Colorado Rockies: HOFer Mike Schmidt has praise for Nolan Arenado

Yesterday, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times wrote an article about Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt and his thoughts on Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado.

Former Philadelphia Phillies third baseman, Mike Schmidt, is only one of 17 players to make it into Baseball’s Hall of Fame as a third baseman. He won the 1980 World Series with the Phillies (their first in franchise history and they became a team in 1883) and he won the World Series MVP (plus ranking in MVP voting in nine other seasons). He also won the National League MVP award in 1980 as well as 1981 and 1986. He’s a six-time Silver Slugger Winner, 10-time Gold Glove Winner, and a 12-time All-Star.

In addition, of Hall-of-Fame third basemen, he leads in slugging percentage with .527 (until Chipper Jones is inducted in July with a career .529 slugging percentage) , leads in home runs (548), and is tied for the lead in RBI with 1,595 along with George Brett (until Jones is inducted with 1623 career RBI) .

So, it’s easy to see why Schmidt is often regarded as the best third basemen in MLB history.

Yesterday, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times wrote about how, in January, when new class of Hall of Famers were inducted, Schmidt had some great praises for Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado.

"“In my opinion, Nolan Arenado is going to be the heir apparent to the all-time greatest third basemen,” Schmidt said. “He puts up numbers that I never even dreamed of. I don’t think George Brett did or Chipper did, either. His numbers are crazy, and he hasn’t won an M.V.P. yet, which is really crazy.” (h/t Kepner)"

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As Kepner notes in his article, Arenado is “the only third baseman in history with three seasons of 35 homers and 130 runs batted in. He is just 26; only Jimmie Foxx, in the 1930s, had as many such seasons so young.”

As Kepner also notes, Arenado has less than five years of service time in the major leagues…and, as Rockies fans well know, he has excellent defensive skills. So much so that he already has five Gold Gloves to his name.

When Arenado heard about this, he was flattered by the comments from Schmidt but he very humble in his reaction.

"“The reason why I train and get better is I don’t really look at myself as the No. 1 guy,” Arenado said. “I know I can play with any of those guys, but there’s some good ones, and you’ve got to keep up. I don’t want to get passed by any of those guys. When you win a Gold Glove, you don’t want to give that up ever again.” (h/t Kepner)"

Next: The Rockies can't solely depend on Blackmon and Arenado in 2018

With that kind of praise and that kind of reaction, that’s a player that you want to keep in your organization for the rest of career.