("The Tigers were my first choice. I love it here and think I am a good fit." AKA my agent screwed around with other teams while trying to land a big contract for Matt Holliday)
Damon was born on an Army Base in Fort Riley, KS and in the 1992 draft, the Kansas City Royals made him the 35th player selected overall. By 1995 he was showing promise at the Major League level, batting .282 in 188 at bats. Damon stayed in the Majors from that point on, putting together an incredibly productive 15 year career thus far.
I love looking at players, such as Damon, who have been in the league for a number of years. I like to think about what kind of statistical milestones are within their reach. I like to then "root" for them to reach the goals I have personally assigned them. This sort of day-dreaming started with the first baseball cards I can remember getting. I really didn't care what cards were inside when I was opening a newly purchased package of Topps baseball cards (I certainly didn't care about the stick of gum either. That stuff was awful)...I just wanted to look at their career stats on the back of the card. As I got older, career stats became easily accessible on the Internet and their was no longer a reason for me to buy cards. So, Johnny Damon is now approaching the end of his career and I am again thinking about the milestones a player (Damon) could reach.
Damon's career totals that are of interest to me are as follows: 2425 hits, 207 home runs, and 374 stolen bases. It's a long shot, but could Johnny Damon join Willie Mays as only the second player to have 3000 hits, 300 home runs, and 300 stolen bases? Probably not, but let's see what it would take.
(Willie Mays Hayes never played professional baseball)
(Willie Mays is in a league all his own)
Damon is currently 36 years old, not a spring chicken by any stretch of the imagination. However, Willie Mays played until he was 42, and at a high level until age 40. So how long would Damon have to play to join the "Willie Mays Club"?
Damon's career 162-game averages for hits, home runs, and stolen bases are:
-184 hits
-16 home runs
-28 stolen bases
Mays:
-178 hits
-36 home runs
-18 stolen bases
These sorts of stats are, of course, not reliable for projecting players' stats BUT they at least give us an idea of what they were doing for most seasons in their career. They are merely averages...imperfect averages. Some fans might look at the career stats of both players and notice a few things: Mays only played 34 games in 1952 and his last two seasons (72' & 73') were well below his career averages. Damon had a similar problem in that he did not play anything close to a full season in 1995. A reader might ask, "won't that have an impact on these averages?" Academically speaking...yes. In reality, no. But lets take a look just to demonstrate: Let's strike 52', 72' and 73' from May's records and 95' from Damon's and recalculate their 162 game career averages:
Damon-
-184 hits
-16 home runs
-29 stolen bases
(basically, this changes nothing for Damon)
Mays-
- 181 hits
- 37 home runs
- 19 stolen bases
(not much change for Mays either)
What remains clear is that Damon is speedier and Mays has more power. They have more similarity than difference, however.
Mays started his Major League career at age 20, Damon at age 21. Damon's career batting average is .288, Mays is .302. Damon somewhat makes us for this by averaging 639 at bats per season compared to Mays at 589. Neither one of them were big strike out victims. Mays averaged 83 a season and Damon 80. It took Willie Mays roughly 19 seasons to satisfy the 3000/300/300 mark, he was thirty-nine years old. What will Damon's career totals possibly look like after his 19th season? How about 39 nine-years of age?
Let's take a look based on his career averages (which will NOT adequately account for his probable decline in numbers with aging, but who knows). For Damon, his nineteenth season happens to be the one in which he turns 39.
Based on his averages, Damon's career totals will be as follows after his nineteenth season: 2013 (age 39):
- 3161 hits
- 271 home runs
- I don't care about stolen bases, he already has 374
He would come up short on home runs and need over a full season to reach 300 based on this exercise. It is worth noting, however, that Damon has not had 184 or more hits since 2005 and he has shown a little more power late in his career. Let's attempt to adjust for this, and just take the 162 game averages from his last four seasons (the Yankee years) which were:
- 179 hits
- 22 home runs
Using those averages, his career totals would look like this after the 2013 season:
- 3141 hits
- 295 home runs
This puts him within five home runs of reaching the "club". It's hard to say what he would look like in his 20th season, or really any season for that matter. It does seem, however, that Johnny Damon at least has a shot at becoming only the second player in the game to reach 3000/300/300. I will be "rooting" for Johnny to pull it off (only on the days when he is not facing the Royals).
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