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Could Nolan Arenado really usurp Mike Schmidt as greatest third baseman ever?

Nolan Arenado is a future Hall of Famer. (Rick Ulreich/Icon Sportswire)

In January of 2018, Mike Schmidt told Tyler Kepner of The New York Times that he believed that Nolan Arenado, then playing for the Colorado Rockies, was “going to be the heir apparent to the all-time greatest third basemen.”

Three years later, Schmidt said on Bret Boone’s podcast that “three or four of his normal years away from being the greatest third baseman of all-time.” Just days later, the St. Louis Cardinals acquired Arenado in a trade with the Rockies.

We aren’t quite three or four years removed from Schmidt’s comments to Boone, but the Hall of Famer was in the booth from NBC Sports Philadelphia Saturday afternoon when Arenado homered twice in a 7-6 win over the Phillies. The night before, Arenado hit for the cycle for the second time in his career.

Arenado’s age-31 campaign is turning into one of the finest in a career that increasingly appears certain to end with an induction into the Hall of Fame. But does Arenado really have a chance to usurp Schmidt, who is fairly universally seen as the greatest third baseman in MLB history?

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From a defensive perspective, Arenado has a chance to go down as the greatest defender that the hot corner has ever seen. He’s already a nine-time Gold Glove Award winner, passing Scott Rolen for the third most in MLB history a year ago. Schmidt (10 Gold Gloves) and Brooks Robinson (16 Gold Gloves) are the only players who have taken home the honor more times at the position.

The Platinum Glove was first introduced in 2011, an honor awarded to the best overall defender in each league. Arenado has won the Platinum Glove Award in the senior circuit every year since 2017. The five wins that Arenado has of the award are the most in its brief history, one more than his current teammate Yadier Molina, who is considered one of the best defenders that the sport has ever seen.

Defensive runs saved has been tracked since 2003, and Chicago Cubs’ shortstop Andrelton Simmons is the all-time leader with 201. Arenado is fourth all time, with 147 defensive runs saved. The only other players in front of him are two future Hall of Famers, Adrián Beltré (200) and the aforementioned Molina (178). By the time his career concludes, Arenado will either be at the top, or pretty damn close to it.

At the very least, it’s going to be hard to say that anyone was a better defender at third base than Arenado when it’s all said and done.

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During the eight seasons that he spent with the Rockies, Arenado led the NL in home runs on three occasions (2015-2016 and 2018), while leading baseball in RBIs in 2015 and 2016. Still, when Schmidt remarked that Arenado’s offensive numbers “dwarf mine” in January of 2021, he may have been being too modest.

Schmidt led the NL in home runs in eighth different seasons (1974-1976; 1980-1981; 1983-1984 and 1986) and RBIs on four occasions (1980-1981; 1984 and 1986). He also led the NL in walks four times (1979; 1981-1983), on-base percentage three times (1981-1983), slugging percentage five times (1974; 1980-1982 and 1986), OPS five times (1980-1982; 1984 and 1986) and OPS+ six times (1980-1984 and 1986).

From a head-to-head sense, Schmidt separates himself offensively, especially when you consider that Arenado is likely in the back-half of his prime. Schmidt finished his career with a .267/.380/.527 slash line, 548 home runs, 1,595 RBIs, 1,507 walks, 2,234 hits and a .908 OPS. Through parts of 10 seasons, Arenado has slashed .288/.345/.535 with 286 home runs, 920 RBIs, 439 walks, 1,442 hits and an .880 OPS.

OPS+ — which should account for any advantage that Arenado had from playing his home games at Coors Field for eight years — is perhaps the best metric to compare the two as offensive players. Schmidt finished his career with a 148 OPS+, compared to the 122 OPS+ that Arenado currently has for his career.

Even if we grant Schmidt’s assessment that Arenado is a better fielder than he was, the margin isn’t as significant as the margin that Schmidt has offensively over Arenado.

Frankly, Arenado is a ways off offensively from many of the career numbers put up by other all-time great third basemen, such as Eddie Matthews, Wade Boggs, Chipper Jones and George Brett.

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Among all third baseman in MLB history, Schmidt is the leader in bWAR at 106.8, and two other metrics valued by the sabermetric community, WAR 7. (58.8) and JAWS (82.8).

WAR 7 is a player’s top seven single-season bWAR totals — they don’t have to be in order — combined to give an assessment of how dominant a player was at their peak. Schmidt’s WAR 7 (58.8) is quite a bit higher than what Arenado (40.8) has produced to this point in his career, though that number is likely to improve to some degree.

Meanwhile, JAWS was created by Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs and “contains a combination of career and seven-year peak WAR totals allowing for comparison to average Hall of Famers by position.” Schmidt has an 82.8 JAWS, as compared to a 44.6 mark from Arenado, which currently ranks 24th in the history of third basemen.

The conclusion that you’re left with is that Arenado is going to one day have a plaque in Cooperstown, just like Schmidt. He probably has enough of a body of work at this point to have move beyond other Hall of Fame-caliber third basemen at the position, such as Rolen and Ron Santo. Perhaps Arenado will end up on the Mt. Rushmore of third basemen. But in terms of taking the top spot from Schmidt, that feels pretty unlikely.