MLB Hits Leaders
March 24, 2008
Anyone can have a lucky season from time to time. Baseball history is littered with players who found their stride for a year or two, only to flame out and fade from the scene.
The great ones, of course, put up those big numbers year after year, and one of the game’s top standards for measuring performance is how many hits a player can deliver over the 162-game grind.
An even better indicator: How many can he put up over the course of the decade?
Of course, we’re not quite deep enough into the 21st Century to be talking decades, but we can keep tabs of the last eight seasons (2000-07).
The best of the best for that period:
1. Ichiro Suzuki (Seattle) — 1,592. One of baseball’s top all-around performers.
2. Derek Jeter (New York Yankees) 1,549. A clutch player, and the heart and soul of the Yankees.
3. Todd Helton (Colorado) — 1,500. Helped the surprising Rockies reach the World Series in 2007.
4. Jimmy Rollins (Philadelphia) — 1,307. An established leader on an improving Phillies team.
5. Andruw Jones (Atlanta) — 1,247. A longtime Braves mainstay whose performance slipped in 2007.
Source: MLB.com
Footnote: Ichiro leads the pack despite not coming to American from Japan until the 2001 season. If you add his average season (227 hits) to his current total, he would have 1,819 hits and would lead Jeter by 270 hits over the eight-year period.
