Article: Future Hall-Of-Famer Cards: Sure Thing Hitters

[Mike D.]

I just had my first article published on Cardlines.com: Future Hall-Of-Famer Cards: Sure Thing Hitters

https://www.cardlines.com/future-hal...thing-hitters/

Take a peak if the topic is of interest to you. It was fun to write. The pitching version of the article is coming soon!

[David W]

Interesting article.

Thanks for posting

[frankhardy]

Very good article. Well written. Loved to see Pujols and Molina on the list. Being a Cardinals fan I am hoping like crazy that the Cardinals sign Pujols for one last go around. It would be awesome to send off Pujols, Molina, and Wainwright at the end of 2022 with a World Series Championship!

[Mike D.]

Thanks for looking! I appreciate it!

I agree that while the baseball reasons for bringing Pujols back to St. Louis for one more year are iffy at best, it just makes too much sense from a marketing perspective NOT for the Cardinals to explore.

I'm not sure if he's game for that reduced of a role, but it'd be a lot of fun for Cardinals fans, and really all baseball fans, to have those players back in St. Louis for one last go-around.

[steve B]

A very long time ago I put aside cards of players I figured had a shot in some way. From just popular players with decent stats, or guys with a chance at 300 wins, 3000 hits or 400Hr. Which were all the big landmarks at the time.

The steroid era and more recently the swing for the fences and don't worry about strikeouts made 400HR pretty much a losing thing.

I found that box a while ago, and looked. Only a few had made it. Yount and a handful of others.
Many did not. Like Johnny Ray, who seemed on the path to 3000 hits, being generally well over 150 a year. ended up at 1502 after 10 years, including his first when he only had 31 games. I suspect a lack of power and the then common thing of releasing veteran players who were solid enough to get paid well in favor of kids who might be better or worse but at least were cheap finished him off.

It's an interesting box to go through.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Good list. Surprised it's such a short one.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by steve B

It's an interesting box to go through.

I bet...it really goes to show that it takes a while to really know. If you were to try to pick from all the rookies in a given time period which would be hall of famers, you'd probably not be very close (Todd Van Poppel, Bryan Taylor)

If you go a few more years, the numbers get better but a lot of misses still (Gooden, Eric Davis).

It's only after 10 years you'd probably hit on 50% (Mattingly), and 15+ years when guys are "sure things". It's a marathon, not a sprint!

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by steve B

A very long time ago I put aside cards of players I figured had a shot in some way. From just popular players with decent stats, or guys with a chance at 300 wins, 3000 hits or 400Hr. Which were all the big landmarks at the time.

The steroid era and more recently the swing for the fences and don't worry about strikeouts made 400HR pretty much a losing thing.

I found that box a while ago, and looked. Only a few had made it. Yount and a handful of others.
Many did not. Like Johnny Ray, who seemed on the path to 3000 hits, being generally well over 150 a year. ended up at 1502 after 10 years, including his first when he only had 31 games. I suspect a lack of power and the then common thing of releasing veteran players who were solid enough to get paid well in favor of kids who might be better or worse but at least were cheap finished him off.

It's an interesting box to go through.

LOL, I was a big Johnny Ray mark back in the day to. Socked away all my Johnny Ray and Steve Sax rookies. They were 1-2 in the ROY voting in '82 (and I played 2nd base in Little League at the time).

Johnny was more under the radar though, so I thought I had a diamond in the rough that nobody else was paying attention to. He was probably a more well rounded player then Sax was also.

Pretty good ballplayer, but not exactly "generational".

I had a soft spot for 2nd basemen. Willie Randolph was my favorite player for awhile, and I remember hoarding Damaso Garcia Rookie cards for some unknown reason.

[RayBShotz]

Originally Posted by steve B

A very long time ago I put aside cards of players I figured had a shot in some way. From just popular players with decent stats, or guys with a chance at 300 wins, 3000 hits or 400Hr. Which were all the big landmarks at the time.

The steroid era and more recently the swing for the fences and don't worry about strikeouts made 400HR pretty much a losing thing.

I found that box a while ago, and looked. Only a few had made it. Yount and a handful of others.
Many did not. Like Johnny Ray, who seemed on the path to 3000 hits, being generally well over 150 a year. ended up at 1502 after 10 years, including his first when he only had 31 games. I suspect a lack of power and the then common thing of releasing veteran players who were solid enough to get paid well in favor of kids who might be better or worse but at least were cheap finished him off.

It's an interesting box to go through.

I would not have guessed in a million years that Johnny Ray got 1500+ hits.
Wow. RayB