Erick Aybar reached the 1,200 hit plateau in Sunday’s loss against the Houston Astros. The only other shortstop to have more hits in his Angel career is, of course, the greatest shortstop the Angels have ever had, Jim Fregosi, who amassed 1,408 hits in his eleven-year Angel career. With one more year left on his Angel contract (assuming Aybar doesn’t get traded and has a healthy 2016 season), Erick has an outside shot at catching the all-time Angel great in this category.
Already, Aybar has passed Fregosi on the Angels’ career stolen base list, with his 137 swipes to Fregosi’s 71, and the way things currently stand, Erick needs just two more doubles to catch up to Fregosi’s career total of 219. How many more Angel shortstop hitting records is Aybar, who is now playing in his tenth season as an Angel, threatening to take away from Jim Fregosi?
Fregosi has the team record for triples by any position player, at 70, and Aybar has had just 42 over his career so far, so there is no chance for Erick to catch Jim there, nor is Fregosi’s record of 115 career home runs by a shortstop in any danger, as Erick has hit just 47, and even if Aybar has a productive last month of this season and matches his season highs with his play next year, he still won’t be able to catch Fregosi’s shortstop record for runs scored (691 to Aybar’s 563), RBI (546 to Aybar’s 411), or bases on balls (558 to Aybar’s 224).
After the most career doubles by a shortstop, Aybar’s second-best shot at tying or surpassing a Fregosi record is the one for sacrifice bunts by a shortstop. Aybar has 67 in his career, and Fregosi hit 74 sac bunts in his Angel career, so if the Angel hitters in front of him can do a good job of getting on base, Erick has a decent shot at that record.
Now if Aybar re-signs with the Angels after he becomes a free agent at the end of next season, of course, there is more opportunity for Aybar to catch Fregosi on some of these leaderboards. WAR won’t be one of them, though, since Aybar has accumulated 23.8 WAR in his career as an Angel to Fregosi’s 45.9, so when he finally hangs his cleats up, Aybar will have to take pride in being the second greatest shortstop in Angel history.
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