Billy Butler reaches 1000 hits, 9th Royal all time

On Tuesday May 28th, Billy Bulter became the 9th Royal in history to hit 1000 hits in his career while playing for the Royals. Butler's double off of Tyler Lyons didn't help the Royals much in the end and they lost 5 to 1 to the Cardinals. In the Royals history, which is only 43 years old, you would think that they would have more players that managed over 1000 hits in their time as a KC Royal, but they haven't.

Royals 1000 Hit Players:

1. George Brett: 3154 hits
2. Frank White: 2006 hits
3. Amos Otis: 1977 hits
4. Willie Wilson: 1968 hits
5. Hal McRae: 1924 hits
6. Mike Sweeney: 1398 hits
7. Joe Randa: 1084 hits
8. Fred Patek: 1036
9. Billy Butler: 1001 hits
• Notable Players just under:
• David DeJesus: 971 hits
• Carlos Beltran: 899 hits
• Johnny Damon: 894 hits
• Alex Gordon: 794 hits
• Jermaine Dye: 584 hits

At first, I was going compare the Cardinals to the Royals but that wouldn't be fair to the Royals since the Cardinals have been playing since 1882, which adds up to 131 years of action in baseball. However, just because I am a fan of both teams I will list the Cardinals players with more than 1000 hits, there are more than 30, so hold on to your hats.

Cardinals 1000 Hit Players:

1. Stan "The Man" Musial: 3630 hits
2. Lou Brock: 2713 hits
3. Rogers Hornsby: 2110 hits
4. Albert Pujols: 2073 hits
5. Enos Slaughter: 2064 hits
6. Red Schoendienst: 1980 hits
7. Ozzie Smith: 1944 hits
8. Ken Boyer: 1855 hits
9. Curt Flood: 1853 hits
10. Jim Bottomley: 1727 hits
11. Tim Simmons: 1704 hits
12. Willie McGee: 1683 hits
13. Joe Medwick: 1590 hits
14. Frankie Frisch: 1577 hits
15. Ray Lankford: 1479 hits
16. Julian Javier: 1450 hits
17. Marty Marion: 1402 hits
18. Terry Moore: 1318 hits
19. Bill White: 1241 hits
20. Pepper Martin: 1227 hits
21. Keith Hernandez: 1217 hits
22. Charlie Comiskey: 1194 hits
23. Tip O'Neill: 1091 hits
24. Yadier Molina: 1085 hits
25. Jack Smith: 1067 hits
26. Joe Torre: 1062 hits
27. Johnny Mize: 1048 hits
28. Jim Edmonds: 1033 hits
29. Ken Reitz: 1033 hits
30. Tim McCarver: 1029 hits
31. Tommy Herr: 1021 hits
32. Ed Konetchy: 1013 hits
33. Taylor Douthit: 1006 hits
• Notables under 1000
• Edgar Renteria: 973 hits
• Vince Coleman: 937 hits
• Terry Pendleton: 888 hits
• Tom Pagnozzi: 733 hits

Since the Cardinals aren't really comparable let's go with two expansion teams that began playing baseball in 1969, the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres. Let's start with the Brew Crew.

Milwaukee Brewers 1000 Hit Players:

1. Robin Yount: 3142 hits
2. Paul Molitor: 2281 hits
3. Cecil Cooper: 1815 hits
4. Jim Ganter: 1696 hits
5. Geoff Jenkins: 1221 hits
6. Don Money: 1168 hits
7. Ben Oglivie: 1144 hits
8. Ryan Braun: 1143 hits
9. B.J. Surhoff: 1064 hits
10. Charlie Moore: 1029 hits
11. Jeff Cirillo: 1000 hits
• Notables under 1000
• Prince Fielder: 996 hits
• Corey Hart: 950 hits
• Rickie Weeks: 898 hits
• Greg Vaughn: 799 hits
• Jeromy Burnitz: 714 hits

Okay, now lets look at the other expansion team, the Friars, or more commonly know as the Padres.

San Diego Padres 1000 Hit Players:

1. Tony Gwynn: 3141 hits
2. Gary Templeton: 1135 hits
3. Dave Winfield: 1134 hits
• Notables under 1000
• Gene Richards: 994 hits
• Brain Giles: 872 hits
• Adrian Gonzalez: 856 hits
• Phil Nevin: 842 hits
• Ryan Klesko: 786 hits

Okay, now we need to compare these three teams and we will throw the Cardinals in for good measure just for comparison sake. We must take the number of 1000 hit players, in this case 9 for KC, 33 for StL, 11 for the Brewers and 3 for the Padres. We must then divide that number by the years that they have been competing to get a ratio that we can use to compare teams with different years of existence.


Kansas City

• 43 years divided by 9 = 4.78 years/player hitting 1000 hits

St.Louis

• 131 years divided by 33 = 3.96 years/player hitting 1000 hits

Milwaukee

• 43 years divided by 11 = 3.90 years/player hitting 1000 hits

Padres

• 43 years divided by 3 = 14.33 years/player hitting 1000 hits

Okay, now that we have our ratios figured out, all we need to do is adjust to make it common for each team. In this case we are going to use 100 years to compare and see where each team sits.

Kansas City

• 100 years divided by 4.78 = 20.92 players will hit 1000 hits in 100 years

St. Louis

• 100 years divided by 3.96 = 25.25 players will hit 1000 hits in 100 years (or in this case have)

Milwaukee

• 100 years divided by 3.90 = 25.64 players will hit 1000 hits in 100 years

Padres

• 100 years divided by 14.33 = 6.97 players will hit 1000 hits in 100 years

As you can see the Padres have not had many good hitters over the years, or at least kept them on the team long enough to make an impact, and they are trending to only have under seven by 2069. The Royals are doing a little better, but that stat was pushed up by the top 5 all-time hitters in Royals uniforms who were all members of the Royals back in the 70's and 80's. The Brewers are a team that has had hitters and kept them for a long time, and they pace to have more players hitting over 1000 hits than the Cardinals but only by .4 of a player. I don't know about you but the there aren't many .4 of a player out there. (Well except Jeff Francoeur) One interesting note though is that all four teams only have one player with over 3,000 hits, which shows you that it is hard to hit 3000 hits and even harder to do it for one team. Let's hope that the Royals have some youngsters come up and stay with the team for a long time, because maybe then they will have a team that is ready to compete for a playoff birth....maybe.