Ichiro could make 200 hits this year

[doe-sun]

Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners has 182 hits, and there's 17 games left. So as long as he maintains his batting average of .302, he'll break 200 hits this year.
That will mean his first 5 years in the majors will have over 200 hits each, and will mean a new record.
His rookie year he got mvp and rookie of the year, and each year after that he won the golden glove.
He's also one of six players to get a thousand hits in his first 4 years, and the last guy who got a thousand hits in his first 4 years did it several decades ago.
March on, brah!

[Faithless]

That's great.

It's funny though, even though he's batting around .300, I think a lot of people expect more from him, and probably see his year as being somewhat of a slump.

[haplesshobo]

Ichiro will never hit .400 though. He's not willing to get enough walks to do that.

[pablohoney]

Well, he has been a bit of a disappointment this year (along with pretty much everyone else on the Mariners except perhaps Richie Sexson). I wish he would try to draw more walks instead of trying to make contact every time he comes to the plate, but I guess that's just not his style.

[haplesshobo]

Beltre has been a major disappointment as well. The Dodgers didn't sign Beltre because they felt those were career numbers, never to be repeated again which they're probably right. But, then they signed JD Drew who also had a career year as well when he actually didn't get hurt that season.

You could argue that Ichiro isn't the most effective lead off batter not only because he doesn't get enough walks, but he doesn't force the pitcher to throw all his pitches so those batting after him know what to expect.

[fresh22]

Do you guys think this is a omnious sign of things to come? Isn't Ichiro in his mid-30's now? Obviously he isn't stealing as many bases as he did when he first started. I wouldn't be surprised if he hit below .300 next year. I think this is the beginning of a downward slide for his career. That also means probably the end of his career if he starts hitting below .300, because he really doesn't hit for much power. There is a general ideal among managers and GM's that the players playing the corner outfield spots are power hitters than can hit 30-40 homers a year. Ichiro doesn't fit that mold. Who knows how much longer Ichiro will last in the U.S. big leagues.

[pablohoney]

^ It's not that dire, he only turns 32 next month and his stolen bases numbers are almost identical to last year, so I don't see any impending collapse on his part. He is also still a very popular draw at the gate so I don't think the Marines will let him go before his contract expires in a couple more years. But after that, who knows...

[haplesshobo]

Do you guys think this is a omnious sign of things to come? Isn't Ichiro in his mid-30's now? Obviously he isn't stealing as many bases as he did when he first started. I wouldn't be surprised if he hit below .300 next year. I think this is the beginning of a downward slide for his career. That also means probably the end of his career if he starts hitting below .300, because he really doesn't hit for much power. There is a general ideal among managers and GM's that the players playing the corner outfield spots are power hitters than can hit 30-40 homers a year. Ichiro doesn't fit that mold. Who knows how much longer Ichiro will last in the U.S. big leagues.

Ichiro is a lead off hitter, so you don't really expect that kind of power from that spot. If he wanted to, he could probably hit mor home runs as he's displayed that power in batting practice. But, it would probably come at the expense of batting average. With the lack of hitting behind him and nobody driving him in, I say he might as well try to hit more since he doesn't fit in the traditional mold of a lead off hitter anyways and that might help bring in more runs.

Ichiro's stolen base numbers are usually about 30s, although his rookie season it was in the 50s. But, he might not even be the fastest player or most natural athlete on his team. That's why you shouldn't expect that many stolen bases from him. Instead, he's fast, probably the fastest player going from home to first. Look at the way he bats, and you'll notice how efficient he is from home to first.

[fresh22]

Ichiro is a lead off hitter, so you don't really expect that kind of power from that spot. If he wanted to, he could probably hit mor home runs as he's displayed that power in batting practice. But, it would probably come at the expense of batting average. With the lack of hitting behind him and nobody driving him in, I say he might as well try to hit more since he doesn't fit in the traditional mold of a lead off hitter anyways and that might help bring in more runs.

Ichiro's stolen base numbers are usually about 30s, although his rookie season it was in the 50s. But, he might not even be the fastest player or most natural athlete on his team. That's why you shouldn't expect that many stolen bases from him. Instead, he's fast, probably the fastest player going from home to first. Look at the way he bats, and you'll notice how efficient he is from home to first.

A great leadoff hitter has the ability to get on base at a high clip. Ichiro is around a .348 OBP, which is on the mediocre side. IF his hits decline, he will have to find other ways to get on base. As others have mentioned above, drawing more walks is one way. I agree with other people above on another thing, I also want to see him try to get more extra base hits (homers, doubles) to try to get away from being mostly a singles hitter. Triples are nice, but he can't do those everytime he goes to the plate.

[haplesshobo]

A great leadoff hitter has the ability to get on base at a high clip. Ichiro is around a .348 OBP, which is on the mediocre side. IF his hits decline, he will have to find other ways to get on base. As others have mentioned above, drawing more walks is one way. I agree with other people above on another thing, I also want to see him try to get more extra base hits (homers, doubles) to try to get away from being mostly a singles hitter. Triples are nice, but he can't do those everytime he goes to the plate.

Yes, that's why I called him an untraditional lead off hitter. But, if his hitting declines, I don't think its as easy as flipping some switch where he finds another way to get on base.

From what I've read, trying to draw walks goes against his whole philosophy of hitting. He's just as likely to retire at that point than try to draw walks.

Plus, that's what makes him such a great hitter in that he'll hit unhittable balls much like Vlad Guerro.

And, you'd have to wonder if he'd ever walked that many times. With a hitter like Barry Bonds, a pitcher is always careful not to throw anything down the middle out of fear that BB will hit a homerun. But, with Ichiro who hasn't really displayed much power, why would a pitcher do that. Even if they throw it straight down the middle and Ichiro hits it, all he'll get is a single.

[lethal]

Whatever happened to Ichiro? (http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/whatever-happened-to-ichiro/)

by David Gassko
September 05, 2005

Whatever happened to Ichiro? Remember that guy? He set the major league record for hits last year, batted .372, and was going to hit .400 this year? Where'd he go?

I haven't seen Ichiro in the media in ages, so I decided to do some investigating. What I found was shocking: Ichiro is not even hitting .300 this season! I'm as surprised as anyone; wasn't this supposed to be the greatest hitter since Pete Rose? Rose was not declining precipitously at Ichiro's age—in fact, at 32 (Ichiro turns the big 3-2 in October), Rose won the National League MVP.

So what happened? How has Ichiro's performance fallen off so fast? Well, it hasn't, really. Take a look at a graph of Ichiro’s batting averages from his major league debut in 2001 to 2005:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/images/uploads/ichiro_graph.gif

That black line is a linear regression that ignores Ichiro's 2004 season, the big outlier in the top right part of the graph. Ichiro's decline has been almost linear, and wholly predictable! This year is no fluke; last season was.

Last season, Ichiro's ground ball-to-fly ball ratio was 3.29, an extreme, Derek Lowe-like rate. Ichiro was hitting everything on the ground, but that helped. Because of his incredible speed, Ichiro just kept getting singles; a record 225 in total. In fact, if you look at his G/F ratios, you'll see that they have an almost perfectly linear relationship with his batting average, with an R-squared value of .88. Ichiro isn’t putting the ball on the ground this year, so he hasn't been particularly effective:

Year G/F AVG
2001 2.63 .350
2002 2.48 .321
2003 1.77 .312
2004 3.29 .372
2005 1.86 .299

The effects of Ichiro's new style this year have shown, and not only in his batting average. Ichiro has already set a career-high in triples (11) and home runs (15), and if the season ended today he would also have a career-high Isolated Power (.147) and Secondary Average (.248).

But why is Ichiro putting the ball in the air so much more this season? I think it has to do with how teams are playing him. Using MLB.com's fabulous spray charts, I was able to find some interesting answers:

YEAR AB H 2B 3B HR AVG G/F BAGB
2001 692 242 34 8 8 .350 2.63 .351
2002 647 208 27 8 8 .321 2.48 .298
2003 679 212 29 8 13 .312 1.77 .306
2004 704 262 24 5 8 .372 3.29 .372
2005 556 164 15 10 15 .295 1.86 .274

The last column is Ichiro's batting average on ground balls. Look at how low it is this season! Ichiro's batting average over the course of his career has remained nearly equal to his batting average on ground balls, so it should be no surprise that his batting average has dropped below .300 when he's only hitting .274 when he puts the ball on the ground.

But why would Ichiro's batting average on ground balls drop so much? It could be one of two things: Either defenses are playing him differently, or Ichiro has lost a lot of speed. I'm almost positive it's the former. If Ichiro has slowed down, then why are his triples up, and his stolen bases and stolen-base percentage nearly equal to his numbers from last year? Why is he posting a career high Range Factor (2.56) and a much better Zone Rating (.883) than last season? His defense hasn't declined and neither has his speed on the base paths, so it seems unlikely that Ichiro has lost so much speed.

Much more likely is that teams are playing him differently. Ichiro has many fewer infield hits this year than last, and his batting average on ground balls seems to be telling us that teams are playing for the grounder—probably positioning their infielders a couple feet further in against Ichiro than they have in the past.

To try to take advantage of this, Ichiro is hitting many more fly balls, but it's not helping much. He's getting a few extra triples and some additional home runs, but he's on pace to create 30 runs fewer than last year. Ichiro is not a fly-ball hitter and it's showing.

So, returning to the question I posed at the beginning of this article, what happened to Ichiro? Nothing, really. His career path is following a pretty normal decline rate, save for last season. Having grown accustomed to his style, teams are playing him differently, and that’s contributed to Ichiro’s falling batting average. But Ichiro is still an above-average player, and a good leadoff hitter. He just isn’t the MVP-caliber player he was last season or in 2001.

David Gassko, a student in Massachusetts, is the author of the Statistically Speaking blog. He welcomes comments via e-mail.

[Faithless]

Whatever happened to Ichiro? (http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/whatever-happened-to-ichiro/)

by David Gassko * September 05, 2005

Whatever happened to Ichiro? Remember that guy? He set the major league record for hits last year, batted .372, and was going to hit .400 this year? Where'd he go?
...
Man, Lethal, nice article. I'm geeking-out on some of those stats. The g/f stat is cool.

Outside of the average, a lot of his other individual stats are pretty constant.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/players/6615/

[Faithless]

Looks like the brother done worked it out --

.303 at 206/679.

[doe-sun]

Yup. He's the only player in MLB history to have over 200 hits a year for the first five years of his career.
Now all he needs to do is workout out more for upper body power. Turn more of those 200 hits into homers.