HouseInIceberg

"The Reds Lost" by kyledouglasjones - 2012 is licensed under Fair Use

1976 Reds

#1. 20,388 Career Hits

The Big Red Machine featured four Hall of Famers. Morgan at Secondbase and Bench at catcher are arguable #1 at their positions ALL-TIME and Pete Rose is the ALl-Time Hit King after all. Of course the Reds were a NL team who in consecutive years ranked here. No DH, but in even years, the World Series used the DH! That's why they're "above" the '75 team. They've always been regarded as one the of greatest teams ever and at 20,000+ hits, they stand alone.

HouseInIceberg

"YankeesMatsui4-13-10" by kyledouglasjones - 2012 is licensed under Fair Use

2009 Yankees

#2. 20,067 Career Hits

This Yankees juggernaut stands as the most hit-laden "modern" team in history. It's lead by possibly the greatest infield ever: Teixeira, Cano, A-Rod and Jeter?!?! Four MVP-caliber players all in or around their peak. After winning 3 straight World Series between 1998-2000, the Yankees lost the WS in '01 and '03 and opened the door for the Red Sox in '04. This was kind of the fulfillment of those obscene bomber teams of the early 2000s. A-Rod got his ring and the Captain still captained. Posada belongs in the Hall of Fame. Matsui was "Godzilla" and Swisher was subject to a lot of Billy-Beane-gaze in Moneyball. Iconic team.

1993 Blue Jays

#3. 19,572 Career Hits

An enormous team. John Olerud hit .365 for the repeat champs and had arguably the year of the decade. Molitor, Rickey and Roberto Alomar are all resounding Hall of Famers and more! Joe Carter walking off on Mitch Williams makes the All-Century highlights but so does this team. Tony Fernandez hit .306 in his return to Toronto after averaging 4.5 WAR for the Jays from 1985-1990. Devon White fought to be a league average bat over his career, which is quite the thing for anybody let alone somebody who won 7 Gold Gloves in Centerfield to the tune of 47.3 WAR.

1995 Indians

#4. 19,334 Career Hits

The target team in replays. A young Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez together is hard to imagine, though, those guys were hardly focal points in the offense! That’d be Albert Belle, who was about the baddest man in baseball in 1995 and perhaps baseball history. No crushinator has topped both 50 HRs and 2Bs in the same season except Albert in this shortened (144 game) season. The Indians still won 100 games which puts them at a cool .694 winning percentage and looked to be clear “winners” in the post-’94 strike world.

No title, but boy could they hit. Outside of mercenary topped-off teams like the ‘04 Yankees, I don’t know of any gaudier lineup than what Cleveland had cooking. Yeah, guys sprouted .430 OBPs with a bit more regularity post ‘94, but the Indians weren’t playing the same game with Belle, Manny, Thome, Eddie Murray and an infield combo of Omar Vizquel and Carlos Baegra, who oh is on his 4th straight .310+ BA season. Kenny freaking Lofton too! He’d be a casualty of salary cutting during the Indians’ next pennant-winning season, but here he’s just in year 4 of 5 of leading the league in steals, posting .380 OBPs and winning Gold Gloves about every year. Hall of Famer.

1975 Reds

#5. 18,924 Career Hits

Here they are again, but for the first time. The ‘75 Reds went 108-54, scoring 840 runs while allowing just 586. In 1976 they’d finish 102-56 and again sweep the NLCS 3-0 and win the World Series--again. Pete Rose reached base 617 times and didn’t miss a game either year. “DH” Dan Driessen is the only difference in the two lineups (1,464 hits). He maintained a .373 OBP over these two seasons and was a significant contributor in many campaigns and for his whole career.

What made these teams really go, though, was the NL MVP both years: 5’ 7” Joe Morgan. Morgan was a profoundly good sabermetric player, though, would later criticize OBP as an announcer. Morgan’s .392 career OBP is about his most exceptional trait. From ‘75-’76, Morgan hit .324/.456/.541, won two Gold Gloves and stole 127 bases at an 87% clip. You’re never gonna see a more pleasing line! His 11.0 WAR in 1975 is legitimately one of the highest in MLB history and part of a sublime peak that makes him perhaps the greatest Secondbasemen ever. Then there’s Johnny Bench.

1980 Phillies

#6. 18,319 Career Hits

Pete Rose and his 4,276 hits still hold court here in 1980. Turns out two careers’ worth of hits works out well. The Phils also sport Mike Schmidt, more famous for his enormous power but still good for 2,234 hits. That’s what leading the league in HRs eight times will do. Outside of those two inner-ring HOF guys, the Phillies are a surprise entrant here: their offense was league average in 1980. Stout with career performers though, like Bob Boone, Larry Bowa and Garry Maddox, the 1980 Phillies had the oldest offense in the majors that year and were best in the NL at avoiding strikeouts. They won the World Series in 6 games and did so like a metronome, producing 4.5 runs per game in the series, right on pace with their 4.49 during the regular season.

Great Games, Great Lineups

Watching old World Series games on YouTube during Quarantine was a definite thing. With players on those iconic teams now retired, their impact on the game comes into better focus. Maybe. Some teams, though, were just wow. There is no competition or “right answer” within such nostalgic histories, but for me, one team to behold was the Cleveland Indians of the mid-late 90s. Right after the league’s reboot in ‘94, they went to two World Series and featured an absolute murderer’s row of hitters, too deep for just one lineup!

They assembled stars like Roberto Alomar, Omar Vizquel, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, Eddie Murray and oh Albert Belle, which is pretty unreal. Many of these former teams seem flush with career performers, but with Richie Sexson, Julio Franco, Sean Casey and Brian Giles as options off the bench, Cleveland could hit.

After losing to the mighty Braves in the 1995 World Series, the Indians were back for more heart-break in ‘97. They’d face the newly-minted Florida Marlins and 2,000 hit-men Edgar Renteria, Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla, Moises Alou, Jeff Conine and Devon White. Another series loaded with names that’d figure heavily into the history of the game for decades.

The 5 tabs above highlight the top lineups in Career Hits to start a World Series game since 1969, the first year the league expanded to 24 teams and introduced playoffs beyond just the pennant winners. Every other WS team since '69 is also included at the bottom of the article. In all those years, only one team has had a World Series lineup with over 20,000 career hits: the 1976 Reds and 2009 Yankees. That’s well over 2,000 hits per batter for these lineups.

Interestingly, the DH was added to the AL in 1973, but wasn’t used in the World Series until 1976. In 1975, a rule came into effect that called for the DH rule to be used for ALL World Series games in EVEN-NUMBERED. In ODD-NUMBERED years, pitchers would hit instead.

Alternating use of the DH like that lasted through 1985. Ever since, the DH has been used in all games hosted by the American League team, with pitchers hitting in NL-hosted games. The odd-numbered years from 1975-1985 have a disadvantage in career hits because of the no DH. Pitchers’ hit totals were not added for any year.

World Series Lineups 1969-2019 --- Career Hit Totals