Now that Derek Jeter has reached (and then quickly surpassed) the 3,000-hit mark, I think it’s time to see how Robinson Cano’s young career stacks up to the New York Yankees captain's early years.
Jeter is halfway through his 17th season (16th full season), whereas Robinson Cano is halfway into just his seventh season in the bigs.
Through his first six full seasons, Derek Jeter had accrued 1,187 hits—just 112 more hits than Robinson Cano’s 1,075 hits through his first six seasons. (Each became full-time starters at the age of 22).
Jeter got those 1,187 hits on 4,200 plate appearances. Robinson Cano’s 1,075 hits came on 3,732 plate appearances, 468 fewer PAs than Jeter.
If Cano had been up to the plate those 468 extra times, to match Jeter's number of PAs, (according to Cano's .288 hits per PA leading up to the current season) Cano would have gained roughly 135 extra hits, in effect, putting Cano’s hit total for his first six seasons 23 higher than Jeter’s first six seasons.
Now, this is ignoring Jeter’s 15 games in the 1995 season where he had 12 base knocks, still leaving Cano with 11 more hypothetical hits than his captain had.
Obviously we cannot add those hits to Cano’s stat line just to be fair to the All-Star second baseman. But it's still impressive.
Cano's offense certainly gets its fair share of attention; however, he is simply not viewed on the same level as Jeter.
Cano hasn't had many storybook moments as of yet, but he has certainly come up in the clutch quite a few times thus far. (Plus, Jeter didn't become Mr. November until the very end of his sixth season).
Fine. Maybe Cano isn't yet up on the pedestal of Yankees greats that Jeter has been on for quite some time.
However, these stats do show that Cano is a great hitter (which we already knew), and that the kid on the right side of the infield may someday join his double-play partner in the 3,000-hit club.
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