![]() Among players who were in their age-25 season or younger in 2019, Rougned Odor's 3,286 career plate appearances lead the way. It's much harder to imagine any player not only equaling Rose's 24 big league seasons, but also maintaining the excellence required to average 662 plate appearances per season as the Hit King did. ![]() Hitting 59 homers will go a long way, too, of course.Įven at his peak, Bonds never scored 150 times in a season Jeff Bagwell (152 runs in 2000) is the most recent player to crack 150, and he was the first since Ted Williams in 1949.Pete Rose's 15,890 plate appearances and 4,256 hitsIt is conceivable that Ichiro could have been within shouting distance of Rose's hit mark had he debuted in America well before his age-27 season. But don't shortchange the 353 times that 'The Bambino' reached base, which still stands as the fifth-highest single-year total in modern history. He was also issued 120 intentional passes that year, and only one player other than Bonds - who had 68 IBBs in 2002 and 61 in '03 - has ever drawn more than 45 in one year (Willie McCovey, 1969).Babe Ruth's 177 runs scored in 1921Like Wilson's RBI mark, Ruth got a good bit of help from a lineup that collectively hit.300 and averaged 6.2 runs. For context, only one player other than Bonds has walked at least 170 times in a season (Babe Ruth, 1923), and Bonds alone piled up more than half the walks that the entire Pirates squad drew in 2004. No one hit more than 10 triples in '19.Barry Bonds' 232 walks in 2004With the kind of power that could persuade managers to intentionally walk him in the first inning or with the bases loaded, no one in baseball history tested the limits of statistics quite like Bonds. Manny Ramirez's 165 RBIs in 1999 stand as the closest recent attempt, but it still fell about a month's worth short of Wilson's mark.Chief Wilson's 36 triples in 1912Wilson never again hit half as many triples as he did in this historic year, pointing to how difficult this kind of campaign would be. While there's no doubt Wilson went on an absolute tear in 1930 (.356/.454/.723 with 56 home runs), he also played in an extreme offensive environment (a record six players topped 150 RBIs that year) and had a pair of superb table-setters in front of him in Kiki Cuyler (.428 OBP) and Woody English (.430). Good luck.Nolan Ryan's 5,714 strikeouts and 2,795 walksEven with today's ever-escalating strikeout climate, it's hard to imagine anyone pitching with both the ferocity and dizzying longevity needed to catch Ryan. So to break this record, you'd have to hit.373 and log more than 700 ABs. Plus, Ichiro logged 704 at-bats in that, one of only four players to cross the 700 at-bat plateau in a single campaign. Breaking Ichiro's single-season hit mark would require an uncommon combination of consistency, opportunities and the ability to make contact - an increasing rarity in the modern game. ![]() (For the purposes of this exercise, we are sticking to records that could feasibly be broken, so Cy Young's record of 749 complete games, for example, is not part of this conversation.)The records you likely knowIchiro's 262 hits in 2004Few players have thrilled fans in as many different ways as Ichiro, and that included his impeccable bat control and timing at the plate. Some of them you'll know right away others may surprise you. Vander Meer's pair might indeed turn out to be 'unbreakable,' or as close to that term as possible, and it calls to mind a handful of other records that are collecting dust as years go by.Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hit streak is one of the most famous 'unbreakable' records, but his.357 average in 1941 suggests that - with all the right circumstances in play - a high-average, low-walk hitter could someday approach 'Joltin' Joe.' How that player would handle the media scrutiny as he approaches the mythical '56' is another story, of course.With Vander Meer and DiMaggio in mind, here are a handful of other modern records that seem 'unbreakable.' Only a handful of the 200-plus pitchers with a no-hitter have managed even a few perfect innings during their next trip to the mound. But in baseball, some achievements truly stretch the limits of that adage.Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters is one of those achievements. The saying 'Records are made to be broken' is about as old as the existence of sports records themselves.
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