So, there IS a chance?

This is all luck anyway. Look at his PrOPS! Just 736, with a .291 projected average. Ichiro sucks.

Hell, he's always sucked. Look at his PrOPS batting averages!

2004: .306 (actual .372)
2005: .307 (actual .303)
2006: .296 (actual .322)
2007: .270 (actual .351)
2008: .297 (actual .310)
2009: .291 (actual .375)

Or maybe I'm making a sarcastic point about an interesting but problematic statistic.

Oh, the graph is logarithmic. That's kinda weird.

Yesterday somebody suggested that Ichiro might get to 3000 hits in US Major League baseball.

Might? How about when? 2016?

He's currently averaging 230 hits per 162 games, and he's been remarkably durable through his career. He's also likely to be ending the season with close to 2050 career hits, which will leave him with 950 to go.

I'll guess that he gets there in either late 2014, or early 2015.

Ichiro getting to 3000 hits in MLB would be an astonishing accomplishment. I'd rank it up there with Vander Meer and Cy Young's win total in impressiveness.

Ichiro began his career at age 27. The only player with 3000 hits from age 27 on is Pete Rose (who went well over with 3357). It would be an amazing feat indeed.

Most hits age 27+:
1. Pete Rose 3357
2. Sam Rice 2925
3. Honus Wagner 2766
4. Stan Musial 2635
5. Ty Cobb 2589

Nobody else even has 2500.

Ichiro began his career at age 27. The only player with 3000 hits from age 27 on is Pete Rose (who went well over with 3357). It would be an amazing feat indeed.

Sam Rice came up less than 100 hits short of the 3000 mark, and would almost certainly have cleared it if he hadn't lost the 1918 season to service in the war (or if baseball was playing 162 game seasons during his time).

Pete Rose had 4683 hits in professional baseball.

Ichiro had 1278 hits in Japan meaning he'd need 3405 hits in the majors for the all time professional baseball record. Ichiro has a skill set that ages well, so that's not even too unreasonable.

Ichiro sucks

Well I wouldn't quite go that far. And yes, all the modern stats might show he isn't as valuable as he is perceived to be. However from a baseball fan's standpoint, the chase for .400 is fun regardless of what sabermetrics say about his performance.

Ichiro has a skill set that ages well,

Except for the over-reliance on infield hits.

Well I wouldn't quite go that far.

Neither would the guy who wrote it, as I think he was really bagging on PrOPS, not No. 1. Son.

Except for the over-reliance on infield hits.

Actually, speed ages well.

Actually, speed ages well.

Yes, but Ichiro has more infield hits than even the typical speedy hitter.

So, Ray: if Ichiro manages to get 3,000 MLB hits whilst maintaining an average north of .310 or so, would you still decree him unworthy of the Hall of Fame? Just curious.

Yes, but Ichiro has more infield hits than even the typical speedy hitter.

Yeah, but Ichiro is better than the typical speedy hitter.

We're not talking about Willy Tavaras here.

Is there any evidence that hitters who get a notable number of infield hits age poorly? (Maybe there is! I'd be interested to see it, but I've never heard of such a study.)

Speedy hitters tend to outperform Props, slow ones tend to underperform it. Look at Dunn for the other side of the coin. It doesn't make Props useless.

Neither would the guy who wrote it, as I think he was really bagging on PrOPS, not No. 1. Son.

Ahh, I see now...thanks.

Actually, speed ages well.

Ummm, is there evidence of this? Because intuitively one gets slower as one ages... And I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that speed is one of the keys to getting heaps of infield hits.

According to this article, Ichiro has averaged just under 50 infield hits a season over his career in MLB, and is on pace for 74 this season. Even if you strip away every one of these infield hits, which is completely unrealistic, he'd still be averaging 180 hits per 162 games.

#21 is just an eye-popping stat. Ichiro is one of the most fun and interesting players in the game, that's for sure.

Would the Mariners trade Ichiro under any normal circumstances?

Would the Mariners trade Ichiro under any normal circumstances?

Of course not. The M's have every intention of keeping him -- and his mythology -- a part of Seattle until the day he retires.

is there evidence of this?

'87 <u>Baseball Abstract</u>, p. 67.

Pete Rose had 4683 hits in professional baseball.

Ichiro had 1278 hits in Japan meaning he'd need 3405 hits in the majors for the all time professional baseball record. Ichiro has a skill set that ages well, so that's not even too unreasonable.

And Ichiro's will have all been in NPB and MLB, unlike 400+ of Rose's from the minors. If you're counting 1278 for him, you're only counting his major league Japanese hits for 1992 and 1993. I'm not going to begin to try to find minor league Japanese numbers from 20 years ago, but still.

#21 is just an eye-popping stat.

You know what's an eye-popping stat? 262 ############# hits. Honestly, I had forgotten he set that record. My reaction to seeing the number on the page was "262 what? Oh, ####!"

Actually, equally impressive is that we're sitting here talking about quite possibly the greatest (by one standard, getting hits) hitter of all time, and there's a guy who's one point ahead of him in active BA coming into the season. That's not the impressive part, the impressive part is that guy is 29, also leads in active SLG, and has 350+ homers.

If you had told me I'd see a guy in my life who hit like Boggs and Gwynn, with the exception of hitting 40 homers a year, there's not a chance I would have believed it. I didn't, and I'm not sure I even still do, think there was room for Ted Williams in today's game.

Actually, speed ages well.

Ummm, is there evidence of this? Because intuitively one gets slower as one ages... And I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that speed is one of the keys to getting heaps of infield hits.

i think that one's whole body gets slower, and so a player who's more athletic is more likely to be able to still keep up as he loses his top athleticism. If you think about speed not merely as d/t, but in terms of whole body athleticism (for which it's a pretty good proxy), it helps explain why speedy players age well.

If you had told me I'd see a guy in my life who hit like Boggs and Gwynn, with the exception of hitting 40 homers a year, there's not a chance I would have believed it.

Frank Thomas did that pretty much throughout the 90s.

(And of course Boggs walked a lot more than Gwynn.)

Ichiro's year is really fascinating. He's hitting .375 with a babip that's reasonably close to his career norm (.395, .356 career). You'd think that he's hitting more line drives to achieve that modest bump in babip, especially considering his doubles surge (14 so far; no more than 22/year in several years). But he's not. His LD rate sits at 18%, below his 21% career average. Plus, he's not getting any faster. He's advancing on hits at about the same rate but his SB attempts are lagging a bit this year. Only 18 attempts so far, compared with at least 45/year in recent years. His CS rate has also risen, though it's too small a sample size to draw a conclusion from that alone.

He also has five unintentional walks so far. He's never been a big walker, but even for him this is well behind pace. But he's also striking out less, so basically, he's putting a #### ton of balls in play.

[25] Thank you. I believe there is also an article in the New Historical Abstract (which isn't really new anymore), but I don not have my copy with me at the current moment.

Frank Thomas did that pretty much throughout the 90s

That's whyFrank Thomas is the Most Underrated Hitter of All Time.

Ichiro had 1434 hits in Japan if you count his minor league Japanese hits. So 3249 is the magic number.