Here is something truly impressive. Following up on our recent discussions about most hits in the 80's and 90's, I looked up who has the most hits so far in the 00's. The answer won't surprise you, but something about it might:

  Cnt Player              **H**  From  To   Ages   G    PA    AB    R   2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  IBB  SO  HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB   CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions Teams
+----+-----------------+--------+----+----+-----+----+-----+-----+----+---+---+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+----+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+-----------+
    1 Ichiro Suzuki       1510   2001 2007 27-33 1064  4931  4541  747 171  55  66  404  317 110  429  34  17  22  32  265  60  .333  .379  .438  .817 *98/D     SEA         
    2 Derek Jeter         1487   2000 2007 26-33 1149  5322  4694  860 252  22 128  570  475  22  780  88  47  18 112  174  37  .317  .389  .462  .851 *6/D      NYY         
    3 Todd Helton         1429   2000 2007 26-33 1181  5175  4270  862 360  24 230  833  818 148  597  34   2  51  98   26  16  .335  .441  .592 1.033 *3/D      COL         
    4 Miguel Tejada       1425   2000 2007 24-31 1212  5261  4795  756 275  11 214  859  354  51  610  66   3  43 152   51  11  .297  .351  .493  .844 *6/D      OAK-BAL     
    5 Vladimir Guerrero   1418   2000 2007 24-31 1143  4882  4311  756 267  25 264  861  477 186  518  56   0  38 140  139  62  .329  .400  .586  .986 *9/D      MON-ANA-LAA 
    6 Alex Rodriguez      1395   2000 2007 24-31 1212  5416  4596  963 230  15 351  989  674  60  992  95   0  51 116  135  30  .304  .400  .589  .989 *65/D     SEA-TEX-NYY 
    7 Juan Pierre         1369   2000 2007 22-29 1116  4996  4561  671 164  66  12  314  280   4  276  53  90  12  56  369 125  .300  .347  .373  .720 *8        COL-FLA-CHC-LAD 
    8 Johnny Damon        1368   2000 2007 26-33 1156  5323  4720  884 264  49 111  556  510  20  553  23  24  46  42  215  54  .290  .359  .437  .796 *87/D93   KCR-OAK-BOS-NYY 
    9 Bobby Abreu         1318   2000 2007 26-33 1214  5351  4430  819 323  27 175  755  839  73  963  24   2  56  84  233  68  .298  .408  .501  .909 *9/8D     PHI-TOT-NYY 
   10 Edgar Renteria      1301   2000 2007 24-31 1156  4934  4416  679 276  14  93  581  410  31  593  17  47  44 131  148  53  .295  .354  .427  .781 *6/D3     STL-BOS-ATL 

Nobody would be surprised to see that Ichiro is leading, and I think we all expect he'll end up leading the entire decade at this point. But we forget...the man didn't play in MLB until 2001. Everybody else in the top 10 has played one more full season and yet he's on top. He actually has more plate appearances than #5 Vlad Guerrero, mainly because Guerrero missed a chunk of the 2003 season.

Several guys on this list are helped by the fact that they don't walk too much, giving them more at-bats (more times putting the ball in play) in which to get hits. Ichiro has the second fewest PAs on this list, but the 6th most at-bats. Miguel Tejada, Juan Pierre, and Edgar Renteria also have lower walk rates and more at-bats.

Ranking these 10 by batting average makes the picture a little clearer:

  Cnt Player              BA    H  From  To
+----+-----------------+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Todd Helton        .335 1429 2000 2007 
    2 Ichiro Suzuki      .333 1510 2001 2007 
    3 Vladimir Guerrero  .329 1418 2000 2007 
    4 Derek Jeter        .317 1487 2000 2007 
    5 Alex Rodriguez     .304 1395 2000 2007 
    6 Juan Pierre        .300 1369 2000 2007 
    7 Bobby Abreu        .298 1318 2000 2007 
    8 Miguel Tejada      .297 1425 2000 2007 
    9 Edgar Renteria     .295 1301 2000 2007 
   10 Johnny Damon       .290 1368 2000 2007 

Damon and Pierre make this list because they have great (but not excellent) batting averages, but also because they bat primarily leadoff. Renteria, who has had some very large peaks and valleys in his career, has batted primarily second, also getting him more at-bats (You can see that on Renteria's splits page. And incidentally, the sports media in Boston were so unhappy with his performance there in 2005 that they now call him "Rent-a-wreck"--another example of the often-classless Boston media.)

Probably, a better list of the best hitters so far in 00's is to go by batting average. I set the minimum number of hits to 1000:

  Cnt Player              BA    H  From  To
+----+-----------------+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Todd Helton        .335 1429 2000 2007 
    2 Ichiro Suzuki      .333 1510 2001 2007 
    3 Albert Pujols      .330 1281 2001 2007 
    4 Vladimir Guerrero  .329 1418 2000 2007 
    5 Manny Ramirez      .318 1249 2000 2007 
    6 Derek Jeter        .317 1487 2000 2007 
    7 Magglio Ordonez    .314 1214 2000 2007 
    8 Nomar Garciaparra  .312 1027 2000 2007 
    9 Chipper Jones      .309 1182 2000 2007 
   10 Jose Vidro         .308 1158 2000 2007 

And one more list of interest. Also from 2000 to present, highest batting averages for players with 500 to 999 hits:

  Cnt Player              BA    H  From  To   Ages
+----+-----------------+-----+----+----+----+-----+
    1 Barry Bonds        .323  901 2000 2007 35-42 
    2 Matt Holliday      .316  604 2004 2007 24-27 
    3 Miguel Cabrera     .315  790 2003 2007 20-24 
    4 Larry Walker       .315  729 2000 2005 33-38 
    5 David Wright       .305  558 2004 2007 21-24 
    6 Victor Martinez    .301  665 2002 2007 23-28 
    7 Chase Utley        .299  598 2003 2007 24-28 
    8 Juan Gonzalez      .299  515 2000 2005 30-35 
    9 Frank Catalanotto  .296  818 2000 2007 26-33 
   10 Hideki Matsui      .296  704 2003 2007 29-33 

Very interesting, huh? Some great young players (Holliday, Cabrebra, Wright, Martinez, Utley), two guys who hit well enough toward the end of their careers to make the list (Walker & Gonzalez), one guy who also has just a few years' experience in MLB (Matsui, who by the way has a total of 2095 professional hits, which you can see on his TheBaseballCube.com page), and two odd-ball cases.

One oddball case is Frank Catalanotto.  He's never played more than 133 games in his career, because no team has ever let him be a full-time starter for a whole season. This has happened despite the fact that he's hit above .290 in six different seasons with at least 280 at-bats. He's having a fairly crummy year this year, but is definitely still one of the better hitters of the 00's.

The other oddball is--who else--the biggest oddball of them all, Barry Bonds. He makes this list because despite batting  .323 in the 00's, he didn't get enough at-bats to get over 1000 hits. His lack of at-bats is due to three factors: 1) injuries limiting his playing time, 2) his inability to play every day even when not injured and 3) the fact that he walks so darn much.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 9:04 am and is filed under Season Finders, Splits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.