Jeter’s Quest…for 4,000

Now all you Yankee haters are going to not want to read this thinking this is just the incoherent ramblings of an overzealous Yankees fan. But Jeter’s most recent accomplishment, becoming the all time Yankees leader in hits, allows for us to start think about his place in the history. He is the all time leader in hits for a shortstop, passing Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio earlier this year, and now he has surpassed Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Joe Dimaggio among others to be the most prolific hitter in the history of the sports most famous and accomplished franchise.

The next milestone is the 3,000 hit mark. A mark that 27 players in the history of the game have reached, and one milestone that has not been marred by the “steroid era” (Rafael Palmeiro being the only player who has tested positive to reach that mark). Jeter is probably going to the next to reach that mark, though Ken Griffey Jr. is 30 hits closer than Jeter. The only other current player likely to reach 3,000 hits is Alex Rodriguez who is two years younger than Jeter and already has over 2,500 hits.

During the game the other night Steve Phillips was the one to mention that Jeter has an outside shot at 4,000 hits, which when you first hear that number seems so mind numbingly impossible. The only two people with 4,000 hits are Ty Cobb and Pete Rose, the next closest is Hank Aaron with 3,771. Jeter is in his 15th season at age 35 and will reach the 3,000 hit plateau early in 2011, his 17th season, so on the surface it seems unlikely for Jeter to get 4,000, but just follow me for a minute.

Jeter has played in an average of 154 games per season, not taking into account the 2003 season where he played in only 119 games. That season he missed 6 weeks because of a freak shoulder injury he suffered in a collision at third base. That was the only major injury of his career and he has shown no ill effects from it, two years later playing in a career high 159 games. So health shouldn’t be much of a concern, now lets look at production.

Jeter averages 197 hits per season, and there is no reason to think that production will take a sharp decline anytime soon. In fact, over the past 4 seasons he has averaged 202 hits per year. If Jeter were to have 3 more seasons at his current production (197) that will put him at 3,337 hits. Now lets say as he approach’s 40 he starts to take on a decline, not playing as many games and his hits declining to 155 for another 3 seasons, that leaves him at 3,802 hits.

I think those are conservative estimates, and if Jeter is still producing at a decent clip I don’t see why he wont try and go for this mark. Normally I agree that Jeter doesn’t care about individual accolades, highlighted the other night when he said he wasn’t thinking about the hits record because his team was losing 2-0 at the time.

It will be very interesting to see if will go for that mark. Some people have said he is still behind the Yankee greats Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mantle, Berra etc. However, if he were to make a run at 4,000 or even reach that mark he would be among the 2 or 3 greatest Yankees of all time.