5 Things to Know About Alex Rodriguez's 3,000th Hit

Facing Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers, Alex Rodriguez hammered a home run for his 3,000th hit.

With that hit, Rodriguez became the 29th player in Major League Baseball to collect 3,000 hits. He joins Wade Boggs and former teammate Derek Jeter as the only players to hit a home run for their 3,000th hit. Here are some facts you may not know about his historic hit.

1. Pinstripes Are a Nice Look

There are six players of the 3,000 hit club that have donned the Yankee pinstripes at some point in their career -- Paul Waner had the shortest career with the Yankees, notching just one hit for them. Rickey Henderson played for six different teams in his career but stopped in New York for more than four years in his career.

The aforementioned Wade Boggs tallied five years with the Yankees after leaving the Red Sox and Dave Winfield played more than eight seasons for the Yankees. However, just two of the six, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, collected their 3,000th hit while actually playing for the Yankees.

2. Positional Scarcity

Of the 29 hitters in the 3,000 club, each player position is well represented outside of catcher. There are 15 players that spent at least part of their career manning an outfield position, the most of this exclusive club.

Six players spent at least part of their career at first base and five players played some at shortstop while third base and second base had four each. Rodriguez played shortstop for the Mariners and Rangers before coming to the Yankees, where he switched to third, the only player to spend time at both positions on the 3,000 hit club.

3. Spreading Out the Hits

A majority of the hitters in the 3,000 hit club were singles and doubles hitters. The average number of hits that went for singles was 69.4% and 16 of the 29 players had at least that high of a percentage. But Rodriguez comes in at the low end of that spectrum with the lowest percentage of hits that went for a single.

Rodriguez's specialty has been home runs: 22.2% of his 3,000 hits have resulted in a home run. It's the highest percentage of the club and only two other players (Willie Mays and Hank Aaron) have had a 20% or more of their hits come from home runs.

4. Powerful Friends

As we keep looking at Rodriguez's power numbers, we notice that he is one of just seven players to have a slugging percentage (SLG%) above .500. His .557 slugging percentage is tied for second with Willie Mays and just two points behind Stan Musial's .559.

Of these seven players, five of them have cranked out at least 500 home runs (Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmerio, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron). Rodriguez is just one of three players to now have at least 600 home runs and 3,000 hits (Mays and Aaron the other two). Rodriguez is also just the third player to have at least 3,000 hits and 2,000 runs batted in -- the other two were Hank Aaron and Cap Anson.

5. Advancing Ahead

Alex Rodriguez might be one of the more valuable members of the 3,000 hit club as his current career numbers rank in the top-10 in a few advanced metrics. Rodriguez holds .400 wOBA over his career, which is 10th out of the 29 players. His career wRC+ is is up there too at 143, which is ninth-best in the 3,000 hit club.

His value increases even more as we evaluate him based on fWAR. Offensively, A-Rod has been worth about 674.1 runs above average during his career, which is the seventh-highest mark. Lastly, Rodriguez is a top-10 player in fWAR over his career -- his current 113.4 fWAR is the eighth-best in the 3,000 hit club.