughts have merit or if I am just another idiot. Or if you can sway me by sharing your thoughts on why you wrote it that way I would be thrilled to consider them.
Thank you.
I actually thought the casual tone made the comment pretty funny.
Second, semi-positive and semi-negative:
When you read this:
That is, except when baseball has changed in some way, either in terms of equipment or rules that encourage intruders to exchange their contact power. And baseball can change.
I want to read the following sentence: “and if not, maybe the bullet itself will be.” Or something like that. It can be as clean and attractive as what I offer.
Second, like this:
Molina announced last month that she plans to retire after the 2022 season, and it looks like she won’t get 900 if he needs it before then. ”
“not necessary”? I think this is a generally intentional way of speaking, used as a satire, and should be fun? But if so, I don’t think it’s desirable to have comic effects. There seem to be more claims than usual about what really can’t happen, so it’s improved or diminished with a small dose of realism. I mean, just think about doing that, he’s going to have to listen to all 162 games next year and an average of 5.5 shots per game. In other words, he would have to score the total number of goals in a year, 5.4 times the best of 164 hits in 2016.
Honestly, I don’t write for a living, and if I did, I would give you 900 times the opportunity to criticize. I write because of a sharper observation, less subjectivity, but I don’t like that and it’s boring, which as a whole has a small negative effect. the number of people who received the information was pleasant and enjoyed reading, so I thought I would ask for it and share it, and I would give
Married.
Well, he is a catcher and given his age, it would be hard for him to get more than 600 or 700 hits in a year. 750, tops.
Life’s too short to bet the under
Well, if you interpolate his numbers over the last two years, he’ll should reach that pace by 2028.
Yes!
Dan’s sense of humor is pretty dry and deadpan. Sometimes the jokes aren’t obviously jokes, as this one was.
Here’s a friendly tip – if you suspect a line in his article is meant ironically or as a joke, it most likely is.
It was clearly a joke and a pretty decent one. If your serious response with numbers was meant to also be a joke, then kudos.
I don’t think he meant it as a joke. A close reading has convinced me he left out a word and it actually was meant to say “rather unlikely he’ll ONLY get the 900 hits he needs before then”. That makes way more sense.
Ya know there are Verbs for the Word “hits”. As I actually was thinking while reading this.. “hmmm why use “hits” so many times for verbiage. How about Ropes, Whaps, Bats, ect… ect.. I understand some may think it may a HR but that when the cool wordplay can swing into play
I think you mean synonyms…
Assuming he’s done for the year, he now ranks 113th all-time in home runs* through a player’s age-29 season
*This should be hits not home runs
This article is such a lie- you’re telling me that Mike Zunino won’t have 3000 hits? BS
Gallo omission is equally criminal.
It’s not just 3,000 hits which is on the endangered list. 500 home runs likely won’t have anybody else reach it (other than Miggy & Albert of course) for awhile. The best candidate might be Giancarlo Stanton, 152 short, but he’s been injured a lot. Once you get past him (and the ageless Nelson Cruz), it’s the same syndrome as on the 3,000 list: a bunch of guys in their low-mid 30’s who are 150+ away. Freeman, Machado & Harper likely have the best shot (we really should remove guys younger than 25 from these projections). What’s holding everyone back here is the weird tendency to not see anyone hit 60+ anymore, despite soaring league totals.
I am also rather pessimistic that voters will adjust (hits/HRs/pitcher wins) for the 2020 covid season, since they pretty much failed to do so for 1981 & 1994-5.
Dan wrote about this too. Zips expects 4.4 current players to join the 500 home run club in the next 20 years:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-next-members-of-the-500-home-run-club/
Not as endangered as the 3000 hit club, but not as many new members as we saw since the late 90s.
I mostly agree with you except I don’t think it’s weird that we are not seeing anyone hit 60+ home runs anymore. Maybe you wrote that in jest?
Stanton has been hurt a lot, but when he is on the field it seems to be business as usual. Career 141 wRC+ and most the seasons he is hitting a lot of home runs when on the field. I think he gets it.
Considering 60+ home runs in a season has only happened 8 times by only 5 players in MLB history, it’s not weird at all.
True, but 6 of those 60+ home run seasons happened in a 4-year span.
Ya, and they were during the steroid era.
Trout, if healthy, might reach the magic 3,000 and 500 milestones.
Likely. I think.
Trout walks too much to make 3,000 hits.
Every single year that “if” gets bigger and bigger.
Yeah. I’d bet against Trout getting to 3,000 – he’s going to enter his age-30 season at 1,419 and has been far from the picture of health. Can he average 150 hits for the next 10 years? His high of the last 5 years is 147.
500 is definitely possible – he’s at 310, and his power certainly hasn’t suffered.
Who says Trout will retire by age 39? He could very well be one of those guys who manages to play until his early to mid ’40s
I’d give Stanton a high probability to make 500 HRs, unless he regularly misses entire seasons again. Going for him:
1) HR power I’ve never quite seen on a player. Even his teammate, Judge, doesn’t hit HRs like Stanton. I saw a replay of a HR he hit the other night down the left field line. It was a laser shot. If a fan looked down for two seconds they might have been knocked out if the ball hit them. He swings and misses a lot, but when he makes contact the ball reacts like nothing I’ve seen in 50+ years of watching MLB. Even ground balls. Infielders just stop in their tracks because of the velocity. Give him 130 games a season, he’s hitting 30-40 depending on other random factors.
2) His contract. Teams are loathe to pay lots of money and not play a player. Even as he ages, he is going to get lots of opportunities. I’d bet on 500. Still an outside chance he gets to 600, but that took a big hit with injuries and the season of Covid.
Interesting to see Tatis behind the other Juniors and Soto in 2,000 hit %, but ahead for 2,500 and 3,000.
That is odd. The others have a bit of a head start, but you wouldn’t think that makes that much of a difference. Could it be due to expected walk rate over time combined with speed, that if he/they last that long the spreadsheet expects he’s more likely to keep swinging away?
In all, some of these guys have a much better chance that I would have thought. Altuve may hit the 2B wall, but I would have expected fewer in the 10-20% range.
Probably considered the most talented of the four, but the highest injury risk. And being behind in total hits/games probably widens the outcomes.
Tatis is not more talented than any of them. He’s extremely talented to be sure, but, not more than those three.
He has played fewer games, so Zips is less sure of his true talent and has a wider spread of outcomes.
Dan and groundout are right-on. ZiPS sees Soto as the healthier and higher BA player now, but sees an early decline in BA like others of his type. And ZiPS is really unsure about Tatis’ health.
Where does Nick Madrigal come out here?
He’s already 24 and has only 96 career hits. He’d have to average 182 hits per season through his age 40 season.
Edit: on the chart Arraez is probably the best comp. They’re essentially the same age and same type of hitter but Arraez has a head start.
FWIW– here are players with the most hits ages 25-40:
3179 Pete Rose
2877 Derek Jeter
2868 Ty Cobb
2844 Ichiro Suzuki*
2819 Honus Wagner
2817 Stan Musial
2804 Wade Boggs
2767 Lou Brock
2746 Tony Gwynn
2745 Tris Speaker
…
So only one player in MLB history has gotten 2904+ hits ages 25 to 40… so you have to assume he’s *really special* or give him a longer career.
*I guess Ichiro should count as a second; he almost certainly could have added 60 more hits had he played even a relatively small portion of his age 25 and 26 seasons in the US.
And let’s be direct. Look at the names on that list. Madrigal is none of those guys. I expect to have a nice career, but we are not dealing with an all-time great here.
It’s a shame that Nick Madrigal seems to have changed his offensive profile a bit and gotten himself hurt because I was really hoping that he would get to 3000 hits as a singles guy and Jay Jaffe would have to write a huge long article about how 2,997 singles and 3 doubles is not enough to make you a Hall of Famer by itself.
Madrigal won’t even make 2,000 hits. These milestones are very difficult to achieve.
I would put his career over/under at about 1550.
1551
1549
Sigh that info about Trout going from 22nd after his age-25 season to now 113th through his age-29 season is pretty demoralizing. What could have been. Dang injuries.
What kind of person says “what could have been?” about Mike Trout? I think he absolutely “was”. I also think that although he was hurt this year, there still remains plenty of “is” in him.
Those of us who look back at careers say it all the time. I think of it as the melancholic’s mode of appreciation. Yes, Trout was, but what could he have done with that missing time that would boost him further up the pantheon? What would Ted Williams have been able to do with those missing five years, etc?
Dan is one of us too; check out his ZIPS Timewarp series sometime.
Many people? Trout has missed a ton of games in his age 25-29 seasons. He’s still an obvious HOFer, but that’s a whole lotta counting stats.
He led MLB in WAR during that timespan. He’s missed a ton of games this year. One year. He missed a decent number of games back in 2017. It’s not uncommon for a player who plays a long career to have an injury. It’s actually the uncommon thing when one doesn’t.
It’s actually similar to the man he was compared to, Mickey Mantle. Both up to this point both had/have very successful careers, but injuries have nonetheless slowed them down, leading to “What Could Have Been if Mickey Mantle/Mike Trout never got injured?”
I think with Mantle it’s more about what could have been if he didn’t drink like a fish and didn’t have to deal with the repercussions of relations with numerous loose women.
Trout has so far had a pretty lucky career in terms of injuries, overall. It seems odd to me, right now, to compare Trout to guys that missed several full seasons (or declined earlier than expected). The examples of Williams and Mantle really just prove my point.
I had this book when I was a kid that talked about all the greats. Mantle went to a doctor when he was a kid because he was always in pain, his back, his hips, etc. The doctor told him at that time he would never take a step without pain for the rest of his life due to some condition, or back/him misplacement, cannot recall which. I’ll dig the book up next time I visit my parents. SoI do not think it was simply the alcohol, he was also hurt. The hurt might of led to alcohol which likely made it worse, but he was clearly always in pain, and it was not likely all his doing.
Pretty sure it was osteomyelitis.
Mantle also blew out his knee in the WS after his 1st year. While playing the OF, he tripped over a drain pipe in right-center while running for a ball (WTF?) . He didn’t miss much, if any, regular season time from that, but, he likely lost a step & it also likely led to the arthritic condition in his knees that bothered him throughout his career.
It was indeed osteomyelitis. I think his Dad had it too, but I could be wrong.
I’ve heard people theorize that Mantle tore his ACL (and probably everything else) in the 51 World Series, and then played the rest of his career without one since repairs weren’t done at the time. He also said in his biography that it cost him a good chunk of his speed.
While I totally buy the analysis, I’m also old enough to have read literally dozens of “no one else will join the 300-win club” blog posts that were relatively quickly refuted. As a Braves fan, I’m hopeful that Freeman will get there (though I recognize it’s an uphill climb).
But if anyone is going to get to 3,000 hits between Miggy Cabrera and a few members of the Tatis-Soto-Franco-Acuna generation, the dark horse here is Harper, I would guess. He’s still younger than anyone remembers — not yet 29! And he’s averaging slightly under a hit per game played, both this year and for his career. The Phillies have 10 games left; let’s say he collects nine more hits. That would put him at 1274. He would then need to average about 157 hits a season for the next 11 years, until he’s 40. Indeed, he’s the kind of hitter who, if baseball in 2032 is anything like baseball in 2021, is relatively likely to play till he’s 40.
Even if he does get there, of course, the analysis is still spot-on, as that’s more than a decade away! But I think it’s likely that the 3,000-hit club will receive more new members than we fear, just because that’s always the way of things in baseball — some guys wind up hanging around and doing things you’d never imagine, like Steve Finley joining Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonds, and Willie Mays in the 300-300 club.
I’m sure ZiPS has very good reasons for putting Harper at just 2% likelihood to join the club, but I’d take the over on those odds!
FWIW anyone writing a “no one will win 300 again” article right now may very well be right. There’s no one active with a chance, and without a major trend change hard to see how that shifts.
Major trend changes are pretty much guaranteed, though. (Among other things, *that’s* the point of Moneyball!)
I guess. The trend towards starters pitching fewer innings has been going on as long as the sport has been professional, though, so I’m not sure I would expect that to reverse. And it would need to reverse, not just slow or stop, for anyone to have a chance at 300 wins.
You’re not wrong. But the game always changes a lot, and not always in predictable directions. The trend towards starters pitching fewer innings has, among other things, led to the weakening of the notion of a “start.” As ackbar7 below notes, this means that the share of decisions going to starters will continue to diminish, while the share of decisions going to relievers will rise. Whether or not the (ridiculously stupid) current definition of the “pitcher win” changes in the future, we know that counting stats also contribute to the way that managers use pitchers, which can contribute to win accumulation.
You could be right, of course: maybe the only people who ever had a reasonable shot at 300 wins are pitchers who averaged 35 starts a year and roughly 6.2 innings a start for 18 years. If that’s true, then 300 wins is a line that is as unlikely to be crossed as 200 triples or 1000 stolen bases.
But the other trend in baseball that is at least as robust as the trend towards starters pitching fewer innings is that records tend to get broken. I would rarely bet against it. (Except for the triples record. That one will outlive our grandkids.)
When my dream of 450′ fields start being implemented across the league, that triples record will be in jeopardy.
I’m not even sure it would take a major trend shift. If managers started managing bullpens so that 1 reliever gets most wins when the “starter” goes 3 or 4 good innings and gets pulled it wouldn’t be crazy for relievers to get 300 wins. This would be a major shift in counting stat allocation, but not in the way the game is played.
It would be crazy enough if a full-time reliever got to 100 wins. 300 would be pretty gobsmacking.
But it would be pretty cool!
If starting pitchers stop getting wins, it wouldn’t surprise me if the win definition changes, which would then make it possible someone gets to 300 again.
It really shouldn’t change. The lack of even 200 game winners coming up in the next decade will be a direct reflection of the sharp decrease in individual pitcher value. These guys are not as valuable as pitchers from the past for obvious volume related reasons.
Cole will sail past 200 wins. Sale probably will, too.
If Cole is going to sail past 200 wins shouldn’t Sale coal past them?
You know, I wanted to make a joke like this as I was writing it, but I doubt I would have topped this.
If Wainwright pitches 2 more years, he could get to 200.
Wainwright could do it in one season if he replicates 2021 – but that is unlikely. If he’s so good that he is close to 200 next year, I’d imagine we’d see him back for one more year. If he can still put up 4 WAR seasons, he shouldn’t retire.
The 2020 short season hurt his chances dramatically. He likely gets 5-7 more wins in a full season
ackbar7: Yeah. I recall reading on fangraphs the idea of the 3-3-3 pitching staff. One pitcher starts and throws 3 innings, another pitcher pitches the next 3, and a third pitcher pitches the final three innings.
If a pitcher is always the middle guy, he could rack up more wins than a current starter can reasonably expect. If a pitcher is always an opener, he could not possibly earn a win, but he could earn losses. If this becomes common, this is the only way I can see another 300 game winner. However, if this becomes common, people’s perceptions of wins will change dramatically. The middle guy with a lot of wins isn’t that impressive. It is entirely possible for the opener to go 0-8 with a low ERA and deserve the Cy Young.
Brent Suter currently has more wins than Corbin Burnes on only 1 GS so it’s possible, but would require a manager dedicated to the approach over a player’s entire career to keep it up.
All Julio Urias needs is another 15 seasons averaging 18 wins per season and he’s there. Piece of cake. What could go wrong?
Severino might have had a chance, but he certainly doesn’t now.
As I recall King Felix had a decent-ish percentage chance at one point. Just shows to go how hard it is. Justin Verlander was winning a bunch of games forever, and will be 39 next year coming off Tommy John and 74 wins away. Greinke will be 38 and is 81 wins away.
C.C. Sabathia had the best chance of anyone of the last 20 years, but stopped being effective during his age 32 season and then stopped being durable at 33. On the Yankees, 191 wins through age 31, and then …
JV really had a chance, it seemed. Give him 24 wins between 2020/21 (totally possible with the way he was going & being on Houston) & maybe he hangs around long enough to get there.
Missing basically 2 years has killed any shot he has, most likely.
Well, Verlander has literally said he wants to play till he is 45, so who knows, we might still get a chance to see.
He really is a hard player to rank going into 2022, really no clue where he is until I see him throw.
In the last 20 years, I think Mike Mussina had the best chance. He retired with 270 wins before his age 40 season. He could have done it in 2 years, but 3 is more realistic. He said he might have come back for one more year, but at that point, he would feel compelled to pitch 2 more seasons after that and he definitely did not want to do that.
I wonder if we’ll see a major change in how innings are managed, where there is more spread. As many commenters have noted, right now there isn’t that wide of a spread in innings pitched between #4 guys and #1 guys. That’s been done, in large part, by decreasing the innings of those #1 guys. I wonder if we’ll see an advance in figuring out which guys can go 115 pitches without destroying their arm or losing (too much) effectiveness, versus the guys like Snell who can’t really make it that deep.
If teams were able to better ID the “fatigue threshold” for pitchers more accurately, I have a hunch some guys would be able to pitch a bit more, and others much less. Then those guys who can average 100+ pitches always do, and the others don’t. Having all of these guys on a 100 pitch count is like putting them all on a 2000 calorie diet- I just can’t believe every pitch effects every pitcher the same.
If you know Gerrit Cole (for example) can throw 126 pitches on a given night, you are going to think a lot harder about pulling him for s marginally better matchup with a reliever at 80 pitches in the 7th. Maybe that gives some of those top guys a better shot at more wins.
I’m pretty sure it is all still mostly guess work. Like they have an idea of what they expect from the average pitcher, but there are clearly outliers on both sides of the equation. I do wonder if with technological advances they will be able to say Lance Lynn can throw 130 pitches every 4 days with no negatives to his arm, but lets say Robbie Ray can only throw 100 pitches every 5 days. Those were just two completely random examples of pitchers pitching today, but there is clearly no one size fits all approach, and you’d imagine eventually with technology that it will be more customized to the actual arm, not just generalities.
What rough year are you suggesting that there were blog posts saying that “no one else will join the 300-win club”?
By refuted, I assume you mean by Clemens, Maddux and Glavine in 2003-2007 making it more than by statistical analysis.
I’m not sure there are many, if any, years between Ryan in 1990 and Clemens in 2003 where there weren’t some pretty good candidates for 300.
Yeah, refuted by reality. There were a ton of brow-furrowing blog posts that I can recall in the early to mid-2000s — the kind of stuff that Firejoemorgan was invented to fisk — about how pitchers were throwing fewer and fewer innings and no one would ever win 300 games again. Then those three folks, and Randy Johnson, all made it.
The “no more 300 game winner” stuff has been going on since the 1960’s. Early Wynn famously was happy that Warren Spahn beat him to 300 wins because he figured he would be the last one to hit it. Obviously, was proven wrong by all the 1980’s/early 90’s guys..then with the Maddux/Unit/Clemens/Glavine group.
I said the same thing regarding his odds at 500 home runs. Zips isn’t taking into account contracts, it is just using general production and aging curves. Being that he is under contract through 2031 when he will be 39, the odds of him playing till he is 40 seem quite good.
I was happy to see Luis Robert on this list with a whopping 6% chance at 2500 hits. I have no interest in making an argument for his career after so few games, but I am certainly hoping for great things from Robert for years to come!
He deserves an article. Whatever changes he made during his injury/off season have made him into an ELITE hitter. His walk rate is tiny, but he has a 162wRC+ and is slashing 355/392/569. I think it is possible we end up seeing him grouped with the Soto Tatis Acuna talk in the next couple years.
Personally I am betting the under on any longevity related stats for Tatis. I don’t think he has that type of skill set and he certainly hasn’t shown that type of health.
Soto on the other hand I could see following a very Pujols-Ian trajectory.
I agree it may be awhile before we see a new member of the 3,000-hit club, but I’m optimistic that someone will break through in the next 10-12 years. If you take Dan’s odds, there’s a decent (63%) chance that at least one of the “free agent years” players (Altuve, Freeman, Cano, Trout, Betts, Bogaerts, Lindor, Turner) will reach 3,000. So somewhere around 1.5- or 2-to-1 it’ll happen.
Perhaps some consideration in future will go to how many hits + BB a player earned, as their total for HOF purposes. Trout is over 2,200 if we combine hits and BB. Surely that’s as fair as inducting a slap-hitting player who barely walked but got lots of singles?
Don’t forget HBP and catcher’s interference, to capture the value of the Brandon Guyers and Jacoby Ellsburys of the world!
Cano is an interesting case, because he hit fine last time he played, and is under contract for another TWO seasons. I think he will likely remain a basically everyday player when he comes back assuming he is still semi-productive, and guys who are linked to PEDs have in recent times aged pretty darn well. Now it is possible he doesn’t, or he cannot get a contract, but I could see him hanging around another season after the next two if he is still playable, but even that probably won’t be enough.
Interesting seeing Bellinger on the list. Does ZiPS not see his awful 20 and 21 as worrisome? Gleyber Torres, too.
It’s because of 20 and 21 that they’re this low. It doesn’t look good, but there’s at least *some* chance of rebound, in which case they have much stronger chances.
The game has changed so much over the years. Shifting, the TTO revolution, and teams aren’t as into rostering players past the age of 35, etc., has made it much harder for longtime players to reach the magic 3,000 hits and 500 home runs milestones. We’ll still see it happen with the megastars, but the tier of players just below them probably won’t get there. Pitching is in the same boat. Not many of them are going to reach 3,000 Ks, and the pitchers who could attain 300 Ws are going extinct. Even some of the elite arms won’t make these milestones. Scherzer already has 3,000 Ks, but he won’t get 300 Ws due to his age and where the game is going in general. As increased bullpen usage, the prevalence of Tommy John surgeries, that “times through the order” stuff that managers use to justify their quick hooks on even their best starters, etc., have made it more difficult to reach the magic numbers that once guaranteed a player becoming a first ballot HOFer.
Is there an error with Freeman and/or Altuve? How does Freeman have a better chance at 2500 but Altuve has a better chance at 3000? They’re both around the same age with around the same # of hits. And if you add their 2500hit% to their 3000hit% they both equal 100%
Freeman is predicted to age better than Altuve based on their profiles.
No error. Altuve’s future is more uncertain in the projections than Freeman’s is. He’s more likely to be a high BA guy late into his 30s, but also more likely to be out of baseball in three years.
Just to illustrate in an extreme example: imagine you have two hitters for a decade. Player A is a coin flip to hit either 25 home runs or 30 home runs in any given year and Player B is a coin flip to hit 10 home runs or 40 home runs in any given year.
Player A will hit more home runs on average than Player B, will usually hit more home runs than Player B. But Player A can’t *ever* hit more than 300 home runs while Player B is about a dice roll from beating 300 every decade.
Thanks, Dan!
I can play the part of the “get off my lawn” old guy here in this thread. Keep in mind I was an original Bill James disciple going back to the early ’80s and spent part of my career moving baseball data online.
The keepers of MLB have effectively eliminated many fun aspects of the game. Oh, I’m not talking about play on the field, which is an entirely different but related subject, but they’ve eliminated many of the markers that as kids we enjoyed. 20-win seasons. Batting championships. SBs. Etc. This spills over now into career marks. Kill the win? Great. End of the 300-game winner. Maybe even the 200-game winner. I was so looking forward to Jacob deGrom winning the Cy Young this year with 9 wins, less than many relievers. (Hyperbole. Yes, I know he had 7 wins by midyear!). Combined no-hitters are so much fun. Complete games? Shut outs. All dead. Load management is fun too. You show up at the park to see your favorite player have yet another rest day. Never mind that load management doesn’t seem to be reducing injuries at all. This is kind of important to the father or mother who brings their kids to the game, spending a boatload of money, only to watch the star players rested for 20th time this year, only to return the next game and get injured anyway.
I love baseball. I’ve contributed in my small way to the embracing of sabermetrics. I’m also sane enough to realize the marketing of the game and its future has been greatly hurt. Miggy will have his 3,000 hits. Maybe 3,000 hits will go the way of 300 wins.
Ok, I’ve had my rant. I’ll step back off my porch and back into the house. You can go run across the lawn. Try to replace any divots. Who am I kidding.? You’ll purposely dig them up!
The load management comment applies more to basketball, in my horse’s opinion.
Just neighing.
You’re correct, itis more basketball related, but it has infiltrated baseball as teams regularly schedule days off for their players in an attempt to keep them fresh and healthy. I see no evidence it’s needed in baseball or has helped.
Almost all of this is a result of more money in the game. It happens in every sport. Current players are much more careful about avoiding any injury that would cost them any part of their millions in future earnings. It’s why former NBA players like Charles Oakley calls current players soft and why older baseball players hate that guys on different teams pal around at first base.
As multimillionaires, they have way more in common with players on other teams than they do with fans.
I’m not making any judgements, but that’s the real cause of this change.
I think the only time we really see “load management” in baseball is in regards to pitchers. No team wants to see their young Mark Fidrych or Kerry Wood flame out after an amazing debut in which they were possibly overworked based on age and experience. The difficulty is determining what overworked is.
For hitters/fielders the load management equivalent would be playing through injuries. This one seems to me to be a little more concrete that it is easier to measure player performance over time and determine that it is better to put a player on the IL or keep them out “x” days longer than maybe would have occurred in the past.
Most full-time starting position players (aside from catchers) still play over 150 games in seasons when they avoid the IL the entire year.
Although, teams are using platoons more often than they used to do so.
Agree, and yet it is how it is. I see someone below commented about money and players having more in common with other players than fans, and yes that is true. But management also has a vested interest in keeping players on the field as much as possible to justify long term guaranteed deals. Particularly with pitchers while it may seem like the glory days of Marichal, Seaver, Gibson, Carlton was always the best, keep in mind 2 important items. 1. Buried underneath the surface of that era was a whole host of pitchers whose arm(s) fell off trying to keep up with the heavy workload. Guys like Bill Stoneman or Gary Nolan, etc. 2. Competition was much weaker then, and in fact I would argue the parity within the game has never been higher. Yes, Gibson would be successful now as he was then, but I don’t know if he could go 280IP in today’s game with the deep lineups teams feature. Even the below average teams have good players – the line between a very good player like…I don’t know, Aaron Judge and an average player like Manuel Margot is not as big as it used to be back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. In a 7 game series today, I don’t know that, say, today’s White Sox wouldn’t beat the big red machine of 1975 6-8 times out of 10. Not to say the Joe Morgan’s and Pete Rose, Bench and Foster were not great, but the depth teams have now is incredible – everyone can play. In an environment where everyone can play, maximizing your best talent to stay on the field makes a huge difference, particularly with pitching. It is what it is.
Is Joey Votto really less than a 1% possibility to get 2,500 hits? He’s not listed on the chart. Votto’s at 2,022 hits currently. Over four years (with possible DH in the NL coming), he’d need to average 120 hits per year. That would put him in his age-42 season.
It does seem off. I buy the odds are against him due to his age and the fact that he walks so much, but he’s also experiencing a bit of a revival and he has great skills. Also, similar to my Stanton comment above, having a long-term contract paying lots of money means he’s going to get every opportunity to play. I’d say it’s higher than 1%.
I’m guessing the fact that no one plays to age 42 tells ZIPS that everyone is basically a zero after 39. Ichiro and Raul Ibanez are the only guys over the last decade to get even 300 at bats in a season at 41 or older.
True, although isn’t Nelson Cruz knocking at that door? Actually, I think he might have walked through that door, but even though he’s 41, this might technically be considered his age-40 season.
One thing Votto has going for him in a way is his change in approach. He is looking to hit the ball more than he has for quite sometime.
By a hair this is his age 40 season.
I came here for the Wander Javier Projection, at least from the comments. Bitterly disapointed. He’s a lock for 3000.
I agree 100% with the writer here. 3000 hits is meaningless in the respect of value, but it is fun to see guys get there. Same with other milestones like 500 HR, 300 wins, 5000 K’s (OK, only 1 guy has done that but I’d love to see a second, really hoped Randy Johnson would get there despite his very late start). As a Jays fan I love seeing Vlad already at 11% at age 22. No idea how you could put Wander Franco at 7% when he hasn’t played a full season. I suspect Bo Bichette will climb up quickly after another solid year or two (he is pure fun to watch play). Dang, I really hope the Jays find a way to sign Bo & Vlad long term. And even though I detest the Rays Franco staying there for a whole career would be nice as well. Every team needs a star who is the face of the franchise.
Juan Soto has a 540 OBP in the 2nd half of the season. Is this real life?
Where is the Wander projection!?
Underperformance
I think Soto has the best shot, and maybe Franco. Soto and Vlad Jr might be the best pure hitters in the game right now, but I like Soto’s long-term viability more, because he’s more athletic. Tatis and Acuna won’t hit for high enough averages. Trout can’t stay healthy and may never hit .300 again. Altuve might have in a different era, but he traded BA for HR, like most of this era. Freeman has a chance, I suppose, but do we really expect another seven peak, healthy years from a 32 year old (next year)?
I really think that baseball, aesthetically, peaked in the 80s. As Bill James pointed out in his last Abstract (when is he going to update it?), it had a nice balance of hitting vs. pitching and a great variety of player types, from Tim Raines to Pedro Guerrero, Willie McGee to Rob Deer, Nolan Ryan to Dan Quisenberry, and everything in-between. Now it seems that even the McGee-types want to hit everything out. No one steals bases, and pitchability is poo-pooed in favor of WAR-fueled Stuff and PeripheralZ! I know, three true outcomes makes statistical sense, but let’s face it: it is boring.
That said, things evolve. Wander Franco will be interesting to watch, because he could be either young Altuve or old Altuve (maybe better than either), depending upon what type of path he takes. It is similar to young Trout (2012-13) vs older Trout (2014-on). Younger guys like Tatis and Acuna seem to have modeled themselves off of older Trout, which makes a certain amount of sense but is less interesting, imo. Young Trout was peak Tim Raines with 30 HR, a total beast. Older Trout is great, but not quite as dynamic (remember when Trout was one SB away from 50? He’s stolen 3 bases over his last 89 games). Young Altuve was Tony Gwynn, a throwback to a bygone era. Old Altuve is, well, one of dozens of similar players.
Or as Al Pacino said in Any Given Sunday, “This sport has to be about more than just winning!” And I don’t mean profit margins. Who knows, maybe the game evolves again, and out of the cul-de-sac that is TTO.
On the pitching side history is about to be made in the AL.
For the first time in a non-shortened season nobody will throw 200 innings. Current leader is Bobbie Ray of the Jays, with 182, averaging barely over 6 innings a start. 7 innings/start is already history, as of c. 7 seasons ago.
I fear the game in 2100 will involve league BA’s in the .220’s, teams averaging 300 home runs, with a K/9 of 12. Hell that may happen by 2050 the way things are going.
We really talking about 2100?
Summary of today’s game by hitting leaderboards – Mike Zunino is hardly a unicorn right now. Nicky Lopez, on the other hand, truly is a unicorn in 2021.
I think with more pitchers throwing harder, the general window where a human (even elite athletes) can be at their peak shrinks a bit. Unless rule changes are made so the ball is pitched slower or is perceived slower, you’re probably not getting guys playing near their peak for 10 years ever again.
I’m very curious how rule changes might affect things. Robot umpires might force pitchers to live closer to the zone, increasing balls in play, leading to more hits, etc. There are only so many test runs in the minors you can do to see how things might go, and you can’t really account for what might happen if every single ball Juan Soto sees outside the strike zone is actually called a ball. I think elite players might end up with some really, really astronomical seasons with just that one change.
Votto is really at less than 1% for 2500? Wow, that’s a bummer to read. I figured it was a long, long shot, but I thought there was at least a 1% chance.
Not really related to the article, but since we’re talking about hits, Ichiro’s 262 in 2004 is still crazy and I think pretty safe as a record.
If you take 1 minus each listed probability (i.e., chances each player does NOT reach 3000 hits), and then multiply those probabilities together (i.e., chances NONE of these players reach 3,000 hits), the result is ZERO%.
In other words, it’s virtually certain that one of these players will reach 3,000 hits, which contradicts the article’s premise directly.
Two things.
– What do you think the premise was? I never implied, even in the title, that nobody was *ever* going to do it again. I literally projected 1.6 players after Cabrera to in fact get 3000 hits. When your car is in the shop for maintenance, are you assuming you’ll never see it again?
– Your math doesn’t work. How about we take one minus each listed probability and multiply those probabilities together?
16.6% is a LONG way from 0%. And ZERO%.
Not that I have to defend a premise I never made, of course.
I wonder how ZIPS will update the projections if Wander Franco has a bang-up 2022 with 180+ hits. The projection now seems high, based on barely half a rookie season’s worth of outcomes and his 80-grade FV, but give it a year, and if he’s the stud everyone expects him to be, then he might have the largest year-over-year change in these projections of anyone on the list.
Wander Franco’s a 43% chance to reach 2,000 hits after only 70 MLB hits? Seems like Zips must include minor league performance. Otherwise even a 20 year old batting .285 shouldn’t have anything like that chance.
Pretty surprising Albies and Bichette are at 0%. They’re both pretty young and Bichette in a good line-up could potentially hit 170+ per year for 13-15 years. Not likely, but you add a few 200 hit seasons and it’s at least a 1% chance.