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MLB 3000 hits & 500HR clubs
PillarDollarCollector
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I was looking at the current stats of the hit and HR leaders and does not seem we will be seen anyone getting to either for decades to come.
I don't think I have ever seen players so far from reaching either milestones.
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500 Hr is in reach for a few players. Stanton and Trout could easily get 500, Trout is the only one with a legitimate shot at 700 in the next 15 to 20 years though. Manny, Arenado, and Harper could get to 500 but it will be a while. Altuve, Trout, Manny, are the best bets for 3000 hits but none are particularly close. Altuve is the closest and hes still just shy of 2000
I don't think Trout will hit 700 that is a lot. Maybe 550.
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I'm not saying he will, but he has the only legitimate chance with 350 going into his age 31 season. Some people might say Stanton at 389 but hes about to bbe 33 and really hasnt been healthy since 2018. Even his 2021 season he didnt even play in 140 games as a DH.
Once you get past them no one is really close. Unless the Arenado, Manny types start averaging 50 a year they wont get there. Youd have to be looking at an Acuna/Tatis type that are 15 years away from 700 if they ever even get close.
If Trout stays healthy he should break 600, but I do think people really underappreciated how lucky we were to see multiple 700s in the last 20 years
I think Trout will get to 500, but it may be a slow/steady climb. He has been unable to stay healthy for many seasons now. With the back condition and now that he is on the wrong side of 30 (will turn 32 this season) I dont foresee many full seasons in the future for him. I do not think he will get to 3K hits.
Stanton is a little over 100 HR away from 500. I think he can get there as well.
more of a long shot is Aaron Judge. IF he can stay healthy and put up a couple more monster seasons, I could see him getting to 500.
All of this depends, of course, on health
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Bryce Harper will reach 500 home runs. He turns 30 this year. He has 285 right now.
Freddie Freeman has a legit shot at 3,000 hits.
All depends how many of these guys have the incentive to play until age 41. The generation of Eddie Murray for example, Murray had to play until age 40 to get 500 home runs and age 39 to get 3,000 hits. Winfield had to play until age 41 to get 3,000 hits. Brett got his 3,000 hit in his age 39 season.
Someone like Freeman won't really have a problem getting 3,000 hits if he does the same. They make enough money now that it could hamper guys from hanging on an extra year or two to reach those milestones.
Hit totals may also begin to rise again with the shift ban.
I agree that hits will increase after banning the shift.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
The shift really isnt going to make a major difference that people think it is. The only guys it could make a major difference is hacks like Gallo that are 100 percent dead pull. The shift also is only banned for the infield, unless MLB has quietly told teams not to do it nothing is preventing teams from having all three outfielders on the same side. Theres other ways you can manipulate it as well, you just wont be seeing Manny making catches on the warning track anymore. Most studies showed the shift really didnt take very many hits away anyways and really should have been a plus to the batter since all you had to do was put the ball in play the other way.
What really might make a big difference though is the pitch clock. 15 seconds is just simply too fast. Pitchers are going to gas out sooner especially as the season wears on
Corey Seager in examining each of his batted balls basically 'lost' about 20 hits last year, and that includes the ones he gained by hitting away from the shift that he will now lose.
And he could have picked up a 100 hits or however many he wanted just bunting the other way until they stop shifting him. The shift is on effective is a player allows it to be. If theyre giving you half the field take it. I get pre arbitration guys and arbitration guys need the power numbers for the big contracts, but the guys that have gotten the big contracts should have been taking advantage of it. Not every player would get shifted for a reason and it is in the hitters full control if they want to force teams to stop doing it.
I hate that its been banned. Other than a pitcher and catcher if you wanted to have 7 guys stand at the foul pole hugging you should be allowed too. What I really dont like though is MLB is attempting to change the game to reward hacks like Gallo that just have no business in MLB and we are going to see more of them when what really should be happening is guys like that should be washed out of the pros. The rules werent the problem, the type of player that teams are promoting and rewarding was the issue. The guys that will see a major benefit are the guys that really probably shouldnt be in the league in the first place and we shouldnt be trying to change the rules to make a bad player good
I agree that it was terrible to ban the shift. I hate it. you dont want the shift used against you? well then, hit your way out of it.
It will result in more hits though. I think that is indisputable. how many? not sure, but there will be more.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
It'll be about a net even by getting guys like Gallo more playing time. You can still manipulate it to basically have one anyways.
But it will also be impossible to actually say what it did or didnt do. The base paths have been shortened with bigger bases so MLB can sell more ad space on them in the near future, pitchers are now rushed with the pitch clock. There's no way to to actually evaluate the impact when multiple massive changes have occurred at the same time
I agree. Batting averages will tick up this year. Stolen bases will too.
Eddie Murray cards are undervalued.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
I am not going to argue that that the shift did or didn't take hits away, because I'm sure someone here has those stats, but I will argue that in the limited amount of baseball I watch, it seemed as though the majority of hitters can no longer hit in such a always so as to just hit around the shift. Seems like a lost art.
I would love to see prime Boggs hit against the shift. then again, they only would have shifted him for about a week before they realized he was going to hit .600
I watched a lot of Boggs when he was with Boston. I never saw a player with better bat control. I am sure Gwynn and Carew would compare, but I didnt see as much of them.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
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You said it better than me, with examples. Yes, that is what I mean. I watched a lot of Boggs as well. My everyday baseball days are long gone. I still keep up with things, and like to read about changes, trends, happenings, etc, which is why I I find the idea of the shift so interesting. Boggs would have rendered the shift (against himself) obsolete rather quickly.
As many of you know, I live in the Dallas Fort Worth area. So I am well aware of guys like Gallo, who was well-described by @Basebal21 as a hack, or some such thing. I listen in and read discussions about hitting, and the changes in how hitting has been taught, and how analytics are used to influence these changes.
Carew was amazing. When they pitched him outside he would "slap" the ball just high enough over the shortstop for a single, or bunt down the 3rd base line. Incredible bunter. Bunting is something else very few players can do now.
If I was in charge the Pitcher would be on the rubber, the catcher behind the plate, and the other 7 fielders could be anywhere they wanted as long as they were in fair territory. Also no DH. No runner starting on 2nd base in extra innings. Nostalgia or am I just an old fart?
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Ralph
Now that's just crazy talk, Brick. 😜
Its not that most couldnt hit around the shift, its that theyre being told not to. Someone with a computer in the front office has convinced the organization to encourage not making adjustments. The theory is if youre only going to get 6 or 7 hits a game than you want guys trying to hit doubles/hrs. Of course it ignores the fact you would get more hits hitting around it. Same reason teams stopped stealing bases, the computers say not to unless you know youll be successful 90% or more of the time.
The league and the owners are trying to convince fans that baseball has a skill/rules problem when both of them are fine. The reality is baseball has a analytics problem where information that was meant to be used to aid decision making has completely taken over dictating what to do. Speaking of rules though the bigger bases being to encourage stealing is a huge lie by the owners. If they wanted more stealing all they would have to do is tell their teams too. The bigger bases are so that when they start selling advertisements on the bag in the future they can charge more with more ad space available
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As far as I know, it is becoming a skills issue. Here's why.
You mention analytics say to go for doubles/home runs. No more small ball, etc. You also have guys almost going for HR or strikeout, like the aforementioned Gallo. Well, for awhile now younger players have been taught to hit that way, not the way you would hit to beat the shift.
In my opinion a good chunk of the success of the shift was because a lot of guys coming up can no longer hit around it.
Do you believe that a lot of these guys can all beat the shift, but intentionally don't? I'm asking because that is what I infer from your above comment.
These guys are taught to hit in one way and that's all they have practiced for years and that's all they can do.
Have you seen guys trying to put down a bunt lately?
Its just a reflection of what the teams are rewarding though. Except for a hand full right out of college all these guys either played internationally or in college where its just not like. You see the shift far far less in all those leagues and you almost never see extreme ones like you did in the MLB. Its once they get signed or drafted that teams start emphasizing power and that strikeouts and even to an extent batting average doesnt matter. If you hit .200 in college unless youre a catcher you probably getting benched and wouldnt be a high draft pick but if you hit .200 in the pros as long as you hit enough homeruns teams dont really seem to care
Most of these guys could easily have worked around the sift if they wanted too/were allowed too. When you have teams telling them were not paying you to bunt or hit singles then they wont try and do it. Pretty much all of the D1 college guys in the league were .300 or better hitters in college, the international guys obviously proved themselves in a league or at one of the academies etc. With few expections these guys didnt grow up being dead pull one trick ponies, the teams teaching and rewards systems from the analytics turned them into that. If teams changed what they valued youd see almost an instant change in hitting approaches
Arbitration is partially to blame too. Its an antiquated formula that rewards power numbers above all else for hitter salaries. Even with that though its still ultimately the organizational analytics that turned the game into what it is at the MLB level. You still see a different game watching college and pro leagues
so true about bunting. seldom see it anymore and when you do, guys are just jabbing at the ball. I have heard such things about Carew. It takes an amazing player to have such bat control. i saw one of his bats at the HOF, it seemed pretty tiny compared to other players. that must have helped him have such good control.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I agree 100%. I hate that they are bailing out the hitters because they cant/wont hit themselves out of a shift.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Rizzo has done it a few times when he was on the Cubs to beat the shift. It does happen.
I think everyone picks on Gallo as a poster boy for MLB hitting. Gallo isn't remotely close to what is considered an elite hitter now. He isn't a benchmark or a goal for hitters or organizations. He had one elite skill(hitting home runs), and another decent skill(getting on base despite a low batting average), and he got paid to do those two things. It isn't like organizations wanted every one of their hitters to only do those two things. He is terrible now, but a few years ago his two skills as a hitter still made him an above average run producer for a MLB hitter.
Teams do realize that home runs are the best way to score runs. If you can hit home runs at an elite level and also get on base at an elite level, then THAT is the goal teams want. I should say SLUG% at an elite level and OB% at an elite level as there are a couple avenues to beef each of those up. Those guys are rare. They have always been rare. That is why they are the best.
When you can't find those rare guys then you find the best of the guys who can't do both(or either) at an elite level. Some will be like Gallo, some will be like Nico Hoerner(limited power but good bat to ball skills but still only an average hitter for now). Then you build your team and lineup.
Instead focus on guys like Vlad Jr. and company and they hit balls deep to the opposite field etc..
Then some guys are still elite and just pull the ball all the time anyway(Ted Williams did that too).
Defenses will shift more dramatically vs the pull only hitters, and they shifted on Ted Williams too. They will still shift to get as much odds in their favor as they can against guys like Vlad and Bichette.
With the focus on velocity and how there are many elite arms coming out of the pen(with command and off speed pitches), it isn't quite as easy to 'place' those balls although guys still hit the ball different parts of the field.
MLB doesn't have the Mike Flanagan's, Scott McGregor soft tossers etc where it was a tad easy to place the ball. Those type of pitchers were fairly common not too long ago. They are rare now.
MLB has hitters that hit the ball hard all over the field. Don't focus on Joey Gallo. He is a bench player now that he cannot hit 40 home runs.
HItting the ball hard all over the place has always been a difficult feat, but now with the advance of pitching schools that have increased velocity and command, these hitters have an extremely tough job, especially facing three different pitchers in a game.
Look at Bichette and Vlad instead of Gallo.
PS and in a nod to @craig44 if McGregor had came up today he may have been throwing four MPH harder working at driveline or some other place
But in the end, the increased velocity that is indeed there now makes it hard to 'place' balls where you want. You can try placing against 98 on the hands, but you are probably going to pop out. Instead, hitting it hard is your best bet. If you can only hit it hard by pulling it and risking a strikeout, then you have to do that.
Think Nolan Ryan back in the day. Hitters facing him then basically either struck out, walked, or hit a home run...not much different. Yes, I know some got singles, doubles, but Ryan's batting average against was historically low, so those other three aspects were the three outcome game against Ryan.
You don't get a reprieve either. There is no end in sight of six foot four beasts throwing 96+. If the soft tossers were still around and employed/valued by MLB teams then more guys would be able to place the ball a little better.
The rare birds like Bichette and Vlad will still hit the ball hard to different parts of the field, but that doesn't make them better than Joe Blow who just pulls the ball and has just as good a SLG%/OB% as them.
I've seen Juan Soto get ragged on because he is so good at getting on base. Look at his spray chart from 2021. What more do you want that guy to do? He is an elite of the elite with OPS and he hits the ball hard all over the field...and Soto won a championship so that crowd should be satisfied too.
MLB is NOT Joey Gallo....Gallo is a lineup filler like I said above.
Focus on the guys who do exactly what people are saying hitters should do...and they are doing it against 98 MPH on their hands while having to defend against ungodly breaking pitches, in addition to the fastball also moving.
People pick on Gallo because he should have been washed out of the league years ago. He hit .209 and .206 his first two years. He's hit over .209 once in his career and hit under .200 four times yet he still has a job. This isnt a guy that was a good hitter and started to struggle, he was never a good hitter. The fact he not only keeps getting contracts but gets traded for and gets starting jobs show him as the poster child of the league not caring what you do as long as you hit enough homeruns. He's a career .199 hitter but because he hit 40 homeruns twice hes still in the league.
Gallo has never been an above average run producer. Hes never had more than 92 RBIs, and only had more than 77 twice both times were his first two years in the league when he hit 40 HRs. Hes never scored more than 90 runs either. He also strikes out 1/3rd to 1/2 of his at bats depends on the season you look at. You could live with the first two years of his 40 HRs saying hes only 24 he should get better. Well its 5 years later and all hes done is get worse every year.
What more do people want Soto to do? Could start by actually being good again. He's gotten worse every year since 2019 with a massive drop off last season and being atrocious in SD. Hes too busy worrying about his dumb step when he takes a pitch
He was okay when the Nats won the WS, he was fine in the WS but was god awful in the NLCS. The stats success that year was their three headed pitching monster
Washington is a very hitter friendly park. He's yet to show he can compete with the big boys in the NL west and given that SD gave up what was the largest prospect haul in the history of baseball for him his .236/.388/.390 line in 1/3rd of a season there isnt going to cut it and he deserved to be booed and criticized for it. He really wasnt any better in the playoffs for them either. With what they gave up for him he has to not only be a superstar, he has to be MVP level or that trade is a disaster, especially with his poor defense in RF where he doesnt belong
Guess I was wrong we may see a few players reach the 500 HR club in the next decade. 3000 hits not so sure but will see.
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A 40 homer pull hitter dropping a bunt is a win for the defense. That's why guys don't do it.
Yes, Boggs, Gwynn, and Carew would be successful against a shift. Imagine that, three of the greatest hitters ever being successful.
Thats simply not true about a win for a defense. Its a win for a defense when they face a player that gets 100 hits total over the course of the year. 500 PA a year and 40 are HR with 90 hits total that includes the homeruns teams love to face guys like that.
Guys dont do it because theyre told not and/or stubborn.
Yes, that is exactly correct. Wouldn't it be great if we could all just say, "Hey, I'm just going to do it like Tony Gwynn."
It is a win for the defense when someone like Bryce Harper is turned into a bunt singles hitter....especially more so because even a bunt attempt against the shift is nowhere near automatic. The pitcher and catcher can still field the bunt and get him out. He can still fail to get a bunt in play and then be at two strikes.
If Harper bunted every single time against the shift, what do you think his success rate would be? It certainly would not be 100%. Certainly would not be 50% either.
So if he was successful 40% of the time(which is still a stretch) he is then a .400 hitter with an .800 OPS...and with hits that have zero baseruning advancement possibilities.
The people in charge know this. They know what Harper could do going away from his swing compared to just swinging away.
People have to stop focusing on Gallo. Gallo is not the goal or benchmark. Gallo is no longer a viable MLB starter and he has basically been washed out. He had basically a four year career where he served some use to the lineup.
From 2017-2021 Gallo's 162 game average was 95 runs scored, 43 HR, and 92 RBI...for a 117 OPS+. Hitting 40 home runs against MLB pitching is darn hard even if he does only hit .198(with a decent amount of walks though too).
As of now through four years, Nico Hoerner with his much higher .277 batting average and high contact skills sits at a 98 OPS+ with a 162 game average of 69 runs scored and 66 RBI.
Now that Gallo can't hit home runs like he did, he is a role player. He may still hit 20 home runs and is of use as a spot starter.
Why are people upset that hitters are receiving this rule change with the shift? That has a 'get off my lawn' tone to it.
in the late 1910's MLB outlawed the spitball and introduced a new livelier ball to help the batters and introduce more offense. . Without those changes Babe Ruth wouldn't be the Babe Ruth as we know today. He may still have been the best, but he wouldn't have been what we know of today.
In 1968 when nobody could hit for a decent batting average and they made rules lowering the mound height, why weren't people bitching that "hitters should change their swing plane and learn to hit against that." Or, "Find hitters who can hit agains that instead of these guys that can't hit .220." Every player after 1968 would have a different look if pitchers were still allowed to throw off higher mounds. Now imagine if some teams put them even higher and you have a 24 inch mound with Randy Johnson standing on it. Nobody would hit.
What about stadiums they made smaller to help hitters in the past. One of the worst hitting stadiums ever was Cleveland Stadium. NOBODY hit home runs at a good rate there when it was big. The elite hitters of the day all struggled there....so they moved the fences in to help the hitters.
So should we discount Dimaggio, Williams, Mantle etc...because they were helped by that move?
What about Yankee stadium? They made it smaller for the guys in the 1970's. Dimaggio never had that luxury. They made it easier for hitters. Where is the outrage?
A bunt is actually automatic against the shift, all it has to do is go past the pitchers mound. The only time it wouldnt be automatic is with a guy on 2nd where they have to keep the 3rd basemen at third. Harper has done it before in times when they really needed a base runner and its worked. Theres times you do it and times you dont, the times you do it means its a loss for the defense when it works.
For Harper though the shift were never really extreme since he will hit the otherway when hes locked in. If Harper bunted everytime against the shift it absolutely would be well over 50%, 70 or 80% at least. Bunting is difficult sacrificing because everyone is in place and youre trying to place it in a certain spot. Against the shift youre just trying to barrel it past the pitcher to the left side. Doesnt matter if you pop it up, no such thing as it being to hard etc.
Its also not true that you couldnt get doubles out of bunting against the shift. Its happened before, its happened more than once. A hard bunt is a double if the outfield is shifted over as well.
That was not Gallos year average at all.
2017 85 R, 41 Hr, 80 RBI .209/.333/537
2018 82 R, 40 Hr, 92 RBI .206/.312/.498
2019 54 R, 22 HR, 49 RBI .253/.389/.598
2020 60 game season counting numbers cant be used .181/.301/.378
2021 90 R, 38 HR, 77 RBI .199/.351/.458
Due to the fact that he strikes out close to half his at bats hes not even a good RBI guy and basically all his RBIs come from HRs and half his runs come from those as well. His career OBP is .325. He didnt get on base anywhere near the amount that the fallacy legend surrounding him would make people think to justify the fact that hes still in the big leagues. Even his career slug is under .500 only slugging above .500 twice and once was when he only played 70 games that year
People dont like the rules being changed to try and help make bad players better. The superstars and good players dont need the rule to be changed. The players that will benefit the most are the players that probably shouldnt be there. Its also just the start of the rule changes. This commissioner and group of owners dont particularly like baseball and because Tony Clarke is a shill for them he got the players to agree to a CBA where other than a strike players cant stop changes. We got the shift banned, shorter base paths, and a pitch clock (a clock that is shorter than the college one) all in one season. Whats going to happen when the mound gets moved back which is next on his agenda
He might as well just go ahead and ban sliders at the rate hes going. No matter what they do as long as teams promote and prioritize power over everything swing and misses will be a huge part of the game.
And why would they be told not to? Because it's a win for the defense. If bunting was a strategy for success, SOMEONE would have done it by now (as in on every single AB).
Because they dont get paid to do so and are told not to. You can go back to when it started, Ortiz Cano Harper Rizzo just to name a few super stars that have done it before and it worked. Computers say not too.
And why do you think that is? Do you REALLY think hundreds of managers, coaches, executives, and players have ALL figured out a solution to beating the shift and then.......... have chosen to not do it? Including teams that implemented electronic cheating systems?
And doing it once or twice a year isn't "doing it".
The computers control to much and a lot of the changes have to do with future advertising deals. I played past college and will leave it at that. Theres incentives not to in terms of promotion and salary. If the shift was such and issue why isnt it standard in other leagues or college?
It IS standard in the minors. In 2019, teams shifted 25% of the time in AAA.
https://www.sportsinfosolutions.com/2019/05/23/the-rise-of-minor-league-defensive-shifts/
25% isnt standard. Unfortunately though MLB is using the minors and the Atlantic league as experiments. All of the new rules they experimented with elsewhere and even lean on college baseball to try out some things. Some would ask how could they make college baseball doe what they want, but they have an agreement where if you go to a 4 year school you have to be there 3 years or turn 21 and could just rip that away. College has done a good job for the most part of only letting certain things be tried, but all the 7 inning double headers/bases/runner on second has been tried in the minors or an independent league. The bad part is more is being tried that will eventually happen
the win is when you bunt against the shift enough that they have to STOP shifting you. If you start bunting every at bat and get on base 80% of the time, they will have to stop shifting, then you can stop bunting. When they notice the trend and start shifting you again, start bunting and the cycle repeats.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
All I can say is in the last several years in games I've watched, in the rare instances where a guy tries to bunt, they fail miserably. They have no idea of how to do it.
Additionally, I see guys continue to try to pull the outside pitch against the shift, generally resulting in a ground ball to shortstop if it's a right handed batter.
Once in a great while, I see a hitter "go the other way" and get a hit or at least hit the ball hard to the opposite field.
It looks to me like 80(?)% of the hitters are trying to hit home runs and so the defense shifts on them.
Joe Mauer won three batting titles hitting the ball the other way and all they talked about was that he should have been pulling the ball more. That wasn't his strength. Defenses didn't shift on Mauer.
I'm not a fan of seeing 5 guys on one side of second base on every at bat, but if the hitters are all trying to pull every pitch, it's hard to blame the defense.
I blame analytics for all this. Not much I can say if the geniuses have decided that's how the game is going to be played.
I'm VERY happy about the pitch clock. The thing that was keeping me from enjoying the games was the ridiculous amount of time the pitchers were taking to throw the ball AND the batters stepping out between every pitch.
I'm looking forward to baseball more than I have in several years!
Couldnt agree more!! And you are right about the inability of modern players to bunt. The pitch clock is such a welcome addition. Get in the batter's box and stay there! I am starting to sound like an old man.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
It looks like most guys are trying to hit homeruns because thats what theyre trying to do lol.
The problem with the pitch clock is the length of it. 15 seconds with no one on base just isnt enough time. 20 or 25 seconds would have been more reasonable. 15 seconds is going to end up having implications especially later in the season