Is 3000 hits a big deal or overrated?

[dgo71]

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector

Basically, i just not a big fan of 'participation awards' If you play long enough you are going to get a certain amount of slap hits even into your 40s. I would contend a replacement level player from AAA who played 23 years in the big leagues would get close to 3000 hits but nowhere near 4500 total bases... Yes ichiro did it in far less, However we are going by totals not by how many years when doing a 3000 hit countdown. There is no hits per game countdown.....

I think that is greatly minimizing the talent it takes to get to 3000 hits. Lots of guys had long careers and yet there are still only 2/100ths of a percent of the games' players to ever reach the milestone. Harold Baines played forever and was solely a hitter for a lot of that time and didn't get there. Vizquel, Fisk, Buckner, Darrell Evans, Ted Simmons, Ruben Sierra...quite a long list of 20+ year MLBers that didn't get to 3000 hits, and I would consider all of those names to be better than a AAA replacement player. I would venture to say it's not an easy task regardless of how those hits are produced. I do agree to some extent that if the discussion is about what has more overall value, the power is important along with some of the other stats that have come up in the thread, but to the point of the original question about 3000 hits and whether or not it's impressive at it's most basic level, it most definitely is.