Tony Gwynn: An Inspiration to How We Can Fix Baseball

TONY GWYNN

AN INSPIRATION TO HOW WE CAN FIX BASEBALL

by Alex "Moose" Strizak

20 years ago, Tony Gwynn recorded his 3,000th career hit...

Growing up in San Diego, this achievement means more. But with the trajectory baseball is on, this means more than we ever thought it would.

Because we are living in a baseball time where the only thing that matters are home runs and money.

Taking a look at the most hits by active MLB players, we can start to see the discerning trend that getting to first base doesn't mean as much anymore...

Player	Career Hit Total
Albert Pujols	3163
Miguel Cabrera	2777
Robinson Cano	2552
Nick Markakis	2341
Brandon Phillips	2029
Ian Kinsler	1998
Melky Cabrera	1941
Yadier Molina	1918
Adam Jones	1916
Ryan Braun	1896

Aside from Pujols who already made it and Miggy who has a chance IF he can find a few more healthy seasons in the tank... None of these players stand much of a chance of eclipsing 3,000 hits. It seems that the game is changing to where home runs matter so much that players are more explosive in their athletic ability to hit more home runs which is leading to more injuries and less games played.

Tony Gwynn averaging over 500 at-bats a season seems to be a bigger deal now more than we thought it might have. To put it in perspective, Mike Trout hasn't had eclipsed 500 at-bats both of the last two seasons.

To praise Gwynn's career even further, Gwynn played 20 seasons with only one franchise the entire way. This used to not be as rare with hall of fame names in the same generation like Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, George Brett, Edgar Martinez, Mariano Rivera, and many more...

In today's game, there's only a few players that have Hall of Fame potential that have only played for one franchise to this point...

Player	Team	Seasons
Mike Trout	Angels	8
Clayton Kershaw	Dodgers	11
Yadier Molina	Cardinals	15
Felix Hernandez	Mariners	14
Joey Votto	Reds	12
Madison Bumgarner	Giants	10
Nolan Arenado	Rockies	7

We have players like Zack Greinke who is a 6-time All Star that just got traded to his 6th team, 6-time All Star Nelson Cruz is on his 5th team...

There was a time when Justin Verlander would be retiring a Tiger, Paul Goldschmidt a Diamondback, Manny Machado and Adam Jones as Orioles, Bryce Harper a National...

Instead, we're in a time where the top-heavy MLB has teams that are constantly buying and the others are constantly selling until they have prospects that hit. In the transition period, we see teams like the Astros go from the worst team in baseball for 3 straight years to the team that recently won a World Series and is the favorite to win this year.

We're going to see teams like Toronto, the White Sox, San Diego, Kansas City, the Nationals, and Atlanta who were struggling of recent making their upswing towards 5 to 10 years of success. Some of these teams are ahead of the others, but these franchises all went full-demo mode and blew it all up to start over again.

This concept is not healthy for baseball.

Having such drastic space between the top of the league and the bottom isn't exciting during regular season games and causes fans to lose interest in their team when full-demo mode is in effect.

Would you ever believe that the San Francisco Giants would have attendance problems at their beautiful ballpark with World Series titles in 2010, 2012, and 2014?

San Francisco Giants Attendance
Year	Avg. per Game	Record
2014	41,589	88-74
2015	41,678	84-78
2016	41,546	87-75
2017	40,786	64-98
2018	38,965	73-89
2019	33,203	56-57

The Giants absolutely have an attendance problem only two and half years into their tanking.

The tanking method for the Giants to revamp their minor league system has not gone well with the fans in the Bay Area... And you can ask fans of the White Sox, Padres, and Blue Jays that it's difficult to remain patient and attend games during this process.

To make it simple, fans want to see their team be competitive and have a player that represents their unique franchise through their career. They want to see a player that wants to stay with their team and bring success to that team.

We need more home cooking!

Instead, fans are being dealt a crummy hand where players are traded for salary reasons, prospect reasons, leave for free agency because the home team can't afford them...

And it's so FRUSTRATING to teams like Tampa Bay, Oakland, and Kansas City who have to constantly flip players before their contract expires so they can at least get a little something in return for the future of their franchise from that player, since they know they won't be able to re-sign the player.

And fans are told "Don't worry about it. Did you see all those home runs? Just keep watching how many home runs are being hit! See how far the ball is going?"

Baseball fans are too smart. Home runs are not going to save the league. Taking pride in each franchise's fan-base and encouraging pride in their local team will.

On behalf of everyone who grew up in San Diego, thank you Tony Gwynn for giving the Padres at least one player who was willing to spend his entire career with one franchise even if they weren't World Series competitors or didn't have the biggest budget each season.