Introduction
For the past couple of years, I have tried to compile lists of individual player milestones that might be reached during the season. Those lists have included Eugenio Suarez successfully reaching 300 career home runs and Torey Lovullo’s elusive attempts to return to a winning record as a manager. I find it fascinating to see how close (or far) players are to certain big, round-number milestones in their career. I love that baseball is one of the most team-focused sports we have, but I still think it’s worth focusing on the individual from time to time so we can remind ourselves of the kinds of individual goals that players may have. As always, these milestones are not comprehensive, are not listed in any particular order, and are primarily centered on milestones that would make for nice headlines. And since the team is only four games (and counting) into the campaign, I thought a check in at the beginning of the year would be an appropriate way to start the year’s column.
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Ketel Marte slamming his 200th career home run
Arguably one of the best second basemen in the game and inarguably the team’s leader on and off the field, Marte has been an incredible offensive force over the last three years. In that span, he’s posted a .283/.368/.519 slash line and blasted 89 homers – seven more than he had in the previous eight seasons. That combination puts him at 172 career home runs, good enough for 53rd on the active list – and somewhere in the upper 400s on the all-time list. No matter, reaching 200 career homers would be a nice capstone for Marte as he enters the next phase of his career of his early 30s, and he’s already got one tater on the young season. And there’s more than a few other milestones that are possibly within sight – including Marte moving to the number two spot in the all-time list for the franchise. He’s currently sitting ~6.8 bWAR behind Paul Goldschmidt on that list so a repeat performance of his 2024 campaign would match that perfectly. As long as he isn’t traded, it’s likely more a question of when rather than if he’ll move up that list, but it’s another one I’ll be watching this season.
Nolan Arenado hitting his 2000th career hit
It’s not often that likely Hall of Famers are traded for relative peanuts, but Arenado is not most players. For one, there aren’t very many players who have complete MLB articles detailing their top-10 defensive highlights. And there haven’t been that many players who have managed to stay in the league for 14 plus years either. While Arenado wasn’t brought to the desert for his offensive prowess at this point in his career, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some offensive milestones the longtime veteran could read this season. In my opinion, the biggest one is hitting his 2,000th base hit which he’s very likely to get at some point this season. Even a particularly disappointing offensive performance similar to the one he put up last year when he had just 95 knocks all season would still net him this milestone. As of writing, Arenado’s 1.923 hits places him sixth on the active list for career hits and reaching 2,000 hits would put him in some elite company as just 298 players in all of baseball have ever reached that plateau.
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Paul Sewald securing his 100th career save
It’s not a particularly bold statement to point out that the D-Backs have a bullpen problem. We’ve seen that in four out of the first five games as the relief corps nearly blew an eight-run lead last night and struggled to keep a powerful Dodgers lineup down. Amazingly, Sewald has been one of the few bright spots coming out of the pen as he has yet to allow a hit in either of his first two appearances on the young season. That obviously won’t hold for long, but he will still likely play an important part in the bullpen rotation until AJ Puk and Justin Martinez return from their respective injuries. You’d also be forgiven for not realizing that Sewald was so close to this particular milestone as he’s quietly accumulated saves over the last five years since moving to the back end of the bullpen with the Mariners back in 2021. But reaching 100 saves would similarly put Sewald into some relatively rare space: there are only 171 relievers who have hit that milestone since saves became an official statistic nearly 60 years ago. I’ll also go out on limb and assume that if Sewald reaches the milestone this season, the D-Backs will be in pretty good shape as it likely indicates quite a few converted save opportunities before Puk and Martinez make their way back to the team.
