Mark Reynolds’ Retirement & Statistical Milestones Endangered By A Shortened Or Canceled MLB Season

While the NFL carries on with off-season transactions as if everything is nice and normal and its 2020 season will be untouched by the coronavirus pandemic, the only player-related news to emerge from Major League Baseball since the calendar flipped to April happened by accident Apr. 9, when Mark Reynolds told Sirius XM he’s retired.

“Actually, I guess that’s breaking news on your show,” Reynolds told hosts Steve Torre and Danny Kanell. “I haven’t really told — I mean, obviously my family and friends know. With all this going on and with everything, I’m really enjoying time with the family. It’s time for me to move on and find something else to do.”

Reynolds moves on after a 13-year career in which he fashioned a reputation as one of the truest all-or-nothing sluggers in baseball history. He had five seasons in which he hit at least 25 homers and struck out 175 times, a total exceeded only by Adam Dunn (six). His 223 whiffs in 2009 are the most ever and he ranks ninth all-time with 1,927 strikeout s— just 670 fewer than all-time strikeout king Reggie Jackson, who finished with 4,432 MORE at-bats.

But the most interesting number for Reynolds is his career home run total: 298. That is, if our elementary understanding of math is correct, two shy of 300, which is a nice, round number reached by just 148 players in big league history.

Given Reynolds didn’t go to spring training this season, hadn’t played since being designated for assignment by the Rockies last July 21 and hit just .170 with four homers in 135 at-bats with the Rockies prior to his release, his career — and his pursuit of 300 homers — was almost surely over even before baseball was paused by the pandemic.

But there are sure to be big leaguers whose paths to statistical milestones will grow far more difficult, or disappear entirely, due to an unexpected stoppage with no end in sight. Some of these players are like Reynolds, blue-collar guys who probably would have enjoyed reaching another nice, round number but whose careers won’t be defined by a handful of missing home runs, victories or strikeouts. Others are bound for the Hall of Fame no matter what how many games are lost forever this season. And at least one might need all the time he can get to finish off a Cooperstown-worthy resume. Here’s a look at some of the statistical pursuits that are in limbo as baseball remains paused.

—Albert Pujols has about 59 million reasons not to retire and begin the countdown to what should be the second or third unanimous election to the Hall of Fame. There are almost no more round numbers to chase for the man who already leads all active players in homers, RBIs, hits and runs, not to mention walks, at-bats, plate appearances and games. But the stoppage will almost surely cost him any chance he had at becoming the fourth player to reach 700 homers (he has 656 round-trippers and hit 42 homers the previous two seasons) or catching Babe Ruth on the all-time RBIs list. Pujols is tied with Cap Anson for fourth all-time at 2,075 RBIs, just 11 RBIs shy of Alex Rodriguez but 139 RBIs behind Ruth and 222 behind Hank Aaron. Still. Not a bad little career.

Playing in 2020 and, hopefully, 2021 will almost surely result in Pujols falling short of at least one statistical milestone. He finished last season batting .300 — or, more accurately, .2996, which gets rounded up. This is remarkable, considering Pujols arrived in Los Angeles in 2012 with a .328 career average. The average will fall below .2995 if Pujols goes hitless in his next five at-bats.

If Pujols falls below .300, he won’t be the only former MVP to likely fall just shy of that mark. Dustin Pedroia, whose contract also runs through 2021 but whose career is all but over due to chronic knee injuries, ended last season batting .299. The near-miss would be particularly cruel for Pedroia, who was hitting an even .300 (in exactly 6,000 at-bats) through 2017 but fell below the mark by going 3-for-31 the last two seasons.

—Zack Greinke is probably going to the Hall of Fame. But he might head there with fewer than 3,000 strikeouts. Greinke, who is also signed through 2021, ended last season with 2,622 strikeouts. He collected 386 strikeouts — eight more than he needs to reach 3,000 — over the previous two seasons for the Diamondbacks and Astros. Greinke is one of the most resourceful and creative pitchers out there, so he’ll probably find work if he wants to keep pitching as a 38-year-old in 2022. But his resume is strong enough that he shouldn’t need to get to 3,000 strikeouts in order to cement his Hall of Fame candidacy.

—Justin Verlander, Greinkie’s teammate, got to 3,000 strikeouts in his final regular season start last season and is definitely going to the Hall of Fame. But it’s going to be much harder getting there as the latest last guy to reach 300 wins. Verlander ended 2019 with 225 wins, including 68 the previous four seasons. Maintaining that pace would have put him on the doorstep of 300 wins as he entered his age-41 season in 2024. If Major League Baseball gets a 100-game season in this year, can Verlander win eight games and then maintain his 2016-2019 pace until he’s 42?

—Sticking with the surefire Hall of Famer track…Max Scherzer, Verlander’s former teammate and Greinke’s opponent in Game 7 of a 2019 World Series that feels like it happened a hundred years ago, is headed for Cooperstown on the strength of a dominant seven-year stretch. But Scherzer, who ended last season with 170 wins and 2,692 strikeouts, needed a seven-year span from 2020-2026 that was something like the one he enjoyed from 2013-19 to get in the neighborhood of 300 wins and 4,000 strikeouts like former teammate Randy Johnson, whose final season with the Diamondbacks in 2008 was Scherzer’s rookie campaign.

—OK we’re going to downshift a bit here. Did you know Jason Vargas ended last season with a 99-99 record? You do now! Not going to lie, we didn’t know that until seeing a Fox Sports 1 graphic during his start last Sept. 21, when he was 98-98 in 275 starts — the third-most starts all-time for a pitcher with a .500 record. (The top two: Charlie Hough went 216-216 while making 440 starts and Howard Ehmke went 166-166 while making 338 starts) He won that start but lost his season finale five days later. Vargas remained unsigned this winter (and isn’t even listed amongst the active wins leaders at Baseball-Reference.com, though he hasn’t retired), and while the demand for pitchers to get through a shortened season is going to be high, it’s hard to see a 37-year-old who was already the softest of soft tossers latching on if baseball resumes in 2020. It probably also doesn’t help that when it comes to player-media relations, he’s the guy who says the soft part loud.

—Thanks to signing free agent deals and contract extensions, respectively, just before teams stopped signing players for past performance, Miguel Cabrera and Robinson Cano — each signed through 2023 — seemed all but assured of keeping the 3,000-hit position player from going the way of the 300-win pitcher. Cabrera, who is 185 hits shy of 3,000 as well as 23 homers away from 500, is going to cruise into Cooperstown even if he somehow falls short of either milestone. Playing for a team that can stash him at DH should help Cabrera surge past those numbers even if his recent decline continues unabated.

But Cano, who has 2,570 hits, really needs a big round number to help a candidacy that could be stained or worse by his PED suspension in 2018. Last season’s National League debut with the Mets wasn’t an encouraging one for Cano, who finished his age-36 season with an OPS+ of 96 after recording an OPS+ of 134 from 2009 through 2018. He also took more trips to the injured list than in his first 14 seasons combined. With four full seasons left on his deal, Cano needed to average 108 hits a season to reach 3,000 hits by the end of 2023. But a shortened or cancelled 2020 campaign would remove most of his margin for error.

—Nick Markakis was our favorite “well if he gets to (statistical milestone) he has to be considered for the Hall of Fame, right?” guy for a while. But missing almost seven weeks due to a broken left wrist last season likely eliminated whatever chance he had of reaching 3,000 hits. A shortened season, never mind a canceled one, is going to make it difficult just to reach 2,500 hits for Markakis, who is at 2,355 hits and expected to platoon in left field after returning to the Braves on a one-year deal. If there is baseball this season, Markakis will have to keep playing in 2021 to get to 2,500 hits.

—And while we’re discussing near-misses of milestone hits, let’s hear it for Ian Kinsler, who had a year remaining on his deal with the Padres but retired in December with 1,999 hits — one shy of becoming the 288th big leaguer with 2,000 hits. One more hit in one of the 5,424 career at-bats that ended with an out! Kinsler decided to hang up the cleats at least in part due to a cervical disk injury he suffered last August. Hat tip for a terrific career.