The 2900 Hits Club

An emailer wrote me recently to assert, foolishly, that Craig Biggio had been a better second baseman than Rogers Hornsby. Amongst the paltry evidence cited in support of Biggio was the fact that Biggio had 3,000 hits while Hornsby narrowly missed reaching that milestone. While absurd, this assertion deserves some discussion because of the common mis-practice some baseball fans have of ranking players according to their career rankings in certain statistics.

Much has been made recently of the 3,000 hits club, what with Ichiro Suzuki capturing his 2,000th hit in a remarkable nine seasons and Derek Jeter approaching Lou Gehrig’s team record for hits on his way to what some feel will be an assault on Pete Rose’s lifetime hits record.

Perhaps far too little attention is paid to another slightly less well known club – the 2900 Hits Club. This illustrious group is made up of eight players who had what it took to get within 100 hits of 3,000, but couldn’t limp across that magical finish line which can define a player’s greatness and all but guarantees enshrinement in the Hall.

The Club

That half-magical half-dubious list of eight players is made up largely of players whose careers took place over half a century ago, for reasons to be expounded upon further below. The list also includes some of the giants of baseball history.

For the record: Sam Rice (2987 hits), Sam Crawford (2961), Frank Robinson (2943), Barry Bonds (2935), Willie Keeler (2932), Jake Beckley (2930), Rogers Hornsby (2930), and Al Simmons (2927).

Roberto Clemente, of course, earns an “Honorable Mention” for landing exactly at 3,000 hits before dying tragically in a plane crash.

Who . . . and Why?

The tales of the 2900 Hits Clubs are somewhat amazing because each player seems to have a special reason that they failed to cross the 3,000 hit marker.

Perhaps the most amazing player in pure hits-accomplishments is Sam Rice. This is a guy who finished his career thirteen hits shy of 3,000 despite the fact that he never played a major league game before 1915 at the age of 25, never played a full season before 1917 at the age of 27, missed all but seven games in 1918 due to World War I, and then led the league in games played with only 141 in 1919. Rice was enormous in the 1920s, obviously, playing his last full season at the age of 41 in 1932, and retiring in 1934 after 20 major league seasons.

Truly, had he debuted at a reasonable age like 22 or 23 and not missed all of 1918, he not only would have easily had 3,000 hits but would have been an odds-on favorite for 4,000 hits. A remarkable contact hitter in the first power era, Rice struck out 41 times in 1917 and then never struck out more than 26 times the rest of his career.

Sam Crawford fell just 39 hits shy of 3,000, but his short-coming is not quite as auspicious as Rice’s. A major league regular at 20, in 1900, Crawford played 156 games in 1915 at the age of 35 but then was fazed out of his role as the Tigers right fielder by a young Harry Heilmann, and was out of baseball after playing 61 games in 1917. After his days with the Tigers ended, he went to play in the Pacific Coast League and picked up over 780 more hits in four seasons with the Los Angeles Angels of the PCL.

It is hard to take anything away from Frank Robinson’s career in terms of longevity – he played 21 seasons from the age of 20, when he was the NL Rookie of the Year, to the age of 40, when he played 36 games for the Cleveland Indians. Robinson’s thirties were impacted adversely by injuries, and he played over 140 games in a season only three times from the age of 31 to the age of 40. Had he averaged only six more games per season in those years, he almost certainly could have gotten the 57 hits by which he fell short of 3,000.

Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that, had he not made himself persona non grata in Major League Baseball in the middle of this decade, Barry Bonds would have been back in 2008 to take a shot at the 65 more hits he needed to get to 3,000? His unofficial black-listing aside, that Bonds could come within 65 hits of 3,000 while drawing over 2,500 walks is simply incredible. Bonds also played through the 1994 player’s strike and missed nearly all of 2005 due to injury.

Wee Willie Keeler’s personal narrative may be the least compelling of any here. He had 200 hits per season from 1894, at the age of 22, to 1901, at the age of 29, despite the fact that he was playing 130 game seasons. He spent the last four years of his career as a part-time player, and missed 3,000 by 68 hits.

Jake Beckley is the opposite of Keeler. He missed 3,000 by an even 70 hits despite never having more than 190 in any season, but he played 20 seasons and only missed time towards the end of his career.

Tied with Beckley is Rogers Hornsby. Hornsby, of course, is one of the top ten or so greatest players of all time. He debuted at the age of 19, and at the age of 20 was already an elite major league hitter. At the age of 33 years old, he already had 2,705 hits, and would have seemed to have been a lock for 3,000 hits. He would play over 57 games in a season again only once, however, and finished 70 hits shy of the 3,000 mark after 23 major league seasons.

Finally, Al Simmons rounds out the list with 2,927 hits. Simmons got to 2,000 hits in 1,390 games, which is the fewest games it has ever taken a player; even Ichiro took 1,403 games. Simmons was 36 years old in 1938, when he finished the season with 2,773 hits. He needed only 227 more hits, a number he’d once surpassed in a single season, to get to 3,000 but played less than 200 more games in his last five seasons. Between the age of 22 and 35, Simmons missed significant parts of several seasons, playing in only 106 games in 1927 and 119 games in 1928, right in the middle of his prime (those also happen to be the seasons that Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker spent on the Philadelphia Athletics, which likely cut into the young Simmons’ playing time).

A different era.

One of the interesting differences between the eight players in the 2,900 Hits Club and the, coincidentally, eight players who have between 3,000 hits and 3,100 hits is the way their careers ended.

The following is a list of the games played in the final two seasons of the players who have between 3,000 and 3,100 hits:

Craig Biggio (3060): 286

Rickey Henderson (3055): 102

Rod Carew (3053): 220

Lou Brock (3023): 212

Rafael Palmeiro (3020): 264

Wade Boggs (3010): 213

Al Kaline (3007): 238

Roberto Clemente (3000): 234

Average: 222

Of those players, only Rickey Henderson did not get his 3,000th hit in his final season.

Now, compare the list of the games played in the final two seasons of the players in the 2,900 Hits Club:

Sam Rice (2987): 170

Sam Crawford (2961): 161

Frank Robinson (2943): 85

Barry Bonds (2935): 256

Willie Keeler (2932): 118

Jake Beckley (2930): 119

Rogers Hornsby (2930): 22

Al Simmons (2927): 44

Average: 122

The numbers couldn’t be any more clear (actually, if we tossed Bonds and Henderson they would be): The players who topped 3,000 hits by less than 100 hits played in an average of 100 more games in their last two seasons than the players who missed 3,000 hits by less than 100 hits. Put another way, the guys who beat the 3,000 threshold were getting regular playing time despite their diminishing skills, while the guys who didn’t beat the threshold were not.

Nice Guys Finish . . . with 3,000 Hits

So what does this tell us? It is possible that it tells us that the eight guys below the 3,000 hits mark were enormous jerks, and their teams didn’t want to go out of their way for them – certainly possible in the case of Bonds and Hornsby, at least.

Consider the case of Craig Biggio, with Jeff Bagwell one of the two biggest sports heroes in Houston history. He enjoyed some of the biggest bopperist seasons for a second baseman ever with the Astros, but they certainly did not come at the end of his career. Biggio’s last great season came in 1999, when he led the league in plate appearances and hit 56 doubles while scoring 123 runs. Over the last eight seasons of his career, his productive days were over and he hit .266 with a 95 OPS+, struck out twice as much as he walked, and hit a surprisingly high number of homeruns (139) given that his OPS (.766) was almost 100 points lower than it had been the previous seven years (.854) when he actually hit fewer homeruns (128) in more games. Nevertheless, Biggio trudged on, playing 145 or more games six out of those last eight seasons, finally limping across the 3,000 hit finish line while hitting .249 with a .296 OBP in his last two years.

Compare this to Rogers Hornsby, one of baseball history’s most prickly personalities. His .326 batting average didn’t merit more than 57 appearances in 1933; his .304 batting average didn’t get him into more than 24 games in 1934; his .400 batting average came in only two games in 1936, and his .321 batting average came in only 20 games in 1937. Clearly, Hornsby still had what it took to trudge out on the field for a few more weeks to get to 3,000. So what gives? Perhaps Hornsby’s teams and teammates hated him so much they couldn’t care less about his personal milestones.

A Different Era

A better explanation, though, tells us that the modern era of baseball is probably very different from previous eras in an important respect: in the modern era players are a lot more conscious of their personal statistics. Once a player gets within range of 3,000 hits, that player will prolong his career, and his team will play him despite his diminished talents, in order to make sure he gets to 3,000 hits, whereas in previous eras, for various reasons, this was not the case.

When you look at guys like Crawford, whose career ended at the age of 37, and Hornsby and Simmons, who both played only a handful of games after the age of 35, there can be no doubt that, had 3,000 hits been an important milestone their teams would have been more than willing to keep putting their names on the lineup card until they got the remaining hits they needed.

Consider also the P.R. ramifications. A player getting his 3,000th hit dominates ESPN and other nation-wide outlets for weeks in the modern era, while fans were generally not even aware that a player was approaching 3,000 in the old days. From the age of 43 to 44, Rice played only 170 games but hit over .290 each season for the Washington Senators and Cleveland Indians. Had he been playing in 1993 and 1994 instead of 1933 and 1934, he would have been in the lineup everyday until he got his 3,000 hit, even if he hit .220 to do it because today 3,000 hits has such cache that a team would be crazy to not encourage a player to reach the milestone, come hell or high water.

Consider the lengths teams have gone to in recent years to get their players across the line. The San Diego Padres suffered through 123 games of .227 batting average from Henderson in 2001 so that he could get his 3,000th hit in a Padre uniform. Carew hit below .300 for the first two years of his career, and then not again from 1969 to 1983. In his last two seasons, his worst, he was back below .300 but the Angels continued to play him as he marched towards 3,000.

Brock, with his .221/.263/.252 at the age of 39 in 1978, was the worst offensive player in the decade of the 1970s, had he been a 31 year old nobody he would have been out of baseball. But because he was Lou Brock, the Cardinals brought him back for one last season so he could get his 3,000th hit.

Palmeiro posted a 108 OPS+ in both 2004 and 2005, along with a .261 batting average, easily the worst stretch of his career, but he still played everyday for the Baltimore Orioles on his way to 3,000 hits. Boggs hadn’t been a league-average major league hitter for four seasons when he got his 3,000th hit in 1999 at the age of 41.

Detroit Tiger Rightfielders Chasing 3,000 Hits

Perhaps the most instructive comparison here is that of Kaline and Crawford, who are separated on the career hits list by only 46 hits. Crawford and Kaline are two of the greatest rightfielders of all time. Crawford spent all but four seasons in Detroit, while Kaline spent his entire career with the Tigers.

In 1916, at the age of 36, Crawford played 100 games for the Tigers, batting .286 with a 124 OPS+, and began making way for Harry Heilmann. At the end of that season, he had 2943 hits, just 57 hits away from 3,000.

In 1973, at the age of 38, Kaline played 91 games for the Tigers, batting .255 with a 96 OPS+, and shared right field duties with several players, including Willie Horton, Jim Northrup, and a young Dick Sharon. Kaline finished that season with 2861 hits, still 139 hits away from 3,000.

Not only did the Tigers not keep Crawford and let him play another season to get to 3,000, but no other team in major league baseball was interested either, and Crawford spent the last four years of his career ripping up the PCL. Meanwhile, the Tigers not only brought Kaline back after the worst season of his career in 1973, but they played him in 147 games in hopes of getting him to 3,000 hits, 500 doubles, 1600 runs, 1600 RBI, and 400 homeruns. Kaline hit .262 in 630 plate appearances with 71 runs, 28 doubles, 13 homeruns, 64 RBI, and a 107 OPS+, easily the worst full season performance of his career since he was a teenager. He got the hits and the runs, but narrowly missed the other milestones.

So . . . What’s the Point?

It is hard to attach too much of meaning to this analysis, especially when you consider that of the eight players in the 2,900 Hits Club, only Barry Bonds is not in the Hall of Fame, and he will be eventually, so it is not like these guys have been treated unfairly by an arbitrary milestone. And generally speaking, guys like Robinson, Bonds, Hornsby, Crawford, and Simmons have not traditionally been under-appreciated by fans or by baseball experts despite their failure to summit the 3,000 hit mountain.

Indeed, in recent years, with the offensive-explosiveness of the 1990s and this past decade, some people have even begun to question the continuing vitality of the 3,000 hit plateau.

Nevertheless, this analysis, like other analysis regarding homeruns during the era of Babe Ruth, saves during the era of Hoyt Wilhelm, and wins during the era of Pedro Martinez, serves as a reminder that what we understand to be important as Baseball Fans version 2009 can be quite different from the appreciation of fans of yesteryear/month/day, and we must remember to always place statistics in the proper context.

And the next time someone tells you Craig Biggio was better than Rogers Hornsby because he had 3,000 hits, you can slug that person in the nose.

Asher B. Chancey also writes for Baseball Evolution and you can read his work there by following this link.