First of all, happy Thanksgiving! I'm sure Adrian Beltre will be having a good Turkey Day as well, given that the 21-year veteran just announced his retirement from baseball. In my last post, we took a deep dive into the career of Joe Mauer to see if he should be a Hall of Famer. This post will do the same for Beltre, but the dive will not be NEARLY as deep, mostly because it doesn't need to be. Why is this the case? Well, you'll see in a second, but first, let's discuss the career of the former All Star.
Adrian Beltre played from 1998-2018 with the Dodgers, Mariners, Red Sox, and Rangers. In those 21 years, he made four All Star Games, won four Silver Slugger awards, and also took home five Gold Glove awards at third base. Beltre also batted .300 or above in seven seasons and hit 30 or more home runs in five seasons. I'm sure that this all sounds great and worthy of the Hall of Fame, but there is one key statistic that Beltre achieved that OFFICIALLY secures him a spot in Cooperstown in five years.
Lend me your ears because I'm about to tell you one of baseball's rare unwritten laws regarding Hall of Fame legitimacy: if a hitter did not do anything to limit his Hall of Fame candidacy (I'm looking at you, Palmeiro and Rodriguez) or if a hitter isn't Pete Rose, 3,000 CAREER HITS IS A TICKET TO COOPERSTOWN. Every single hitter in baseball history, except for the three listed above, with 3,000 or more hits are/will be in the Hall of Fame and Beltre ranks 16th on the all-time hits list with 3,166 career base knocks. It doesn't matter that he only ranks 16th; he will get into the Hall of Fame, whether he gets 75.1% or 100% of the ballot votes.
Who's excited for another foreign hitter to get inducted into the Hall? I know I am. Thanks for reading this post and I hope you enjoyed it. Check back soon for more of "all the buzz on what wuzz."
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