(Picture Courtesy of Yahoo)And he's second in the league in slugging percentage, right now at .747, which means that all the hits he's accumulating most are extra base hits. There is no way he keeps this up but its just sick. He could cool off to half of what he's doing and it would be an amazing season.
If he can just find a way to play two more years he's a Hall of Famer. If he can manage to play four years after this season (he'd be 39 so its possible) he'll go down as one of the greatest ever. The "greatest club" to me is the 3000 hits 500 home run club. It only has four players. (Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, and Rafeal Palmeiro) Chipper needs 8 home runs for 400. He still needs 800 hits for 3000 so that the tough one.
Staying healthy has been his problem for the last couple years and why he's behind on hits. Over the last five season's he has 698 hits. So that dangerously close if he stays healthy. Because last year he had 173. Probably was the low point of 106 in the injury plagued 2005 season. But, the average number of hits per season during that span equals 140. All he would have to do is hit 160 a season. All he'd need is 20 home runs a year over the same five seasons to reach 500. (which generally guarantees Hall of Fame on its own.) Considering he already has six this season he has a chance to make that even easier. Plus over the last five years he's still hit at least 21 home runs even in the injury shortened 2005 season. Last year he hit 29. Over that same 5 year period he hit a total of 133 or 27 a season average.
Now some of this will go down because he'll loose some power with age but he still should be able to do it with out a huge significant injury that either ends his career or costs him more than half of a season. But he's also not at all like Andruw who's hit a wall and is done. Its also not like he's Ken Griffey Jr. level injury prone where he constantly misses half the season. Chipper's playing some of his best baseball as he's gotten older. He had the best batting average of his career over a full season last year at .337 and barely missed out on the batting title. (Thanks Coors Field) He actually finished second in the league last year in batting average, third in slugging, third in on base percentage, and first overall in one base plus slugging.
Part of what's helping him so much recently is finally having a real contact power hitter behind him meaning you have to throw strikes to him and not just walk him like teams did 98-2002 and 2004-2007 seasons. (Or the post Galaraga era where the clean up hitters were Brian Jordan (who I liked but not an idea clean up guy) Andruw (who has power but no average and strikes out way to much) Johnny Estrada (again guy I like but not your ideal number five hitter because at this point Chipper was being forced to bat clean up)
Staying healthy has been his problem for the last couple years and why he's behind on hits. Over the last five season's he has 698 hits. So that dangerously close if he stays healthy. Because last year he had 173. Probably was the low point of 106 in the injury plagued 2005 season. But, the average number of hits per season during that span equals 140. All he would have to do is hit 160 a season. All he'd need is 20 home runs a year over the same five seasons to reach 500. (which generally guarantees Hall of Fame on its own.) Considering he already has six this season he has a chance to make that even easier. Plus over the last five years he's still hit at least 21 home runs even in the injury shortened 2005 season. Last year he hit 29. Over that same 5 year period he hit a total of 133 or 27 a season average.
Now some of this will go down because he'll loose some power with age but he still should be able to do it with out a huge significant injury that either ends his career or costs him more than half of a season. But he's also not at all like Andruw who's hit a wall and is done. Its also not like he's Ken Griffey Jr. level injury prone where he constantly misses half the season. Chipper's playing some of his best baseball as he's gotten older. He had the best batting average of his career over a full season last year at .337 and barely missed out on the batting title. (Thanks Coors Field) He actually finished second in the league last year in batting average, third in slugging, third in on base percentage, and first overall in one base plus slugging.
Part of what's helping him so much recently is finally having a real contact power hitter behind him meaning you have to throw strikes to him and not just walk him like teams did 98-2002 and 2004-2007 seasons. (Or the post Galaraga era where the clean up hitters were Brian Jordan (who I liked but not an idea clean up guy) Andruw (who has power but no average and strikes out way to much) Johnny Estrada (again guy I like but not your ideal number five hitter because at this point Chipper was being forced to bat clean up)
He's also a real easy guy to route for just because of what he's done for the franchise. Not many players are classy enough to constantly rework their contract and defer money they could make just to help the team compete. The guy truly deserves the chance to retire a Brave and I just hope that its five years from now. Its not that the guy doesn't have his faults but, he'll defiantly go down as one of my favorite players ever.
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