Adrian Gonzalez has played for the Rangers, Padres, Red Sox, Dodgers, and now the Mets. Since 2004 he has been known as one of the better hitters in the game — But is he worthy of the Hall of Fame? Let’s take a look.

The 35-year-old’s first full season was 2006 with the Padres when he hit .304/.362/.500 with 24 home runs and 82 RBIs in 156 games. He never looked back as his career numbers are consistently impressive. He’s hit .288/.359/.488 across 14 seasons with 311 home runs, 2,010 hits, 432 doubles and 1,176 RBIs.

He’s been elected to five All Star Games including four straight from 2008-2011, and has won the Silver Slugger award for first basemen twice — once for the Red Sox (2011) and once for the Dodgers (2014). He is not just a bat, though, as he’s won the Gold Glove Award four times.

He’s never won MVP but has certainly had some seasons which earned him votes, finishing in the Top-10 three separate times (4th in 2010 with the Padres, 7th in 2011 with the Red Sox, and 7th in 2014 with the Dodgers).

His best season to date is without a doubt 2011 when he hit .338/.410/.548 with 27 home runs and a league-leading 213 hits, driving in 117. He has hit 25 home runs in a season seven times, hitting as many as 40 in 2009, a year in which he also drew a Major League-leading 119 walks.

The numbers by themselves are impressive to say the least, but when considering someone for the Hall of Fame, perspective is important. His career so far is most similar to Derrek Lee (93.76% similar), but that doesn’t help his case much as Lee was eliminated from the HOF ballot in 2017 after receiving zero votes.

His next closest match, at 91.24%, is long-time Mariner and Yankee Tino Martinez. He did get Hall of Fame votes, though the six votes he received amounted to only 1% of the vote, not enough to keep him on the ballot.

However, through age 35, he does share a 90.7% match with Hall of Famer Tony Perez. In fact, when comparing the two players, Gonzalez has better numbers at the age of 35 than Perez. It helps when comparing that Perez had played 1882 games while Gonzalez is at 1875 so the sample size is almost identical.

At that time in his career, Perez had a .283/.347/.479 slash line compared to Gonzalez superior .288/.359/.488 mark. Gonzalez has 2010 hits while Perez had 1948. Gonzalez has more home runs (310 to 296), more walks (767 to 676), more doubles (432 to 345) and total bases (3399 to 3301). The long-time Cincinnati Reds first baseman eclipses A-Gon in only RBIs (1206 to 1176) and triples (60 to 12).

All of Tony Perez‘s seven All Star appearances came before the age of 35, and by that time he had finished in the Top-10 of MVP voting four times. His best season was 1970 when he hit .317/.401/.589 with 40 home runs and 129 RBIs. His 954 RBIs in the 1970’s were in fact second only to teammate Johnny Bench‘s 1013 mark. He also has two World Series rings which he earned in 1975 and 1976 with the Reds.

Despite Perez having two wings and Gonzalez having none, Adrian is a better postseason hitter — though neither is particularly exemplary. In 140 plate appearances, A-Gon has hit .266/.329/.453 with seven home runs and 21 RBIs while in 189 plate appearances, Perez has hit .238/.291/.378 with six home runs and 25 RBIs.

The thing is, Perez played until he was 44 years old. In 895 games played after turning 36, Perez hit .271/.327/.426 with 83 home runs, 784 hits and 446 RBIs in 3182 plate appearances. So, the question is this: Will Adrian Gonzalez be able to display the same longevity? Will he come to bat another 3000 times as Perez did?

He missed a lot of time due to injury in 2017, but don’t count him out just yet. He says his back has responded well to treatments and he’s looking forward to getting plenty of playing time this season. There is no real reason to expect regression from the veteran yet, as just as recently as 2016 he hit .285/.349/.435 with 18 home runs and 90 RBIs in 156 games for the Dodgers.

It’s possible Gonzalez doesn’t need another 3000 at-bats to reach Tony Perez. After turning 36, besides hitting 25 home runs at the age of 38, he never hit more than 15 home runs again, averaging just five per season between the ages of 39 and 44.

If Gonzalez were to retire right now, he would be on the ballot for one year, maybe get a few votes, but he would surely be eliminated. However, retirement is not in the cards for him right now.

So what does he need to do in the next few seasons to merit induction into the Hall, or at least enough votes to keep him on the ballot? When healthy, he has averaged 174 hits per season. Taking regression due to age into account, it would likely take him three more seasons to reach 2,500 hits and three more on top of that to reach 3,000. That is, if he stays healthy and averages more than 150 hits a season.

He has also averaged 27 home runs a season, but as he hit just 18 in 2016, let’s use 20 as the number. He’s at 311 now so in three seasons he would be at around 350-360 home runs, and three more would put him around or above 400. I find it extremely improbable he would ever reach the 500 home run plateau, but many players in the Hall have fallen short as well.

Does he need an MVP award? Perez didn’t win one. Does he need 3,000 hits? Perez finished with just over 2,700. Does he need 400 home runs? Peres crushed 379. Gonzalez might be close to induction but it’s clear he needs to play for a lot longer — maybe not until he is 44 years old, but I’d say at least five more seasons.

Jim Thome had 663 hits and 182 home runs after he turned 35. David Ortiz had 874 hits and 192 home runs after turning 35. Us Mets fans all remember Julio Franco, and we’ve had the pleasure of sharing a division with Ichiro Suzuki the last few years. Gonzalez playing until he is 40 is not outlandish by any means, and he can definitely still hit.

Do I think he is a Hall of Famer right now? No.

Do I think he will be? Maybe.

Do I think he can be? Absolutely.