UPDATE: The 200-hit season by decade numbers were wrong and are corrected below. 

Ichiro got to 200 hits again 2 nights ago, and here are some interesting numbers for you:

First considering just his career in North American MLB, he didn't get his first 200-hit season until he was 27 (his first year with the Mariners) and has proceeded to get 200 hits in each of his first 7 seasons.

First, most 200+ hit seasons from the age of 27 onwards:

                   From  To   Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+
 Pete Rose         1968 1979 27-38       8 Ind. Seasons
 Ichiro Suzuki     2001 2007 27-33       7 Ind. Seasons
 Charlie Gehringer 1930 1937 27-34       6 Ind. Seasons
 Lou Gehrig        1930 1937 27-34       6 Ind. Seasons
 Bill Terry        1929 1935 30-36       6 Ind. Seasons
 George Sisler     1920 1929 27-36       6 Ind. Seasons
 Sam Rice          1920 1930 30-40       6 Ind. Seasons
 Wade Boggs        1985 1989 27-31       5 Ind. Seasons
 Paul Waner        1930 1937 27-34       5 Ind. Seasons
 Al Simmons        1929 1933 27-31       5 Ind. Seasons
 Ty Cobb           1915 1924 28-37       5 Ind. Seasons

Rose bridged the gap between the 154-game schedule and the 162-game schedule. His last 4 200-hit seasons all came in 162-game seasons (and actually the Phillies played 163 games in 1979.)

And most times achieving 200 hits within the first 7 years of a career:

                   From  To   Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+
 Ichiro Suzuki     2001 2007 27-33       7 Ind. Seasons
 Wade Boggs        1983 1988 25-30       6 Ind. Seasons
 Chuck Klein       1929 1933 24-28       5 Ind. Seasons
 Paul Waner        1927 1932 24-29       5 Ind. Seasons
 Michael Young     2003 2006 26-29       4 Ind. Seasons
 Juan Pierre       2001 2006 23-28       4 Ind. Seasons
 Kirby Puckett     1986 1989 26-29       4 Ind. Seasons
 Pete Rose         1965 1969 24-28       4 Ind. Seasons
 Lloyd Waner       1927 1931 21-25       4 Ind. Seasons

Ichiro stands alone on that one. Boggs' first season in the bigs, 1982, was not a full one, otherwise he might have had 7.

By the way, if you check out Ichiro's stats in Japan, you can see that he had 200 hits over there once (1994), and hit well enough in 6 intervening seasons (1995-2000) to also have 200 hits had the seasons in Japan been long enough.

It's interesting to note that Ichiro has only a .379 career OBP in MLB, as compared to his .333 BA (just 46 points higher.) That's remarkably similar to Tony Gwynn, who in his career had a .388 OBP and a .338 BA (50 point differential.) Ichiro, like Gwynn before him, barely walks.

One more piece of data. I got to wondering whether it's more or less common these days to get 200 hits in a season than it used to be. There are so many factors to consider: a longer schedule, better pitching, more offense, smaller parks (that sometimes allow more homers, but allow outfielders to play shallower and prevent singles and doubles,) and many more.

For what it's worth, here's a decade-by-decade breakdown of 200-hit seasons.

1900s: 6 16
1910s: 8 13
1920s: 57 102
1930s: 26 95
1940s: 17  20
1950s: 12 18
1960s: 16 28
1970s: 21 41
1980s: 26 42
1990s: 16 35
2000s: 33 44*

*Keep in mind that the 2000s still have more folks from 2007 to add, plus 2008 and 2009.

Here are the players in the 2000s to do it:

 Year Number Players Matching
+----+------+-----------------------------------------+
 2003      6 Juan Pierre / Vernon Wells / Michael Young / Todd Helton / Ichiro Suzuki / Albert Pujols
 2000      6 Todd Helton / Mike Sweeney / Johnny Damon / Darin Erstad / Jose Vidro / Derek Jeter
 2006      5 Juan Pierre / Michael Young / Ichiro Suzuki / Chase Utley / Freddy Sanchez
 2004      5 Juan Pierre / Ichiro Suzuki / Michael Young / Jack Wilson / Adrian Beltre
 2002      4 Miguel Tejada / Vladimir Guerrero / Ichiro Suzuki / Alfonso Soriano
 2001      4 Ichiro Suzuki / Juan Pierre / Rich Aurilia / Shannon Stewart
 2005      2 Ichiro Suzuki / Michael Young
 2007      1 Ichiro Suzuki

 Year Number Players Matching
+----+------+-----------------------------------------+
 2006      8 Michael Young / Miguel Tejada / Juan Pierre / Ichiro Suzuki / Chase Utley / Freddy Sanchez / Vladimir Guerrero / Derek Jeter 
 2004      8 Miguel Tejada / Juan Pierre / Ichiro Suzuki / Michael Young / Jack Wilson / Vladimir Guerrero / Adrian Beltre / Mark Loretta 
 2003      7 Juan Pierre / Vernon Wells / Michael Young / Todd Helton / Ichiro Suzuki / Garret Anderson / Albert Pujols 
 2001      6 Alex Rodriguez / Bret Boone / Ichiro Suzuki / Juan Pierre / Rich Aurilia / Shannon Stewart 
 2000      6 Todd Helton / Mike Sweeney / Johnny Damon / Darin Erstad / Jose Vidro / Derek Jeter 
 2002      5 Miguel Tejada / Vladimir Guerrero / Ichiro Suzuki / Alfonso Soriano / Bernie Williams 
 2005      3 Ichiro Suzuki / Michael Young / Derek Jeter 
 2007      1 Ichiro Suzuki  

It's tough to draw a lot of conclusions from the list, but you'll probably enjoy perusing it as I did.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 at 7:13 am and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.