- Continued his emergence as one of the game's premier talents, batting .324 with 19 HR and 84 RBI in 149 games (148 starts at SS)
- Finished third in the American-League MVP voting (behind Juan Gonzalez and Nomar Garciaparra)
- Was among the American-League leaders in batting average (5th), runs (1st), hits (3rd), triples (T4th), multi-hit games (T2nd) and at-bats (6th)
- Broke the single-season home-run record for Yankee shortstops (previously held by Roy Smalley in 1982 with 16)
- With 203 hits, he joined Phil Rizzuto as the second Yankee shortstop to collect 200 or more hits in a season (Rizzuto had 200 in 1950)
- Broke the Major-League record for the most runs scored by a shortstop in his first three full seasons with 352 (previously held by Detroit's Donie Bush with 343 from 1908-11)
- Joined Frank Crosetti as the only two Yankee shortstops to score 100 or more runs in three or more consecutive seasons (Crosetti did it in four straight seasons from 1936-39)
- Combined with second-baseman Chuck Knoblauch to become the first pair of Yankee middle infielders to each hit 15 or more home runs in the same season (Knoblauch had 17). They also became the third pair of middle-infield teammates in American-League history to record at least 30 stolen bases each in a single season (also SS Jack Barry and 2B Eddie Collins of the 1911 Philadelphia Athletics and SS Bert Campaneris and 2B Phil Garner of the 1976 Oakland Athletics)
- Was named to his first All-Star Team by Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove (0-for-1)
- Drove in a career-high five runs on 5/6 at Texas
- Had a season-high 15-game hitting streak from 5/2-20, batting .456 (31-for-68) with 4 HR and 19 RBI during the streak
- Hit safely in 24 of 25 games from 4/20-5/20
- Was placed on the disabled list for the first time in his career on 6/4 with a strained abdominal muscle sustained on a check swing on 6/3 vs. Tampa Bay. He missed 12 games due to injury and the Yankees were 9-3 in those games
- Was named the American League's Player-of-the-Month for August, batting .382 (50-for-131) with 30 runs, nine doubles, four home runs and 22 RBI in 32 games
- With 50 hits in August, he became the first Yankee to collect 50 hits in a month since Joe DiMaggio had 53 in July of 1941
- Joined Seattle's Alex Rodriguez as the only players to reach 50 hits in a month in the 1990's (Rodriguez had 54 hits in August of '96)
- Had the second multi-homer game of his career in the Yankees' American-League-East clinching victory on 9/9 at Boston
- Started every game of the postseason, batting .235 with 0 HR and 3 RBI. He hit .353 (6-for-17) vs. San Diego in the World Series.
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