Who’s up next for the 3,000-hit club after Albert Pujols?
“The Favorite Toy” is a method invented by Bill James to determine how likely it is for a current baseball player to surpass a career milestone, such as 3,000 hits. The formula takes into account how many hits (or whatever stat) a player needs to reach the milestone and how fast he has been moving toward the goal, based on his last three seasons, along with an estimate of how many seasons he has left in his career. The result is a percentage probability that he will reach the mark.
The Angels’ Albert Pujols had a 97% chance of getting 3,000 hits when the season began. (He had 2,994 going into Friday’s game against the Yankees.) But who is next on the list? Take a look:
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit, 67%
Robinson Cano, Seattle, 57%
Nick Markakis, Atlanta, 28%
Jose Altuve, Houston, 25%
Elvis Andrus, Texas, 23%
Melky Cabrera, Cleveland, 22%
Those under 20% include:
Nolan Arenado, Colorado, 14%
Manny Machado, Baltimore, 14%
Mike Trout, Angels, 12%
Bryce Harper, Washington, 6%
Corey Seager, Dodgers, 4%
Matt Kemp, Dodgers, 2%
You can use this for any milestone you want. Who has the best chance to win 300 games? Only three pitchers have a better than 10% chance to reach that mark.
Max Scherzer, 33%
Justin Verlander, 15%
Zack Greinke, 14%
Clayton Kershaw is fourth with a 7% chance.
Twitter: @latimeshouston
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