On April 7, 2025, Francisco Lindor collected the 1,500th hit of his career.
Now, a player's 1,000th hit is proof of concept. 2,000 cements their place among the greats of their generation. The 3,000th is functionally a ticket to Cooperstown. 1,500 hits isn't generally considered a milestone on par with those three (not enough zeros), so Lindor's achievement didn't draw too much attention. But by our own logic, 1,500 is halfway to the Hall of Fame, so it's a mile marker, a good spot to have a look at Lindor's pace -- and those of his contemporaries -- and see who, among active players, is most likely to reach the 3,000-hit plateau.
Unsurprisingly, the first 1,500 hits come easier than the second, so the odds aren't exactly in any hitter's favor. There are 673 players in MLB history with at least 1,500 hits; just 33 (about 5%, excluding active players) made it to 3,000. Excluding Cap Anson, Nap Lajoie and Honus Wagner, who debuted before complete box scores become available in 1901, we can pretty clearly establish an average pace for a member of the 3,000-hit club.
At 1,500th hit:
Age: 29 years, 278 days (Youngest: 26 years, 177 days - Ty Cobb; Oldest: 33 years, 280 days - Ichiro Suzuki)
Career game number: 1,256 (Fastest: 1,060 - Cobb and Suzuki; Slowest: 1,501 - Adrian Beltr¨¦)
At 3,000th hit:
Age: 39 years, 62 days (Youngest: 34 years, 244 days - Cobb; Oldest: 42 years, 290 days - Suzuki)
Career game number: 2,566 (Fastest: 2,136 - Cobb; Slowest: 2,979 - Rickey Henderson)
Time elapsed: 9 years, 149 days (Fastest: 7 years, 249 days - Pete Rose; Slowest: 12 years, 134 days - Henderson)
For the purposes of this story, we limited our selection of active players to those currently under contract who already have at least 1,500 hits, so, promising starts aside, we won't be discussing Rafael Devers, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Juan Soto, nor will we touch on 1,500-hit free agents Jos¨¦ Abreu and Anthony Rizzo. With the addition of Lindor, that left us with 23 active players.
So now that we know what's worked historically, and who we're using those numbers to evaluate, so here now are the nine active players we consider most likely to join the 3,000-hit club in future, ranked in order of confidence.
Tier 1: Manny Machado (1,918 hits)
Close enough to the mark and young enough that he should have time to get there. Machado, although 14 years into his big league career, is 32 years old, impressively durable and, maybe most importantly, under contract through the 2033 season. That would theoretically give him nine seasons (minus the games already played in 2025) to get to 3,000; he's averaged 158 hits per season since 2021, a pace that would get him there in just under seven.
We won't pretend this is going to be easy, but for a sense of perspective, Machado had his 1,500th hit at 29 years, 344 days old, in his 1,357th game -- quite a lot like Eddie Murray (29 years, 202 days; 1,341st game), who ended his career with 3,255 hits.
Tier 2: Freddie Freeman (2,271 hits) and Jose Altuve (2,251 hits)
Really great hitters, well past 2,000 -- Altuve and Freeman aren't quite rounding third, but they're pretty close. Ordinarily, we'd have concerns about a pair of 35-year-olds, but neither of them have given us a reason to be concerned yet. Freeman averaged 186 hits per season from 2021-24 -- he's not likely to maintain that, but even about 150 hits per year would have him at 3,000 in under five seasons. Altuve, for his part, set such a good pace early in his career that he bought himself some time on the back end. Of the 23 active players we looked at, he was the fastest to 1,500 hits (1,190 games) and the only one who got there faster than the 3,000-hit club's average.
In terms of comps, for Altuve, think George Brett or Wade Boggs -- sprinting out of the gate and leaving room for a slower trek back (Brett needed 151 more games to get from 1,500 to 3,000; the second leg of Boggs' trip was 200 games longer). For Freeman, who's gotten only more productive with age, consider Adrian Beltre, who needed 231 fewer games to get to 3,000.
Tier 3: Jos¨¦ Ram¨ªrez (1,510 hits) and Francisco Lindor (1,502 hits)
Checking in at the halfway point. Their careers are already stellar and far from over -- Ram¨ªrez is signed through 2029, Lindor through 2031 -- but they're stars of the late-2010s, and you can tell by their batting averages. Both are in the .270s for their careers and are clearly geared toward overall run production, and in this one situation, that's not going to help them.
Ram¨ªrez is 32; Lindor is 31. Both averaged more than a hit per game on their way to 1,500, but not much more than that. They're two of the best hitters around, and there's no real reason for either of them to be concerned with making more contact right now. They both have plenty of time, but at the current pace, probably not enough. For Ram¨ªrez, we could look to Craig Biggio, also 32 and past 1,400 career games at the time of his 1,500th hit; for Lindor, consider Rafael Palmeiro.
Tier 4: Xander Bogaerts (1,708 hits), Bryce Harper (1,682 hits) and Mookie Betts (1,629 hits)
What are these three doing all the way down here? There is an argument for all three of them. Bogaerts is steady and he's signed through 2033. He could make a slower pace over a longer period of time work -- Rickey Henderson did, as did Al Kaline. Harper has already made the move to first base and could in the future become a full-time DH -- that's not definitely in the cards, but the Phillies have him locked up through 2031, which would be his 20th season. The obvious comp for him is Albert Pujols, who ended up with 3,384 hits by plugging away even as his production fell off a cliff.
As is often the case, Betts would appear to have the best odds. He was the quickest of the three to 1,500 and has averaged more than a hit per game every year for 11 years (not counting 2025.) Whether his body can hold up to what he's put it through is in question, but there's precedent for being a hero faced with years of accumulated injuries -- Cal Ripken Jr. retired with 3,184 hits.
Tier 5: Mike Trout (1,658 hits)
Trout is, as ever, incomparable. For eight years, he was the best baseball player on the planet. He was at 1,324 hits by the end of his age-27 season, and with an average of 162 hits per season from 2012-19, he'd need 10 or 11 healthy seasons, give or take, to get to 3,000, by which point he'd be in his late 30s. No problem for the Angels, who already had him signed through 2030.
If only we could leave it there. Trout has appeared in 266 games since the beginning of the 2021 season. Even in the active 1,500-hit club, a self-selecting group of veterans who've put in a lot of innings, the next closest player was 97 games ahead. But it's clear, when he's on the field, that Trout is still an outstanding hitter -- what we have here is just a different kind of pace problem.
As it stands, there is still a path to 3,000, but it'll have to be a mad dash in as few games as possible -- for an idea of how that might look, consider Paul Molitor, who reached 1,500 at 31 (as did Trout) but set a quicker pace to 3,000 helped by a full-time move to DH at 34.
THE REST
Again, those are the nine most likely, at least as we see it now. That doesn't mean we're writing off the other 14 (at least not all of them.)
Longshots: Running low on time, slowing down, beaten up, or some combination of the three. That said, everyone here is close enough or has a strong enough track record that it isn't inconceivable they could get there a few years down the line if they can hang around.
Paul Goldschmidt (2,074), Nolan Arenado (1,839), DJ LeMahieu (1,738), Nick Castellanos (1,618), Christian Yelich (1,598), Marcell Ozuna (1,527)
Not literally impossible: Still taking the field, but we'd be talking about being a regular well into their 40s -- if not longer.
Andrew McCutchen (2,160), Carlos Santana (1,802), Justin Turner (1,584), Salvador Perez (1,582), Jason Heyward (1,565), Starling Marte (1,565), Giancarlo Stanton (1,551), Marcus Semien (1,512)