Active Career Leaders Going into the 2025 Season

Issue #220

As the 2025 season approaches, I took a look at who the active leaders are in various common statistical categories. We’ve had some prominent players retire in recent years, such as Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto, and others… so where does that leave the active leaderboards? And how do the current leaders rank on the all-time lists? And who might reach some round-number milestones in 2025? Let’s dig in…

Runs

The object of baseball is for your team to score more runs than the other team. So can you name the active career leader in Runs scored? If asked it might have taken me a few guesses, as the active leader is Freddie Freeman with 1,298. Andrew McCutchen is second with 1,239, and Paul Goldschmidt third with 1,204. Jose Altuve, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Mookie Betts, and Carlos Santana round out the list of eight who have over 1,000 runs. Barring injury, that number should swell to between 11-14 in 2025 as it seems likely that Manny Machado (991), Christian Yelich (945), and Nolan Arenado (944) will join them, and possibly Marcus Semien (906), Jose Ramirez (898), and Francisco Lindor (894) as well.

Hits

OK, so what about hits? Well, here too Freddie Freeman is our active career leader as his 2,267 hits rank him 164th all-time. Next up is Jose Altuve with 2,232, and then Andrew McCutchen (2,152) and Paul Goldschmidt (2,056) as the only four active players with 2,000+ hits. Manny Machado (1,900) should join them this year.

Doubles

For two-baggers we see much the same: Freddie Freeman (508), Paul Goldschmidt (446), Jose Altuve (431), and Andrew McCutchen (429). Freeman's total ranks him 59th all-time, though a modest 35 doubles this year would give him 543 and catapult him into a tie him with Tony Gwynn for 36th all-time.

HR

Giancarlo Stanton is the active leader in HR with 429, which is good for 51st on the all-time list. Given his injury history, it is very hard to predict how many he'll hit each year. But a modest 21 HR would give him 450, and place him 41st all-time, just ahead of Jeff Bagwell and Vladimir Guerrero Sr., and just behind Carl Yastrzemski.

Second on the active list is the also injury prone Mike Trout with 378. If he can stay on the field, he'll very likely pass the 400 milestone this year, though he'll likely be the only one to do so as the next guys in line are Paul Goldschmidt (362), Freddie Freeman (343), Manny Machado (342), Nolan Arenado (341), and Bryce Harper (336). Aaron Judge could crack 400 in 2026, as he currently has 315.

RBI

Here we come back to Freddie Freeman as the active leader, with his 1,232 ranking him 145th all-time. He could crack the top-100 this year with just 95 more RBI--quite possible given the Dodgers strong lineup.

There are seven other active sluggers with over 1,000 career RBI: Paul Goldschmidt (1,187), Nolan Arenado (1,132), Giancarlo Stanton (1,103), Andrew McCutchen (1,095), Carlos Santana (1,082), J.D. Martinez (1,071), and Manny Machado (1,049). Bryce Harper (976) seems very likely to join them, as will Mike Trout (954) if he stays healthy. Salvador Perez (916) could too, and if he finds a club Anthony Rizzo (965) might as well.

Stolen Bases

Starling Marte is the active leader in stolen bases with 354, a total which ties him with Gary Pettis and old-timer Buck Ewing for 106th all-time. Jose Altuve is next on the active list with 315, and is followed by Trea Turner (279) and Jose Ramirez (243).

Strikeouts

Hitters today are striking out as much as ever, so its not surprising to see the active leaders much higher on the all-time lists than for all of the above categories. Giancarlo Stanton has 1,963 career strikeouts and that ranks him 9th all-time. He is followed by his new Yankees teammate Paul Goldschmidt who has 1,879 (18th all-time), and then Andrew McCutchen with 1,775 (29th all-time).

Batting Average

I wrote a piece in March of last year titled "Are Career .300 Hitters a Dying Breed?" I began by noting that amongst active players with 3,000+ plate appearances (the required threshold for the career leaderboards at baseball-reference.com), only three had career batting averages of .300 or higher. Now there are only two such players, Jose Altuve at .306 and Freddie Freeman at .300 (technically .2999). Mike Trout's average dipped to .299, so he could easily get back over .300 after 2025 if he stays healthy and performs well.

Trea Turner is a career .296 hitter, so with strong hitting he could creep back above .300 in time. But to do so in 2025, assuming say 550 at-bats, he'd need to bat around .330. So if that doesn't happen, the most likely addition to the active-hitters .300 club in 2025 will be Luis Arraez. A career .323 hitter, he has 2,858 plate appearances, so barring injury he'll bat enough time to get past the 3,000 PA threshold and become the active leader amongst qualified hitters.

ERA

Clayton Kershaw (2.50) and Jacob deGrom (2.52) are by far the leaders in ERA amongst qualified (1,000+ IP) active pitchers. What is really impressive about Kershaw's leading mark is that he has pitched twice as many innings as deGrom (2,742.2 vs. only 1,367). After those two there is a gap, as the next best career ERAs are held by Chris Sale (3.04), Max Scherzer (3.16), Gerrit Cole (3.18), and Blake Snell (3.19).

Strikeouts

Justin Verlander (3,416) and Max Scherzer (3,407) are so close in career strikeouts, that who is leading could flip back and forth this year based on every couple of starts or which hurler gets on a hot streak. They currently rank 10th and 11th all-time, and either or both of them could climb as high as 7th this year by surpassing Walter Johnson (3,509), Gaylord Perry (3,534), and Don Sutton (3,574).

Clayton Kershaw is next in line with 2,968 career strikeouts, so it seems likely in 2025 he'll become baseball's 20th pitcher to top 3,000 for a career. After his strong 2024 season, it seems possible Chris Sale will one day reach that milestone, as he has 2,414 strikeouts thus far. And Gerrit Cole is on the path with his 2,251 strikeouts at the age 34.

Strikeouts per 9 IP

Given trends in the modern game, this is a category where the top several active leaders are also the top all-time leaders. Amongst pitchers with 1,000+ IP, the top five all-time are active hurlers Blake Snell (11.22), Chris Sale (11.09), Robbie Ray (11.07), Jacob deGrom (10.97), and Max Scherzer (10.65). Only after those five do we see a retired pitcher appear on the all-time leaderboard: Randy Johnson with a 10.61 K per 9 IP mark.

Saves

There are two active pitchers with over 400 career saves: Kenley Jansen with 447 and Craig Kimbrel with 440. That puts them 4th and 5th on the all-time leaderboard, with Jansen in particular within striking distance of Lee Smith, who is in 3rd place with 478.

After those two there is quite a gap, with Aroldis Chapman's 335 career saves ranking him 16th on the all-time list. No one will crack the 300+ saves milestone in 2025, as the next two in line are Edwin Diaz with 225 and Raisel Iglesias with 224.

Well that wraps it up for now… just a couple more weeks until we get things going!