First player to reach 3000 hits not to make the HOF?

[Peter_Spaeth]

None of you people who follow baseball can name the player under 30 with the most hits without looking it up?

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

None of you people who follow baseball can name the player under 30 with the most hits without looking it up?

I'll take a stab and say Trout...sure I'm wrong


You did mean active players, right?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

I'll take a stab and say Trout...sure I'm wrong


You did mean active players, right?

Incorrect.

[steve B]

I cheated and looked it up. Quite a surprise, as is the guy who has a few more and is 30.

[steve B]

I used to set aside the junk wax cards of guys I figured had a shot at 3000 hits or 400+ HR. I should get the box out of the barn and list the names, it should be amusing.
I based it on a presumed career of 20 years averaging 150 hits a year. There were a lot of players reliably hitting 150 hits a year. Nearly none of them made 3000.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by steve B

I used to set aside the junk wax cards of guys I figured had a shot at 3000 hits or 400+ HR. I should get the box out of the barn and list the names, it should be amusing.
I based it on a presumed career of 20 years averaging 150 hits a year. There were a lot of players reliably hitting 150 hits a year. Nearly none of them made 3000.

Yeah once you hit 33 or 34 or so it's hard to sustain. Look at Miggy.

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by steve B

I used to set aside the junk wax cards of guys I figured had a shot at 3000 hits or 400+ HR. I should get the box out of the barn and list the names, it should be amusing.
I based it on a presumed career of 20 years averaging 150 hits a year. There were a lot of players reliably hitting 150 hits a year. Nearly none of them made 3000.

I used to do that to. Somewhere I think I still have a stack of Matt Nokes, Jerome Walton and Kevin Seitzer rookie cards that....call me optimistic...I am still hoping will be worth something someday.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by steve B

I cheated and looked it up. Quite a surprise, as is the guy who has a few more and is 30.

Castro would have been my first guess, the guy who is 30 would have been my second. The right answer would have been third or lower.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

None of you people who follow baseball can name the player under 30 with the most hits without looking it up?

Three names immediately come to mind. Jose Altuve, Starlin Castro and Elvis Andrus. Castro has already been named, and is wrong, so it would come down to a guess between the other two. Both guys started really, really young, and, to my knowledge, neither have ever had an injury to keep them out of a large number of games (at least, until this year, when Andrus missed a block of games. The Dallas Morning News made a big deal about how it was the first time he ever went on the DL). Altuve is a much better hitter, though Andrus started to come into his own the past two seasons, hitting around .300.

Altuve leads the league/Majors in hits like every year (he's an automatic 200 hits each season, while I don't think Andrus has ever hit that plateau), so my gut tells me to go with him. But the "surprise" factor just referenced makes me think that Andrus is the guy.

I would have never thought of him if I didn't live twenty minutes from the Ballpark in Arlington.

[Peter_Spaeth]

In the post where I posed the question I said it wasn't Altuve. You have to read.

So yes, it's Andrus.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

In the post where I posed the question I said it wasn't Altuve. You have to read.

So yes, it's Andrus.

My eyes are going?

[orioles93]

If Markakis sticks around long enough to get to 3000 hits, then he’ll most likely also be in the range of 1300+ rbi and runs, 200+ homers, 600+ doubles, 1000+ walks with fairly low strikeout totals for his era, and a solid career slash line. He also was a solid defender with a great arm. Now I’m not sure if that is exactly a hall of famer, but if you showed those career totals along with 3000+ hits and didn’t provide a name or a list of accolades, then most people would atleast consider the person.

[Peter_Spaeth]

He's made all of one all star team, this year.

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

He's made all of one all star team, this year.

Bit of an old post but this has the makings of an interesting conversation in itself.

Do you think its possible that a player could make the HOF based on his playing career without having ever appeared in an all star game (obviously limited to those who played since the All star game was introduced)?

I think Tim Salmon, Kirk Gibson and Eric Karros are the names that come to mind off the top of my head among "best careers of guys who never made an all star team" and they are not even remotely HOF worthy. At the same time though I think they could all reasonably qualify as members of the Hall of Very Good and to have put together decent careers like that without making an all star game suggests it might be possible for someone who, say, played a few more years than they did to amass enough hits or wins or home runs to meet the usual Hall cut offs.


It could happen two ways I think. One way is you have a guy who is consistently good but not great over a very long career and just piles up enough numbers to get the nod (Bert Blyleven comes to mind, having only made 2 all star appearances and never really having been considered among the top pitchers in the game for most of his career).

The second route would be a guy who has a lot of great seasons but is always overshadowed by an even bigger star at the same position whose career by coincidence happens to overlap with his. I'm not really sure who the prototypical player meeting this description would be, but probably there are a lot of first basemen out there who fit the bill.

But do you think this is even a possible accomplishment?