I recently started following Chris St. Paul and his writing/research, I have found to be 
awesomely interesting (he would be awesome if we did another Who’s Awesome and Who’s not Awesome post). Anyway, I came across this article that he wrote at beyondtheboxscore.com. I thought it was a really interesting take on who might join one of the more prestigious fraternities in all of sports, the 3000 hit club (if Wade Boggs is in a club, it’s a fraternity). St. Paul found the usual suspects, Jeter, AROD, Miguel Cabrera, Vlad, and Ichiro, but, one name popped up that I never would have thought: Nick Markakis. St. Paul’s basic research method was to look at the top 200 active career hits leaders and figure the likelihood of their getting to the 3,000 hit threshold assuming a retirement age of 41 (the average retirement age of all the 27 members of the fraternity) and the same hits per plate appearance. Jeter has averaged .28 hits per plate appearance and Albert Pujols’ rate is pretty similar. St. Paul’s method requires that everything goes perfectly and that players don’t falter with age, or slump (something I think you’ve got to do when predicting such things). It’s really much more research than I would have the time or patience to do, so I hope St Paul doesn’t mind my piggy backing.
Here’s his top 10:
Edgar Renteria and Ivan Rodriguez seem less likely than statistics would indicate because of their declined playing time and poor performance in recent years. Others, like Carl Crawford and Miguel Cabrera have a lot of games left to play. Others with alot of games to play….
Top 10 Under 30 years old:
The top 3 make sense. Cabrera, Crawford, and Cano (the 3 C’s) are all very talented players. Even Ryan Braun, David Wright, Hanley Ramirez, make sense. Their careers are relatively young but they’re very high quality players capable of sustaining success through their 30s. Jose Reyes is proving this year just how good he can be by leading the Majors in hitting and triples from the shortstop position. Billy Butler is one of the more underappreciated pure hitters in the game and Hunter Pence belongs at the bottom of the list (plus, there’s no way his knees, back and shoulders hold up for him to play through the age of 41).
To top it all off, Markakis is not an ugly guy
All of those guys have made an All Star game, and received MVP votes (except Butler). Nick Markakis is the oddball. You’ve got to feel for the guy, nobody appreciates him or acknowledges that he’s a very good right fielder. I’m not going to make the case that Markakis should be a star but I will say that he should be better respected around the league. He’s a very serviceable Right Fielder with a good arm (some teams projected him as a pitcher out of high school), he’s durable (he’s played in 147, 161, 157, 161, 160 games each season) and clearly a good hitter.
Nick Markakis has a .295 career batting average and had an OPS over .800 every year of his career. This season has been a struggle for Nick as he is hitting only .264 with a .658 OPS including his current 12 game hitting streak in which he has hit over .450. Why isn’t he a star? He’s never hit more than 23 homers, had 200 hits, posted a slugging percentage over .500, or lead the league in anything other than sac fly’s.
Markakis may not be a star, have a fun nickname or be great but I’ll take his production, consistency and general team first attitude. There’s a bit of a concern with that big contract (he’s due $12 million next season, and $15 the next two) but, paycheck aside, and the numbers back me up, Nick Markakis has the makings of a very very good career going forward.
Stat of the Day: Clarence Clemons had 4 of his 5 wives attend his funeral. Boss.
-Sean Morash
