Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB. Once that is done, we intend to look at how each team honor their past players and executive.  As such it is news to us that the Texas Rangers will be retiring the number 10 of Michael Young.

Debuting for Texas in 2000 and playing there for 12 seasons, Young would become one of the most successful hitters in franchise history.  The infielder would have six 200 Hit Seasons with two of those years being good enough to lead the AL (2005 & 2011). A seven-time All-Star, Young won the Batting Title in 2005 with a .331 Average and had a .301 Batting Average as a Ranger.  He would also smack 177 Home Runs for the squad.

Defensively, he was incredibly versatile as he played at least 400 Games for the franchise at Second Base, Shortstop, and Third Base and was a Gold Glove winner in 2009 (SS).  He was also known for his selfishness and leadership.

As of this writing, he is the franchise leader in Games Played (1,823), Hits (2,230), Doubles (415) and Runs Scored (1,085).

Young’s number will be officially retired on August 31 of this year.

Young’s #10 joins Ivan Rodriguez (#7), Johnny Oates (#26), Adrian Beltre (#29), Nolan Ryan (#34) and the league-mandated (#42) of Jackie Robinson. 

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Michael Young for earning this very prestigious honor.

Baseball immortality: Precious few attain it, most do not even come close—and some perch on the cusp of that immortality as signified by the Baseball Hall of Fame. Theirs are the test cases, players whose careers, accomplishments, and legacies form the threshold of what separates a Hall of Famer from the rest.

Baseball Hall of Fame voting in the last few years has been fascinating for a number of reasons, particularly the logjam of qualified candidates, which promises to remain an issue for the next few years. That logjam puts additional pressure on the borderline candidates—will they be overlooked, perhaps unfairly, because there are too many candidates from which to choose?

The Texas Rangers have announced that former infielder, Michael Young, will become the next inductee into their franchise Hall of Fame.

Young was a Texas Ranger from 2000 to 2013 and has the team record in At Bats, Runs Scored, Hits, Total Bases, Doubles and triples and is a seven time All Star.  Young would twice lead the American League in Hits (2005 & 2011) and won the Batting Title in ’05.  He is also a five time Texas Rangers Player of the Year.

His overall statistics as a Texas Rangers includes a Slash Line of .301/.347/.444 with 2,230 Hits and 177 Home Runs.  He finished eighth in MVP voting twice.

Young becomes the 20th player to make the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame and he is ranked eleventh in our all-time Texas Rangers list.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Michael Young for earning this prestigious honor.

Michael Young was initially acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays through an understated mid-season trade in 2000. By the subsequent summer, he had secured regular playing time in Arlington. He not only solidified the central position in the infield but also demonstrated exceptional versatility, adapting to four different high-profile defensive roles at the direction of management while serving as the team's unequivocal captain. During a notable 13-season tenure in Texas, the highly durable infielder set a benchmark for consistent offensive output, ranking among the most distinguished careers in Lone Star sports history.

His debut as a consistent second baseman immediately highlighted him as a top-of-the-order threat. Young made a daily habit of driving line drives through the spacious gaps of the home ballpark, accumulating 204 hits and a strong .306 average during a standout 2003 season. He maintained this energetic, frontline performance over the next five years, earning his reputation as one of the top high-volume hitters in professional baseball. Remarkably, Young had six straight seasons with 200 hits from 2003 to 2008, and he matched that impressive feat again in a stellar 2011 season.

His 2005 season truly shined, marking the peak of his hardware-certified career. He confidently dominated at the plate, leading the entire major leagues with a career-high 221 hits and winning the American League batting title with a blazing .331 average. This remarkable consistency earned him widespread recognition across the nation, earning seven American League All-Star selections in a Texas uniform—culminating in a memorable 2006 midsummer game where his clutch, two-run triple earned him the MVP trophy.

It must be fairly acknowledged that analytical limitations restrict the comprehensive evaluation of his historical value through an algorithmic review. Young was an old-school, free-swinging contact hitter whose on-base percentage consistently hovered in the low to mid .300s, attributable to a highly aggressive approach and a modest walk rate. Defensively, his profile was notably variable; although he received an American League Gold Glove at shortstop in 2008 and willingly transitioned to third base in 2009 and to first base/DH in 2011 to accommodate emerging prospects, standard advanced efficiency metrics assess his range and glove as highly inconsistent, culminating in a career -4.0 defensive bWAR that significantly diminishes his advanced metrics.

The inevitable business exit materialized ahead of the 2013 schedule when, as the front office leaned heavily into a younger, analytically driven roster, Young waived his no-trade clause to facilitate a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies, drawing a definitive curtain on his historic residency in Arlington.

Young remains the all-time, undisputed Texas Rangers franchise leader in an astonishing array of categories, including games played (1,823), hits (2,230), runs scored (1,085), doubles (415), and triples (55), balanced against a stellar .300 batting average. He was inducted into the Rangers Hall of Fame in 2016.

Michael Young was a seven time All Star, a former Batting Champion and a two time leader in Hits, but his relatively low bWAR, largely due to poor defensive numbers could easily take him out of the equation for those who follow the SABR stats. Young was a very good player who had well over 2,000 Hits and retired with a .300 Batting Average but he will struggle to make it past the first year on the ballot.

You know how hard it is to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame? In 2013, with a ballot brimming with qualified candidates, not one player received the 75 percent of the votes needed for admission. (I identified 14 likely Hall of Famers on the 2013 ballot.)

Granted, 2013 was the first year of eligibility for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both poster boys for performance-enhancing drugs (PED), bringing to a head the contentious debate about "cheaters" and their admission into the Hall. But there were certainly several "clean" players on that ballot, and a few of those, such as 3000-hit-club member Craig Biggio, would have been uncontroversial picks in any previous year.

And although 2014 saw the election of three players—Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Frank Thomas—it was merely the tip of a talent-heavy iceberg (I identified 18 likely Hall of Famers for that ballot), while providing a burn to Biggio yet again as not only did he miss election by one vote (he garnered 74.8 percent of the vote), but three first-time candidates leapfrogged him into Cooperstown.