Ichiro's Mark Will Be Nearly Impossible To Top

Published on December 30th, 2022 5:49 pm EST
Written By: Dave Manuel


Despite entering Major League Baseball at the age of 27, Ichiro Suzuki managed to top the 3,000 hit mark.

Ichiro would enjoy a long and wildly prosperous career in MLB, playing for three different teams while establishing hismelf as possibly the greatest hitter of all time.

Ichiro topped the 200 hits in a season 10 times over the course of his career, though no season was more impressive than 2004.

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In 2004, at the age of 30, Ichiro would accumulate a mind-boggling 262 hits.

Ichiro had 762 plate appearances in 2004, and 704 at-bats.

Ichiro would finish the season with a batting average of .372, a slugging percentage of .414 and an OPS of .869.

Truly remarkable numbers.

Of these 262 hits, just 37 were extra base hits.

Despite posting 262 hits, Ichiro finished the season with 60 RBIs, which is quite remarkable to think about.

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Ichiro broke a record that had been in place for 84 yerars, as he topped George Sisler's mark of 257 hits in a single season, which Sisler accomplished in 1920.

Since 2004, the closest that anybody has come to breaking Ichiro's record was Jose Altuve, who had 225 hits in the 2014 season.

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In order to break Ichiro's record, a player would likely need:

1) at least 700 at-bats
2) to be on a great team that is scoring bunches of runs

Let's assume that a player gets 700 at-bats in a single season, which is very difficult to do (only a handful of MLB players have had this many at-bats in a single season).

In order to get 263 hits under this scenario, the player in question would need to bat .375 or higher.

In this day and age, that's not very likely to happen.