José Pito Abreu is among the best in Major Leagues since his debut January 22, 2021

January 22, 2021

If it's difficult to have two good consecutive seasons in the Major Leagues, imagine having seven straight campaigns at the top of the hitters in the best baseball in the world. That is the case of José Abreu, who has simply not stopped batting since he arrived at the Big Show with the Chicago White Sox in 2014. The Cuban first baseman has had a brilliant career in the Majors that places him alongside the best sluggers of this era.

Looking at his profile on Baseball-Reference, what can be seen is an impressive record that begins with the Rookie of the Year award, continues with three Silver Bats and ends with the Most Valuable Player, a distinction he received after his huge campaign in 2020. In the last season of the big show he led the league in hits and has two consecutive tournaments leading the young circuit in runs batted in.

But this work in homage to Abreu goes far beyond that. It is to show with clear facts that Pito is in the group of the best. That despite being about to turn 34 years old, he is still in what Americans call his "prime," which is the best stage of his career and the most explosive with the bat.

The Caribbean player is the fifth player who has played the most games since the year of his debut, with 961. In fact, he is one of eight who have accumulated at least 950 games since 2014. In his case, he is only surpassed by Carlos Santana (997), Anthony Rizzo (969), Charlie Blackmon (968) and Eric Hosmer (964), a foursome in which curiously there are three first basemen. This statistic speaks to how immovable and at the same time healthy Pito has been for the White Sox: since he debuted, he has been in 93 percent of all the white stockings' regular season games (which is the same as saying 961 out of a total of 1,032 games).

There's more!

But there is still more to be impressed by. Abreu, who has just been named the fourth best first baseman in the Big Show, is the third player in all of Major League Baseball with the most hits connected in the cited span: 1,114. Looking upward, he is only surpassed by José Altuve (1,205) and Blackmon (1,178). Without being able to surpass him yet, he is followed by men like DJ LeMahieu, Nolan Arenado and Xander Bogaerts.

As for doubles, the Cuban has the fifth highest amount in the big show (233), tied with Altuve, Arenado and Anthony Rendón. The leader in that department since 2014 is Freddie Freeman, the first baseman of the Atlanta Braves, with 249. If you speak of home runs, Abreu is eighth on the list, which has Nelson Cruz (260) and Mike Trout (240) at the top.

Even more impressive. Abreu is second in the RBIs category, with 671, an amount only surpassed by Arenado and his 708 runs batted in. Pito narrowly displaced Cruz (663) and Edwin Encarnación (655). Finally, if you talk about the extra base hits category, Pito also belongs to the elite: he ranks third on the list and trails Arenado (481) and Trout (459), two of the — still — most outstanding young players in the Major Leagues.

The fact that José Abreu is in the company of all those stars in departments that only speak of high production, tireless batting and consistency is a feat. It is a milestone that expresses the greatness of the White Sox first baseman, one of the best hitters of this era, many times without receiving the credit he deserves. The best part is that time and the level of his offense say that his decline is far away, something that the White Sox also wanted to think when they gave him his new contract in November 2019.