Starlin Castro and the Quest for 3000 Hits

[PolarVortex]

no, I am not trying to be confrontational... just want to know the point in to what to debate about...

Seems pretty obvious to me. Does he have a realistic shot at 3K or not. If he does, what needs to happen? If he doesn't what will hold him back. In other words, pretty much what everyone else has been discussing. This is baseball, not rocket surgery nor brain science.

 

[JohnU]

He's still young enough to get back on track and last year was actually one of his better years. He ony played 112 game so he missed nearly a third of the season and still scored 66 runs and drove in 63. If you project him to 155 games (which is not unreasonable considered he had played 151+ games in 5 of the previous 6 seasons), he would have had career highs in runs scored, RBI, and HR while hitting .300.

But also, the guy who said Castro's average hits per game is inflated by high numbers earlier in his career, has a valid point and one that I had not previously considered.

A little of it is up to him. Some guys don't want to stick around long enough to accumulate those numbers. 3,000 is a major milestone but if it takes him 18 years, he may run out of ambition long before that. A sore knee, a sick kid, a business opportunity, dislike of being benched or a manager or his agent ... it isn't like the pursuit of numbers is always the end-all, be-all for ballplayers. So as I assert, maybe he doesn't think the grind is worth ending up on a list that still won't get him into the HOF on the first ballot.

 

[DragonfromTO]

there's also the matter of him sticking around long enough to do so. he has to hit pretty well in order to have any real value given his defense sucks. He's hit pretty well for a middle infielder, but even then you're talking a career 98 OPS+. Three of his last five seasons have been below that (including a 73 OPS+ in 2013 and 84 OPS+ in 2015).

Second base isn't the spot for a long career either. Lots of attrition at that position.