
Mookie Betts
Let’s hope this one doesn’t break our hearts. Acquired in the offseason, Mookie Betts is set to become a free agent next winter, whether the 2020 season is played or not. In the best case scenario, a shortened season is played, Betts helps the Dodgers win their first championship since 1988 and decides to re-sign a long-term deal shortly after the parade in downtown Los Angeles.
However we get there, if Betts does stay with the Dodgers, he is surely on the right path to becoming a Hall-of-Famer.
The 27-year-old right fielder is one of the best players in baseball, which makes for great local talk show banter with perhaps the only player better than him, Mike Trout, playing down the freeway. Betts won the American League MVP in 2018, and has finished in the top ten of voting in each of the past four seasons.
The 5-foot-9 outfielder has proven to be an elite player in all facets of the game. He can hit for power, average, run the base paths, while catching everything hit his way. In 2018, he won the American League Batting Title while clobbering 32 home runs, swiping 30 bases, and winning the Gold Glove Award.
In total, Betts has three Silver Slugger Awards, four Gold Glove Awards, and has reached the All-Star game in every season since 2016. If that is not the profile of a Hall-of-Fame player, I don’t know what is.