Thursday, May 10, 2007

Climbing the Charts

Derek Jeter started the season in 68th place all-time in batting average (under baseball-reference.com's minimal standards of 3000 plate appearances, which is like 5 seasons).

Jeter's hot start had him pass Nomar Garciaparra, and with today's 2-for-3 performace he now passed Arky Vaughan for 59th place all-time.

If you make the standard closer to 10 seasons (5000 at bats in the modern era, 1901+), Jeter really moved up to 36th all-time. Also by passing Vaughan he now only trails Honus Wagner among shortstops.

He now also ranks #13 all-time for righthanded batters.

#1 .358, Debut 1915 - Rogers Hornsby
#2 .342, Debut 1914 - Harry Heilmann
#3 .338, Debut 1896 - Nap Lajoie
#4 .334, Debut 1924 - Al Simmons
#5 .327, Debut 1897 - Honus Wagner
#6 .325, Debut 1925 - Jimmie Foxx
#7 .325, Debut 1996 - Vladimir Guerrero
#8 .325, Debut 1936 - Joe DiMaggio
#9 .324, Debut 1932 - Ducky Medwick
#10 .321, Debut 1921 - Kiki Cuyler
#11 .320, Debut 1920 - Pie Traynor
#12 .318, Debut 1984 - Kirby Puckett
#13 .318, Debut 1995 - Derek Jeter

Not bad company. Kirby and Vlad are the only two higher who started their careers after 1936.

1 comment:

Ross said...

Jeter and Vlad, who are two of the four players on this list to have never won a batting title, rank 1-2 in the AL at this moment.