Ichiro Suzuki is now the all-time MLB leader in hits among foreign-born players, ahead of Rod Carew, Rafael Palmeiro and Roberto Clemente.
Ichiro Suzuki banged out another two hits on Thursday afternoon, giving him 3,054 for his career. Ichiro has been on a bit of a hot streak over the last month-and-a-half after a very slow start to the year. Following the Marlins game on May 27, he was hitting .148 with a .188 OBP. It was very unlike Ichiro to struggle like that. Since then, including Thursday’s game, he’s hit .319 with a .360 OBP. It’s like the clouds parted and the sun came out, which is nice because baseball is much more fun when Ichiro is hitting well.
Those two hits also moved Ichiro up another notch on the all-time hit list. He passed Rod Carew and moved into 24th place. One more hit will tie him with Rickey Henderson and six more will pull him even with Craig Biggio. His next stolen base will tie him for 34th all-time with Harry Stovey. Six more steals and he’ll pull even with Barry Bonds. He’s also two runs scored behind Billy Williams, four runs scored behind Luis Gonzalez and eight runs scored behind the great Roberto Clemente. At 43 years old, Ichiro is a milestone waiting to happen on a daily basis.
Passing Carew on the all-time hit list has extra significance because it makes Ichiro the all-time hits leader among foreign-born players. He’s now at the top of the list of four foreign-born players to have 3,000 hits. The other three are Carew, Rafael Palmeiro and Clemente. Adrian Beltre will likely join this club in the next month or so and Albert Pujols should get there in 2018.
Let’s look at the other three foreign-born members of the 3,00 hits club, along with the next guy who will join the club.
Roberto Clemente: 3,000 career hits
Roberto Clemente was the first foreign-born player to reach 3,000 hits. He came up with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1955 and played 18 years for the team, leading the league in hitting four times. He was a perennial All-Star and Gold Glove winner. He also received MVP votes in 12 seasons and won the NL MVP Award in 1966. Sadly, Clemente’s 3,000th hit was the final hit of his career.
Clemente got that hit on September 30, 1972, during a season in which he hit .312/.356/.479. Even at 37 years old, he was a well above average hitter (135 wRC+) and still good on defense. He was worth 4 Wins Above Replacement (WAR, per FanGraphs). He still had a few good years left in him.
Clemente wasn’t able to play those years because he died in the offseason following the 1972 season. He was delivering supplies to Minagua, Nicaragua, after a massive earthquake hit the city a week before. The plane was overloaded with supplies and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
It was a devastating loss for the Pirates, their fans and the baseball community as a whole. Most of the Latin American players who came to the major leagues after Clemente were influenced by Roberto. Some people have even suggested MLB should retire his number 21 across baseball like they’ve done with Jackie Robinson’s number 42.
Rod Carew: 3,053 career hits
Rod Carew was the second foreign-born player to get 3,000 hits. He was an artist with the bat who came up with the Minnesota Twins in 1967 and was an All-Star and the AL Rookie of the Year in his first season. He would follow with All-Star nods every year for the next 18 years. The only year he wasn’t named to the All-Star team was in his final year, when he was 39 years old.
At the plate, Carew looked very relaxed in the batter’s box. He had an open stance and his hands held the bat softly, with the barrel of the bat horizontal to the ground behind him. Then the pitch would come in and he would smack line drives with regularity. He was masterful at lining an outside pitch into left field, which is exactly what he did on his 3,000th career hit against Frank Viola.
It would be hard to find a more fitting 3,000th hit for any player in the 3,000 hits club than Rod Carew slapping a single to left field. This ability to hit the ball all over the field enabled Carew to win seven batting titles and finish his career with a .328 batting average. He was at his very best in 1977 when he hit .388/.449/.570. He led the league in batting average and on-base percentage, along with runs, hits and triples. He also won the AL MVP Award for his stellar play.
That 1977 season was recognized by the Minnesota Twins in early July. Carew was invited by the Twins to throw out the first pitch at the 40th anniversary celebration of his MVP year. It was also a recognition of the health problems Carew had overcome. In 2015, he suffered a massive heart attack. Last December, he received heart and kidney transplants. He received the heart and one of the kidneys from former NFL tight end Konrad Reuland, who had died following a brain aneurysm a couple weeks before. It was a great moment for Twins fans to see Carew throwing out the first pitch.
Rafael Palmeiro: 3,020 career hits
The most controversial player on this list is Rafael Palmeiro. Based solely on his numbers (3,020 hits, 569 home runs), Palmeiro should already be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Instead, he was on the ballot for just four years and his Hall of Fame fate will be determined by a future Veterans Committee. Unless something changes with the committee, he’s unlikely to ever get into the Hall of Fame.
Palmeiro’s 3,000th hit was a double to left field off Joel Pineiro at Safeco Field on July 15, 2005. Palmeiro owned Safeco Field in his career. He hit .293/.372/.652 at the House That Griffey Built. In fact, he owned Mariners pitching in general. The Mariners were the victims of 52 of Palmeiro’s 569 career home runs, the most any team allowed him.
Before he started crushing Seattle pitching, Palmerio began his career with the Chicago Cubs in 1986. After three years in Chicago, he was part of a nine-player trade with the Texas Rangers in December of 1988. Over the first 12 years of his career with the Cubs and Rangers, Palmeiro had what looked like a fairly traditional career arc. Based on wRC+, which adjusts a player’s offense for league and ballpark effects, Palmeiro had his first season with at least 130 wRC+ at the age of 25, then stayed at a high level through the rest of his 20s. He dropped to a 129 wRC+ at the age of 31, then 110 at the age of 32.
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Had he continued to play at that level or lower for a few years, there wouldn’t be anything odd about Palmeiro’s career. Instead, he jumped back up to his peak level at the age of 33, then had his best season with the bat at the age of 34. He stayed at a high level until he was 37 years old and finished out his career as a slightly above average hitter when he was 39 and 40 years old.
Along with the late peak that causes suspicion, Palmeiro was identified as a steroid user in Jose Canseco’s book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big. Palmeiro also appeared before Congress on March 17, 2005 and testified under oath that he never used steroids. He was very emphatic about it, channeling Sean Spicer long before Sean Spicer became a thing, when he said, “I have never used steroids, period!” The denial came with a finger point, so you knew it must be true.
Less than five months later, Palmeiro was suspended for testing positive for a steroid. He later claimed he had received a tainted vitamin B12 supplement from teammate Miguel Tejada. He came back from the suspension on August 14 and went 2-for-26 in seven games. He didn’t play at all in September. His son, Preston, was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in 2016 and is hitting .257/.326/.454 with the Delmarva Shorebirds of the South Atlantic League.
Adrian Beltre: 2,975 career hits
The next foreign-born player to enter the 3,000 hits club is most likely going to be Adrian Beltre, who is sitting on 2,975 hits. Beltre is 32nd all-time in career hits. He hasn’t done it the flashy way, with batting titles and 200-hit seasons. He’s been more of a steady, drip-drip-drip hitter who has been good enough for long enough to get to the magic number. He’s also been one of the more entertaining players to watch on the baseball diamond.
Beltre has just one 200-hit season (and one other with 199 hits). He’s never won a batting title. By comparison, Ichiro had 10 seasons with 200 or more hits and two batting titles. Carew had four 200-hit seasons and seven batting titles. Of the 32 members of the 3,000 hits club, Beltre would be 26th in batting average at .286.
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Had he not missed most of the first two months of this season with an injured calf, Beltre would already be in the 3,000 hits club. As it is, he’ll likely need 20 to 25 games to get there. The Rangers have three more games in the first half, then go on the road for a 10-game swing through Kansas City, Baltimore and Tampa Bay. At the end of July, they have a nine-game homestand against the Marlins, Orioles and Mariners. If he hits well over the next few weeks, he could get his 3,000th hit during this homestand, perhaps even against one of his former teams, the Seattle Mariners.