Friday Rewind: The Hunt for the Hall

NEW YORK — There are four active players, just four, with at least 3,000 plate appearances who have a lifetime batting average of .300.

They are:

• Miguel Cabrera, who is batting .307 and is about to retire — he’s guaranteed to end his career batting over .300.

• Jose Altuve, who’s batting .306 and is 33 years old.

• Mike Trout, who’s batting .301 and is turning 32 in three days.

• Freddie Freeman, who’s batting .301 and is turning 34 in September.

Freeman’s case is the most unusual of these.

• Cabrera, through age 28, was hitting .317

• Altuve, through age 28, was hitting .316

• Trout, though age 28, was hitting .304

• And Freeman, through age 28, was hitting .293

It’s not supposed to work that way. The way it works is that the top batting average hitters build up gigantic cushions above .300 and then, in their 30s, try to hold on for dear life.

Mickey Mantle was hitting .309, for example, into his early 30s, but he hit just .254 after age 32 and his career average dropped to .298.

Henry Aaron was a .320 hitter as a young man — he hit a solid but unspectacular .285 in his last decade, which was good enough to keep his career average at .305.

Willie Mays was at .313 after his 1965 MVP season. He hit .274 the rest of the way and barely came in at .301.

That’s the pattern. But that’s not Freddie Freeman. Somehow this guy gets better every single season. He had another Freddie Freeman day on Thursday (3 for 5 with a homer and two doubles), this after having a Freddie Freeman day on Wednesday (3 for 4 with two doubles), and you look up and he’s hitting .341/.418/.598 with 22 homers and 40 doubles, and it’s enough to make you say: I know we’ve all given the MVP award to Ronald Acuña Jr., and that makes complete sense, but should we wait a minute on that? Is Freeman actually the MVP?

People are always asking me for an update list of current players who will end up in the Hall of Fame. It’s an impossible ask, but I’ll tell you what: Of the active players with more than 6,000 plate appearances, these are the players I EXPECT to vote for on the Hall of Fame ballot someday.

Remember, I’m only talking about players with more than 6,000 MLB plate appearances — so you’re not going to see Shohei on this list.

• Mike Trout. Obviously.

• Miguel Cabrera. Just as obviously.

• Joey Votto. Joey is a good example of batting average yellowing with age — he was hitting .313 after his age 33 season. He’s only hitting .253 since then, and so his lifetime average is .296. Doesn’t take away from his greatness.

• Paul Goldschmidt. I’m bullish on Goldy.

• Freddie Freeman. I don’t think he’s 100% there yet, but the way he’s going, I feel confident moving him from the probable Hall of Famer to expected Hall of Famer.

Unlike most players, Freeman’s getting better with age. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)

Then there’s a second group of players on the list who I think will be Hall of Famers but, realistically, they still have some work to do.

• Manny Machado.

• Bryce Harper. I had Bryce on my expected Hall of Famer list before, but this year is so weird — he’s hitting .295 and walking, but he has only five homers all year — that I’m a bit worried about his long-term health. He’s only 30, and I still think he’s a probable Hall of Famer, but I want to see him slugging again.

• Nolan Arenado.

And I’ll mention two other players. Jose Altuve just two or three years ago seemed like a lock for 3,000 hits. The pandemic and injuries have slowed him down on the field, and the whole Astros cheating scandal changed the way people see him. He still has a shot at the Hall, but with 1,975 hits at age 33, he’ll have to step on the gas.

I think — THINK — that Giancarlo Stanton will hit 500 home runs. He might not. The injuries keep piling up. And his body keeps wearing down. He has often looked utterly helpless at the plate this year (though he still does have 15 homers in 58 games). At age 33 with 398 home runs, 500 homers is very much still in play, but 600 homers, which looked like a very real possibility for Stanton not so long ago, might not be in play. As the Magic 8 Ball says: “Cannot predict now.”

Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!

WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL Update

OK, I have a copy of WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL. I’m holding it in my hand. It’s real, and it’s spectacular.

The little circle next to the glove, in case you can’t read it, says “Signed Copy.” You may ask, “How did you get a signed copy?” Well, I know the guy.

When I tell you these books JUST came out, yeah, they just came out, I first held the book in my hand yesterday at 4 p.m., when a small package arrived at Penguin Random House for my editor, John. There were two books in there. He gave me one of them.

The book is really beautiful. I can say that without fear of bias because it’s the incredible designers and production folks at Dutton Books who did it, not me. I mean, check out the back!

Whenever my daughter puts a photograph of any kind on Instagram, it will be followed by a litany of comments by friends that looks something like this.

Gorge!
Ur so pretty!
❤️❤️❤️
😍 stunning!
ur so pretty!
🤩🤩 sooooooo cute
So adorable!
Cuteeeeeeee!

That’s kind of how I feel about this book. It just looks and feels amazing throughout. It was made with love, and as an author who tried to write every word with love, I mean, it just makes the heart sing to see other people care this much.

Other updates:

I spent much of Thursday with the incredible Ellen Adair, who co-narrated the WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL audiobook. We recorded a podcast about the book, which was just absurd fun. I’ll let you know when that comes out.

On Thursday night, I went to see Alex Edelman’s Broadway Show, “Just For Us” — it was the third time I’ve seen the show, but the first time in the beautiful and so haunted Hudson Theater. There are only 16 days left on this Broadway run; it’s utterly amazing.

Then, you can see Alex and me on stage Sept. 6 in Newport, R.I. — tickets available here and going fast.

In fact, all tickets are going pretty fast.

Sept. 5, I’ll be talking with Bob Costas in Spring Lake, N.J. Tickets

Sept. 6, as mentioned, Alex and I are in Newport. Tickets

Sept. 7, I’m in St. Louis with the amazing Gerald Early. Tickets

Sept. 8, it’s Mike Schur and me in Kansas City. Be there!

Sept. 9, the incomparable Jeff Garlin will do the talking in Cincinnati. Tickets

Sept. 12, I’ll be at Chevaliers in Los Angeles with Molly Knight, Mike Schur and a galaxy of stars. Info

Sept. 13, I’ll in Santa Rosa at Copperfield’s. Not sure about a special guest star for this one yet; I do have a couple of people in mind, but not sure I can pull it off. Info

Sept. 16, I’ll be at the Kansas Book Festival in Topeka, and I’ll be talking with none other than the legendary Bill James. Info.

Sept. 17: Details still being finalized for Why We Love Baseball Day at the Ballpark in Charlotte.

Plenty more on the way after that, but I’m exhausted just writing about those first two weeks.

I will mention one other event, though it’s not exactly public. The wonderful Substack people are putting together a small and intimate party for the book on Sept. 14 in San Francisco. Space is super-limited — seriously, super-limited — but if you’re interested in being a part of it, I’d love to have JoeBloggers there. Email here if you want in, and I’ll see what I can do.

Happy Friday! The Rewind is free so everyone can enjoy it. Just a reminder that Joe Blogs is a reader-supported newsletter, and I’d love and appreciate your support.

JoeBlogs Awards of the Week

Player of the week: I’m going to have co-players of the week this week — Freddie Freeman, obviously, had an absurd week, hitting .565 with five doubles. But Atlanta’s Matt Olson had a big week himself, hitting .429 with four home runs in five games. Obviously, these two are connected, since the Braves essentially chose Olson over Freeman, even though Freeman had already become an Atlanta icon. And they’re both just SO good — I’ve already talked about the awesomeness of Freddie, but it’s Olson who leads the league in homers, RBIs and slugging.

Pitcher of the week: Hard to argue with Houston’s Framber Valdez, who threw a no-hitter this week.

Team of the week: OK, I’ll just say it: How about those Kansas City Royals? They won again on Thursday — Bobby Witt hit his 19th homer and stole his 31st base — and that made SIX victories in a row for the Royals. True, the last three were against a Mets team that apparently is packing it in for the next few years, but six in a row is six in a row.

Anthony Rizzo and Concussion Protocols

On May 28, Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo’s head collided with San Diego’s Fernando Tatis. It didn’t look like too much at first — Tatis was trying to get back to first base ahead of the catcher’s throw, and his hip slammed into Rizzo’s head. On replay, it became clear that the collision was more violent than it first appeared; Rizzo’s head snapped hard to the left. He got up, stumbled about, dropped his glove and went to the ground.

At that moment, Rizzo was hitting .304/.376/.505 with 11 home runs in 53 games.

He missed three games with what the Yankees were calling a neck injury. “Rizzo’s good,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We’re just being cautious. He went through all the testing and was fine.”

We now know that Rizzo suffered a concussion that day. Not only do we know that, we know that he has not been the same since. He has suffered morning hangovers after peaceful nights. He has felt foggy. His reaction time has slowed beyond recognition. He has been a shell of himself.

And the question has to be: How did everybody miss it? It’s not like it was hard to see. When Rizzo came back, he went 1 for his first 30, with his lone hit a single off the Dodgers’ Michael Grove. In all, he has hit .172/.271/.225 with one home run in 46 games. A few days ago, he had a five-strikeout day. I mean, something wasn’t right.

And no matter how many cautionary tales about concussions come out — I mean, we’ve seen this with Justin Morneau … Joe Mauer … teams keep acting like they know more and understand more than they know or understand. The tests that baseball uses obviously can’t capture the full gravity of concussions. The abundance of caution that teams show can be as callous as giving a guy two or three days off to rest. Rizzo himself did not and could not understand the effect the concussion was having on him … it was up to others to protect him. They didn’t.

Joe Blogs Week in Review

Monday: I really enjoyed writing a Brief History of the Walk in baseball.

Tuesday: Trade Deadline Talk, Part I

Wednesday: Trade Deadline Talk, Part II

Thursday: This week’s Brilliant Reader Challenge was a doozy, as I ranked the 10 worst team nicknames.

The PosCast! This week we did our Mike and Joe’s Annual Meadowlark Media PosCast Annual Special Trade Deadline Spectacular. Of course. Like we always do. We decided to make this a short one, and ended up talking for two-plus hours anyway.