On September 4th, 1989, Fred Lynn hit his 300th career home run to help the Tigers to a 5 – 1 win over Kansas City.

In 1975, Boston Red Sox center-fielder Fred Lynn won both the American League Rookie of the Year Award and the American League Most Valuable Player Award. In 1979, he had an even better year hitting 39 homers and leading the American League with a .333 batting average.

If you would have asked anyone in 1980 to make a list of players destined to eventually make the Baseball Hall of Fame, Fred Lynn would have been a fixture on anyone’s list. He was talented in every phase of the game. Clearly one of the best players on the planet.

Flash forward 42 years and Fred Lynn is not in the Hall of Fame. What happened? Injuries. A Hall of Fame career is dependent on two things: talent and durability.

My local team, the Minnesota Twins, has three players that have all the talent in the world: Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Royce Lewis. They clearly have the talent and skills to be Hall of Fame players. What they have not had so far in their careers is durability. I am afraid that they may be Fred Lynns and not Jim Rices.

Fred Lynn is one of those players that fans find themselves playing a game of “what if” with. What if Lynn and stayed healthy? What if he had been able to keep playing 5 more years at his 1975-1979 level? How would he stack up in the pantheon of centerfielders?

Sadly, as a Twins fan this year, it is hard not to already be playing a game “what if” with Buxton, Lewis, and Correa.