Let's say Cris Vazquez somehow gets to 500 homers. What then? It's improbable but not impossible. He will be 34 for 2034, and needs 90 HR. For the sake of HOF debate, let's say he maintains his current level of production for the next three and half seasons or so, and ends up as a .251/.292/.477 hitter with 500 home runs who is primarily a DH. You look at the slash line and say, ABSOLUTELY NOT! But ... 500 HR is traditionally a shoe-in type milestone mark. And he did it in one of absolutely most difficult parks to hit in. He also played most of his career in a division that was ALMOST ALL pitching parks prior to expansion and re-alignment before the 2029 season. Illustrating this, he has a career wRC+ (which is a park adjusted stat) of 111. So somehow his .251/.292/.477 line is ELEVEN PERCENT BETTER than a league average hitter. That's some crazy park effect. Still, it's hard to put a 111 wRC+ hitter in the hall, especially if that hitter is a DH.
The point here is, what an odd player with an odd career. You can make the argument that maybe I just should have been playing someone else this whole time, but frankly, I've never had that much better options. He's be the only power hitter my system has produced in the fifteen plus years I've had the Crusaders, and so wound up in run producing spots in the lineup by virtue of not having better options. (Signing big name power hitting free agents, who are usually in their decline phase and hoping they don't completely tank here is a very risky proposition.) He was a slightly below average hitter at the beginning of his career, despite being a 30 HR guy right out of the gate. He improved a bit in 2024, and then for the next five years (with the exception of a very poor AVG/OBP year in 2026) was a 135 wRC+, 40+ HR masher. His low on base percentage (.300 to .310 even in his prime) really limited him, but he made up for it with iso power's in the .250 range. You can't understate the effect of hitting environment on this guy. It's hard to look up historical home/road splits, but during his peak seasons, I recall his road splits translating to .285/.320/.600, 50 homer seasons. Last year, he was .250/.289/.465 at home versus .264/.296/.545 on the road. You can look at years like 2026 and 2030, where he was a roughly league average and didn't get on base for anything and say he was marginal, but sometimes that just happens here. We just have years where no one hits sometimes. The other thing that I'm not sure is well adjusted for it how many fewer walks happen in poor offensive environments simply because it's easier for pitchers there. Would Vazquez have walked say, 5-10 times more per year if he'd played somewhere that pitchers actually had to labor at times?
Anyway, he's a favorite of mine, if only for being so weird and defying my urge to phase him out for the last few seasons. After the 2030 season, Cris' age 30 season, when his physical tools started to decline, along with his performance on the field (.228/.265/.466 wRC+ 99) I decided I'd keep him around as a kind of mascot/late inning lefty neutralizer. But he just keeps slugging his way back into more regular playing time. The OBPs are still abysmal (.285ish), but he's still homering every 15 plate appearances (about 47 over a full season), which is utterly remarkable in my park and pretty damn good just about anywhere. His last three wRC+ versus left handed pitching are 150, 136, 117. His contact and power skills really haven't declined at all over the last four seasons or so, and there's no reason to think he won't continue to be effective as a platoon player for a couple more years. Anyway, the answer of course is that he just isn't Hall of Fame material, but he could be the first 500 home run player to not even be considered really at all. And that's cool. And weird.
