ErikLundegaard.com - 19,790 to 3,676

19,790 to 3,676

My friend Jim called me with the Ichiro news yesterday, and, as we began to talk it out, it occurred to me that the Yankees roster now included Derek Jeter with his 3,000+ hits, Alex Rodriguez with his 2,800+ hits, and Ichiro Suzuki with his 2,500+ hits. I wondered: Has any team in baseball history had more career hits on its active roster than this version of the 2012 New York Yankees?

I still don't know the answer to that. But the Stats & Info column on ESPN.com did include this interesting tid-bit in its Ichiro piece:

The Yankees have three players on their team with 2,500 or more hits-- Jeter, Rodriguez, and Ichiro.

The Elias Sports Bureau notes that this is the third time in major-league history that a team had three players with 2,500 or more hits play for them in the same season. The other two are the 1927 Philadelphia Athletics (Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Zack Wheat) and the 1928 Athletics (Cobb, Collins, and Tris Speaker).

The Yankees are playing the M's at Safeco Field this week--I'll be going to the game Wednesday afternoon--so I thought I'd compare career hits on the two active rosters.

Yankees vs. Mariners logo

NY Yankees	Career Hits	Seattle Mariners	Career Hits
Derek Jeter	3,212	Chone Figgins	1,282
Alex Rodriguez	2,871	Miguel Olivo	854
Ichiro Suzuki	2,534	Brendan Ryan	468
Andruw Jones	1,921	Michael Saunders	194
Raul Ibanez	1,851	John Jaso	191
Mark Teixeira	1,556	Dustin Ackley	171
Robinson Cano	1,382	Kyle Seager	129
Eric Chavez	1,360	Casper Wells	123
Curtis Granderson	1,060	Mike Carp	117
Nick Swisher	1,017	Jesus Montero	100
Russell Martin	779	Carlos Peguero	33
Jayson Nix	181	Munenori Kawasaki	14
Chris Stewart	66

TOTAL	19,790		3,676

Not pretty. Ten of their 13 guys have more than 1,000 career hits. One of ours does. And he sucks. And he might be gone by the end of August: dropped if he can't be traded.

With those kinds of numbers I can see why the Yankees carry 13 position players and we carry 12. We need our extra man in the bullpen rather than the bench. If things get dicey, we'll just send up Kawasaki and his career 14 hits. Problem solved.

Tags: Ichiro Suzuki, Derek Jeter, Seattle Mariners, Yankees Suck, Alex Rodriguez
Posted at 01:50 PM on Tue. Jul 24, 2012 in category Baseball

COMMENTS

Bob wrote:

I should have read farther into your piece, where you wondered if the Yanks hold the record for most his by a team roster. I immediately thought of the A's in the late 1920's, when Connie Mack signed two future Hall of Famers to go with the five or so others (youngsters) on his roster. Speaker and Cobb alone have over 7,000 hits between them.