Ichiro..HOFer?

[Skipaway]

I'd say Keltner list makes way more sense to judge unique players like Ichiro than any specific stats.

1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?

A: Yes. He has been regarded by some as the best player, although he might never has been close to the real best player in baseball.

2. Was he the best player on his team?

A: Yes, especially considering the team he is on.

3. Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?

A: No. I don't think so.

4. Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races?

A: More or less.

5. Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?

A: I don't think we know about this yet. He's been on a pretty consistent level since joining the league and not dropping off yet.

6. Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame?

A: Of course not.

7. Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?

A: No. Actually there aren't really comparable players.

8. Do the player's numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?

A: Not yet. He did great on those black ink, grey ink, Hall of Fame standard kind of indexes though.

9. Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?

A: No. I don't think so.

10. Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?

A: No. I don't think so.

11. How many MVP-type seasons did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?

A: He won one, and gets votes here and there for MVP all the time.

12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many go to the Hall of Fame?

A: Every season is more or less an All-Star season, just not super star seasons. Play in the All-Star game every year, and by this standard, he's a Hall of Famer.

13. If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant?

A: Sure.

14. What impact did the player have on baseball history? Was he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? Did he change the game in any way?

A: This one is pretty big in his favor eh?

15. Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

A: I guess this one is somewhat to his advantage too, in a kind of unconventional way.




Overall, I think he looks pretty much like a Hall of Famer, especially if he plays a couple of more good seasons. You run Abreu or Drew through this list and they'd fair way worse than Ichiro.

[tysok]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

7. Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?

A: No. Actually there aren't really comparable players.

In post 36 he's fairly comparable to Gwynn and Carew on a 162 game average basis.
In order to be better (and really at all) comparable he needs to play for a while longer though, since we see his "prime" averaged right now while going up against these guys who have rookie and past their prime numbers mixed in as well.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by tysok

In post 36 he's fairly comparable to Gwynn and Carew on a 162 game average basis.
In order to be better (and really at all) comparable he needs to play for a while longer though, since we see his "prime" averaged right now while going up against these guys who have rookie and past their prime numbers mixed in as well.

I don't think he's close to Gwynn or Carew at all, and those two are obviously better hitters.

It is pretty bad to use "per 162 game" to compare these players, since that means 751 PA for Ichiro, but 679 PA for Gwynn and 692 PA for Carew.

[JWay]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

I don't think the replacement level is set too low.

With minimum 1000 PA since 2002, closest to 0 in career RAR value on fangraph:

Neifi Perez
Cory Sullivan
Danny Bautista
Alex Sanchez
Desi Relaford
Eric Munson
Tony Clark
Einar Diaz
Tony Womack
Paul Bako
Lastings Milledge
Alex Cintron
Wily Mo Pena
Timo Perez
John Mabry
Orlando Palmeiro
Quinton McCraken
Miquel Cairo

That's everybody within plus-minus five. I think that list is pretty good for replacement level players.

Looks reasonable to me.

As for your question test, Ichiro at 35 is well past his prime by 8 years.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by JWay

Looks reasonable to me.

As for your question test, Ichiro at 35 is well past his prime by 8 years.

Well, actually 27 is the consensus start of the prime years and runs through 32-35 depending on the source.

[tysok]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

I don't think he's close to Gwynn or Carew at all, and those two are obviously better hitters.

It is pretty bad to use "per 162 game" to compare these players, since that means 751 PA for Ichiro, but 679 PA for Gwynn and 692 PA for Carew.

I see, but the fact that's it's not a bad idea because you're averaging only 9 years of information into it (of prime years only pretty much) for Ichiro, but 19 years of information (of both declining and rookie+) is okay?

Carew and Gwynn were great hitters with no power but able to hit doubles. Ichiro, amazingly enough, is a great hitter with no power but able to hit doubles. Biggest difference is Ichiro has a lot more speed (or uses it to steal bases that is).

When Ichiro gets another 5 years done then we can better compare anything, right now it's not easy no matter what you do. However, Ichiro is pretty much half of everything Gwynn and Carew did (except steals which he already meets them on).
If Ichiro had come to the majors at 21-22 as Gwynn and Carew did, he would be easily comparable, maybe even looking to surpass them.

Still, whether he's comparable when it's finished is all in what happens in his next 5 years.

Also, Gwynn and Carew spent most of their time hitting 3rd (2nd at times, Carew seems about split between the two). Ichiro spends his time leading off... of course he has more plate appearances on average.
We could be silly instead and just look at the triple slash:
Ichiro: 332/378/433
Gwynn: 338/388/459
Carew: 328/393/429

Of course that just tells us:
Ichiro gets more hits than Carew but not as many as Gwynn.
Ichiro takes fewer walks than both of them.
Ichiro has more power than Carew but not as much as Gwynn.

But they're all pretty darn close if averaged out.
You can, of course, think whatever you want. But however you decide to average things out these three are quite similar in numbers.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by tysok

But however you decide to average things out these three are quite similar in numbers.

There is a magical way that can sudden makes then very different: league adjustments. Gwynn and Carew both played in era where hitters on average were worse than today. Gwynn and Carew both stands much taller among peers comparing to Ichiro.

[CMH]

I get it, we want walks and power, but Ichiro gets hits. A lot of them.

I disagree with you guys. Ichiro is a elite contact hitter and that's enough for me.

I appreciate OBP and SLG just as much as the next stat head, but I'm not going to ignore roles and ability. Ichiro is not an OBP or SLG guy and that's not his fault. He does what he does very well and it's hit the darn ball which is the basic function of picking up a bat and playing baseball. He's the best of his playing period at doing that.

[rem]

Originally Posted by CMH

Ichiro is not an OBP or SLG guy and that's not his fault.

I'm not an OBP or SLG guy, it's not my fault, do I have your hall of fame vote?

[tysok]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

There is a magical way that can sudden makes then very different: league adjustments. Gwynn and Carew both played in era where hitters on average were worse than today. Gwynn and Carew both stands much taller among peers comparing to Ichiro.

I'll take a minute here and prove your point.
Looking at the numbers from baseball reference of course I see all sorts of interesting stats, some are the league average.

Without boring myself as well as you I'll just put up how much better they were in their career than the league average. Then what that means in terms of 500 ABs.

Carew had .068 better than lg avg BA, Gwynn .076, and Ichiro .068. Pretty much meaning Carew got 34 more hits than lg avg, Gwynn got 38 more, and Ichiro got 34 more.
-They're still pretty much the same in BA over their peers.

Carew had .066 better than lg avg OBP, Gwynn .058, Ichiro .048. Pretty much meaning Carew got 33 more walks, Gwynn got 29 more, and Ichiro got 24 more.
-Obviously Carew is the better of the 3 at being better at getting on base over his peers. We could see that all along though.

Carew had .043 better than lg avg SLG, Gwynn .06, and Ichiro .013. There's your point perhaps. That pretty much means that Carew got 21.5 more doubles (extra bases per hit, obviously could be 5.some HRs more perhaps), Gwynn got 30 more, and Ichiro only got 6.5 more.
-Gwynn and Carew had much better power type numbers than Ichiro does. When it comes to extra bases, Ichiro isn't standing out from the crowd of his peers by very much.

I didn't stop there, because I'm bored and I didn't want to.

OWin% appears to be a teams win % if there were 9 of that guy. Ichiro doesn't do as well again. Carew had .669, Gwynn .668, and Ichiro .621

In AB/SO Ichiro edges out Carew. Carew with 9.1, Gwynn with 21.4 and Ichiro with 10.4.
In SO/BB Ichiro fails again though (as we already knew). Carew with 1.01, Gwynn with .55, and Ichiro with 1.41.


I also did one other thing (fill the time at work here while I wait for something to do). I went and checked out the averages of their careers sort of.

Carew played from 67 to 85 so I looked at the AL averages from those years. I averaged the AB per G. Then I did the same for H, 2B, 3B, HR, and SB. Those averages I divided by the average AB per G... so I came up with a sort of H per AB, 2b per AB etc.

I did that for Gwynn and Ichiro too for the years of their career.
Then I figured up what they "had a right to" per the averages. Their AB*the H per AB, etc. That's how much they had a right to get, and then subtracted that from what they actually did get (to see if they got more than their share or less).

There may be a better way to do it, but I don't care, it was consistent at least - and rather interesting IMO.
Carew got 668 more hits than he was entitled to, 72 more doubles, 47 more triples, and 195 more stolen bases. Rather greedy, but he took 122 less HRs than he entitled to so it's okay.

Gwynn got 744 more hits than he was entitled to, 106 more doubles, 29 more triples, and 96 more stolen bases. He, too, was greedy. But he took 97 less HRs so he's okay too.

Ichiro has gotten 375 more hits than he was entitled to, 38 more triples, and 235 more stolen bases. He also took 99 fewer doubles than he was entitled to, and 107 fewer HRs.

That boils down:
Carew picked up an extra 30.9 total bases (I added SB as a base for this purpose) that he wouldn't have gotten had he been average across the board.
Gwynn picked up an extra 6.5 total bases that he wouldn't have gotten had he been average across the board.
Ichiro has lost out on 72.8 total bases that he would have gotten had he been taking his share of doubles and HRs.

In other words, to get up to the average players total bases Ichiro needs to hit another 73 doubles very quickly.


Of course, now we open the door to another usual suspect. If we picked Ichiro up, who's made his name with singles and speed, and put him playing back in 67-85 with Carew do you really think he's not going to be just as good as he is right now? We're not talking about some power hitter who is obviously taking advantage of conditions that have changed, we're talking about a guy who hits the ball and steals bases, moving back to the time when that was what baseball was...

[mlyons]

Originally Posted by CMH

I get it, we want walks and power, but Ichiro gets hits. A lot of them.

But not enough to make up for the fact that he doesn't get walks or hit for power.

Originally Posted by CMH

I disagree with you guys. Ichiro is a elite contact hitter and that's enough for me.

I appreciate OBP and SLG just as much as the next stat head, but I'm not going to ignore roles and ability. Ichiro is not an OBP or SLG guy and that's not his fault. He does what he does very well and it's hit the darn ball which is the basic function of picking up a bat and playing baseball. He's the best of his playing period at doing that.

It is his fault, though. He has a specific swing and approach at the plate that maximizes his chances of getting a single while reducing his chances at getting other good outcomes. It's made him a very good hitter. I don't think anyone here is arguing against that. It hasn't made him a great hitter, though. He's just too one-dimensional in his approach.

It's not as if he's hitting .400 every season or something. If he were doing that with the same level of power and plate discipline, he'd be a shoo-in. As it stands, he is 30th on the career list at the one thing at the plate he does well -- hit for average. That's actually the only major offensive category in which he breaks the top 100 in MLB history. Again, a very good player, just not a great one.

[tysok]

I also wonder if people are judging him a little wrong. I've gotten finished putting him up against Gwynn and Carew... but that's not his job. Gwynn and (for the majority of his career) Carew were number 3 hitters... Ichiro is a leadoff hitter.

He doesn't have the big flashy numbers like some, he has less power than Gwynn or Carew did... but those power categories aren't his job. His job is to get on base, get over, and get in. He does that extremely well.

Here's an interesting question, which way does this discussion go if Ichiro were a Yankee from '01 to now instead? Imagine Ichiro leading off for the Yanks with the lineups they've had... he'd score far more than 111 runs a year that he's averaging now, and he might even have far more than 59 RBIs a year that he's averaging now.

What is his fault, as noted above, is his swing and approach is built for singles.
What isn't his fault is Seattle being too inept to build a decent lineup around him that will drive him in, and the fact that he's a leadoff man doing exactly what a leadoff man is supposed to do.

Are there any mainly leadoff men in HOF right now? Besides Rickey Henderson who was an anomalous freak.

[mlyons]

Originally Posted by tysok

He doesn't have the big flashy numbers like some, he has less power than Gwynn or Carew did... but those power categories aren't his job. His job is to get on base, get over, and get in. He does that extremely well.

No, he doesn't. That's the point. His career on base percentage is 24th among active players. He's not getting on base as often as an elite leadoff man should.

[tysok]

Originally Posted by mlyons

No, he doesn't. That's the point. His career on base percentage is 24th among active players. He's not getting on base as often as an elite leadoff man should.

I see... although he's the only leadoff man in that top 24. Seems he's the "elitist" of whatever leadoff men there are among active career leaders.

[mlyons]

Originally Posted by tysok

I see... although he's the only leadoff man in that top 24. Seems he's the "elitist" of whatever leadoff men there are among active career leaders.

Meh. We're not looking to put the best #6 hitter or setup reliever in the Hall of Fame, either.

[conception]

Ichiro has been the absolute best of his generation and one of the best of all-time at doing what he does best- getting hits. His OPS isn't as gaudy as some but the type of hitter that Ichiro is really isn't brought out by OPS as it places a lot of value on slugging, which isn't necessary for a table setter and raw OBP, which is important but doesn't take into account that even singles are a bit more valuable than a walk because you can move more runners with singles.

[Prodigal Son]

Russ Branyan has been one of the best at hitting home runs, but he's not even a starter, much less a Hall of Famer.

And hitting home runs is more important than hitting singles.

Being really good at hitting singles isn't a legit way to get into the Hall.

Seriously, guys, as an offensive player, Ichiro is Matt Diaz with some speed. It would be a disgrace to put him in the Hall.

[bigMatt]

Originally Posted by Prodigal Son

Being really good at hitting singles isn't a legit way to get into the Hall.

Now that's as good a reason as any for keeping Pete Rose out of the Hall.

[Afino]

Originally Posted by Prodigal Son

Seriously, guys, as an offensive player, Ichiro is Matt Diaz with some speed.

You know, forgetting the fact that Ichiro doesn't have about a 150 point platoon split between LHP and RHP. He hits both - only a 20 point split, amazingly hitting lefties better despite being a LHB.

[Prodigal Son]

Originally Posted by Afino

You know, forgetting the fact that Ichiro doesn't have about a 150 point platoon split between LHP and RHP. He hits both - only a 20 point split, amazingly hitting lefties better despite being a LHB.

So what you're telling me is that you could platoon Raul Ibanez and Matt Diaz and get significantly better production than Ichiro out of the position?

That would be a cool trivia question: Name all Hall-of-Fame outfielders who are/were worse than a Matt Diaz/Raul Ibanez platoon.

That's one Hall of Fame short list that Ichiro would make.