When Will Derek Jeter Get his 3,000th Hit?

We didn't ask, but the J-Dawg went to the stat laboratory and broke down numbers. Here's his recap
---

Notes:

- All statistics were acquired from baseballreference.com

-Career averages calculations exclude the 1995 and 2010 season, to make sure only full seasons were factored in (also note: post season stats are completely separate from regular season stats, and play no role in the following analysis)

-All the total hits calculations are based on Jeets having 2,874 hits (Accurate as of 8-9-2010)

Data:

Career AB – 8610 (not including 1995, 2010)

Career Ave Games Played per Season – 151.6

Career Ave AB per game – 4.057

Batting Averages:

Low for Career- .280

Ave for Career- .315

High for Career- .340

Hits per game:

Low BA- 1.136

Ave BA- 1.278

High BA- 1.416

Calculations:

There are 49 regular season games left, according to Jeter’s career ave games played per year, he will play in 40.6 remaining games. For the sake of thoroughness, I have calculated figuring both 40.6 games played as well as 49 games played)

Projected hits left this year: 40.6 games played

Low BA -46.122 (79.878 hits remaining until 3000)

Ave BA – 51.887 (74.113 hits remaining until 3000)

High BA – 57.490 (68.510 hits remaining until 3000)

Projected hits left this year 49 games played

Low BA -55.664 (70.336 hits remaining until 3000)

Ave BA – 65.622 (63.378 hits remaining until 3000)

High BA – 69.384 (56.616 hits remaining until 3000)

Games projected until 3000 hits, entering the 2011 season

79.878 hits needed:

Low BA: 70.3

Ave BA: 62.5

High BA : 56.4

74.113 hits needed:

Low BA: 65.2

Ave BA: 58.0

High BA : 52.3

65.510 hits needed:

Low BA: 57.7

Ave BA: 51.3

High BA : 46.3

70.336 hits needed:

Low BA: 61.9

Ave BA: 55.0

High BA : 49.7

63.378 hits needed:

Low BA: 55.8

Ave BA: 49.6

High BA : 44.8

56.616 hits needed:

Low BA: 49.8

Ave BA: 44.3

High BA : 40

Maximum games need to hit 3000

Minimum games needed to hit 3000

Conclusions:

One can postulate based on the above data and calculations that Jeets will have 3000 hits between 40 and 71 games into next season.

Once the 2011 schedule comes out, which is usually ~November, we can use this data to pick a specific month, series, game, and even At-Bat Jeets will hit the big 3000, becoming the 28^th player in baseball history to do so.

Pete Rose has 4256 career hits – that’s 1382 more than Jeter

Jeter would need to play 8.02 (hitting his career Low BA), 7.13 (hitting his career Ave BA), or 6.44 (hitting his career High BA) more seasons at his current games played per year average to surpass Rose as the All-Time Hits Leader

Will Jeets be on the field in 2018 at age 44?

---

Editor's Note: I asked for a guess on dates, rather than game numbers for next year's approximate historic AB and here's what he came up with:

This might be a few games off because it was hard to tell when the last preseason game was and when the first regular season game started in 2008 and 2009...

2008 Season:

Game 40 was on May 12 vs TB
Game 71 was on June 14 @ HOU

2009 Season:

Game 40 was on May 15 @ TOR
Game 71 was on June 17 vs WSH

2010 Season:

Game 40 was on May 19 vs TB
Game 71 was on June 21 vs ARZ