Getty Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers
Dallas Cowboys star Micah Parsons has quickly become a widely followed social media personality. He and Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud recently went viral for a clip in which they talked about how they would fare in MLB.
Los Angeles Dodgers star, and former MVP, Mookie Betts weighed in during his podcast on Bleacher Report, suggesting Parsons was overestimating his baseball abilities.
In the clip, tweeted June 4, Parsons suggested he could hit between .180 and .200 across a 162-game season while Stroud resoundingly disagreed.
Micah thinks he’d hit .200 in an MLB season 😅
C.J. wasn’t having it
Mookie Betts, Marcus Semien & Tyler Glasnow Have Divergent Views on Parsons’ Hitting
Betts and his “On Base Live” guest, Texas Rangers‘ Marcus Semien, discussed Parsons’ claims on the June 12 episode.
“Micah, you are a phenomenal athlete, top tier,” Betts said. “No chance you can hit between .180 and .200. You can do a lot of things, and a lot of things successfully, but hitting a baseball is not one of them.”
Betts and Semien acknowledged the fact that there are good hitters in MLB currently hitting near the .200 mark, which is typically considered a poor average. For instance, three-time All-Star George Springer of the Toronto Blue Jays, a career .264 hitter, is hitting only .198, through June 12.
Micah Parsons said he could hit between .180 and .200 in MLB season.
Mookie said he’d get 0 hits in 500 at-bats 🤣
Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow had said on the June 10 of “The Chris Ross Rotation” that he thought Parson would be able to get five hits in 500 at-bats.
Betts pushed back, saying Parsons would not a get a single hit. However, Semien was more optimistic.
“Somebody will tell him to drop down a bunt at least six times out of 500,” Semien said.
Parsons’ Bold Claim
Betts, who won the American League MVP in 2018, is still one of the best hitters in the majors, with a .309 batting average for the Dodgers. He is more than qualified to speak on the difficulty level of hitting a baseball. And he isn’t the first former MVP to make such a claim about hitting.
Back in 2021, former MVP Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers said that an average person would not record a single hit in 1,000 pitches against Jacob deGrom, then one of the best pitchers in the league.
“I think there’s a chance you could maybe foul tip one,” Yelich said on “Pardon My Take.” “If there was an actual defense out there, getting a hit, there’s no chance. You would go 0 for 1,000.”
Hitting against Jacob deGrom:
Not easy.
Obviously, Parsons is not an average person. He is a two-time NFL first-team All-Pro. However, Parsons has never played baseball at any level. In MLB there are four qualified hitters batting between .180 and .200, through June 12.
Randy Arozarena of the Tampa Bay Rays, Mitch Garver of the Seattle Mariners, Eugenio Suárez of the Arizona Diamondbacks and George Springer of the Toronto Blue Jays are the four hitters hitting at the level Parsons claimed he could. Hitting between .180 and .200 is not the sign of a good hitter despite some big names on that list.
Garver has won a Silver Slugger and Springer has won two. Arozarena, Garver and Springer have all been named to the All-Star game in their careers. Some of the game’s best are having down years and hitting at the mark Parsons says he could.