One of my favorite things to do, at least in terms of baseball, is to play around with the Bill James’ Favorite Toy calculator. For those who have never heard of it, it is a simple, rough way to estimate the chances of a player meeting certain career thresholds by using their age, current total, position and last three years worth of data.

Perusing the active career leader boards for interesting candidates, here are some that jumped out:

Just for the fun of it, I added Ichiro’s total hits from Japan (1278) to his MLB total. The chances in the table above are for 4,000 hits. His chance of reaching 4257 hits is 19.4%.

Who knew Johnny Damon might have a legitimate chance to 3,000 hits? Not me. I was surprised to see his name so high on the active leader board, and had no idea that he was already over 2,300 hits. Off to a hot start this year, in what looks like a great hitters’ park, we will have to revisit him after this season and see how he has been affected. But Damon is clearly an underrated ballplayer.

What you can see is that the biggest factor in getting to these milestones is how close you are. If nothing happens to Miguel Cabrera he should be a lock for 3,000 hits, but here we see that the formula adjusts for all sorts of things that might happen. That 27% chance may look very low in two or three years. 

Interestingly, Derek Jeter has a zero chance at 4,000 hits, but is a virtual certainty for 3,000. Last year, in a similar article at The Fantasy Baseball Generals, the system calculated that Jeter had a non-negligible chance at 4,000, which has now disappeared. That is because when calculating it last year he had three 200 hit seasons to use, this year he has last year’s 179 hit season. The system predicts 3,258 hits for Jeter.

For everyone but A-Rod, Chance 1 is 500 home runs and chance 2 is 600. For A-Rod, Chance 1 is 700 home runs and chance 2 is 800 home runs. An 81 percent chance at 700 home runs is simply astounding, and he is only a 3-1 dog for 800 home runs. Just for the hell of it I put in 900 home runs, and he has a 4.4% chance at that mark, which is simply unbelievable.

Vladimir Guerrero has been a pleasure to watch over the years and in my view should be a strong HOF candidate. Many others do not share that view. But reaching the benchmarks without the taint of steroids may seal the deal for him. Vlad’s 54.7% chance at 500 home runs is very solid. But he has a mere 4.1% chance at 600. This is because the system projects him for 505 home runs total, making him a better than even money shot for 500 but a longshot for 600. We may have to revisit him next season.

Albert Pujols is one of the ten best hitters that ever lived, in my view. Do we realize how fortunate we are to have watched him and A-Rod at the same time? Pujols is projected to finish with 574 home runs, being a lock for 500 and a nice bet for 600. Pujols also has a 15.9% chance at 700 and a 1.9% chance at 800.

We forget how good Adrian Beltre is at hitting home runs. At 244 already, he has a non-zero chance of 500 home runs. As one of the guys that drafts Beltre every year I hope he makes it. He is destined to be a Hall Of The Very Good player.

Carlos Lee is projected for 445 home runs with a 23.2% chance at 500. Lee is another criminally underrated player that may end up in the Hall Of The Very Good if not the Hall of Fame. El Caballo is one of my favorite players after Ichiro. The next two years will be big for lee to get into the Hall of Fame discussion. Lee is penalized for his injury last year because of the mere 28 home runs. If we give him 37 home runs for last year his shot at 500 increases to 33%, and his chance at 600 jumps to 5.8%.

Like many young players, the system has to adjust for the chance of something going wrong, which is why Miguel Cabrera only has a 36.2% chance of 500 home runs. It is sort of like estimating your lifespan-the single biggest factor in how long you will live is how old you are now, not your health. The same principle applies here, no matter how good you are, the biggest factor is how close you are to the goal right now.

But Miguel is helped when reaching the higher echelons because of his age. He has a 15.5% chance at 600, or just less than half of the chance at 500. Better yet, Cabrera has a non-negligible 2.9% chance at 700.

Last, but not least, is Adam Dunn. Dunn is a home run machine as we all know, but most people do not realize just how good he is at hitting them. It is one thing to say, in a vacuum, that he is a great home run hitter. It is another to say that he has a 73.8% chance at 500, a 2-1 chance at 600 and a 13.4% chance at 700. He even has a 1% chance at 800! After A-Rod and Pujols he is the only player in baseball with any chance at 800, according to the system. That, in itself, should garner much more respect than he has earned.

So there you have the hitters. Next week I will look at some of the pitchers and their chances at 300 Wins and some other marks.

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