So why do some scouts believe Ichiro is one possible answer to the Yankees’ hunt for more home runs? The answer can be found during batting practice, when the Japanese star puts on a power display that rivals any of his teammates’ — and that includes Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson.
“[Ichiro] can hit the ball farther than any of them,” is what one bird dog said this week. Of course, there’s a huge gulf between those make-believe blasts at 5 p.m. and what the Yankees actually need from Ichiro once the game begins. But the point nevertheless has traction: What if Ichiro really did change his approach to take advantage of the Stadium’s short right-field porch over a full season?
Actually, there’s statistical proof that suggests Ichiro morphed last summer, nearly quadrupling his home run ratio after being traded to New York. Ichiro managed one HR every 100 at-bats with the Mariners, but, upon becoming a Yankee, hit one every 26 in the Stadium.
... If Ichiro has the power to go 400-plus feet in batting practice, and the in-game IQ to predict a pitcher’s sequence, why not lean on him for a few more home runs, especially in the Bronx this year?
He pondered the question, listening intently as the interpreter navigated from English to Japanese. Ichiro finally nodded.
“I’ll hit home runs,” he said. “If it’s OK for me to hit .200.”
And then he smiled. Broadly.
Repoz
Posted: February 27, 2013 at 01:27 PM |
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1. Jim WisinskiI freaking love Ichiro!.
And then he smiled. Broadly.
Doing a little eye-balling, for Ichiro! to hit around .200 while still achieving an OPS around where he's been the last few years (.700 or so), he'd need about 30 HRs.
Ichiro a TTOer? Say it ain't so!
Funnily enough for Ichiro, it would seem to present itself as the perfect storm. Homers are easier to come by in Yankee stadium and they do require someone to try to step up. I'd love to see him try to hit 25-30 homers just for the hell of it.
If Ichiro went out and put up a 1982 Dave Kingman stat line, it would be f@cking awesome. I would bow down. He would be my Lord and Master.
Can we question the replacement level?
I think it's been researched and verified, and it was more than him hitting three homeruns, it's that he told the press he was going to go out there and hit homeruns before the game.
They'll be fine!
why anyone thought they needed to add to the legend of an already fascinating player baffles me
and others lapped it up
good grief
FWIW- Pete Rose in the 1960s a quasi-deadball era, hit 10-15 homers a year, basically equivalent to hitting 15-20 in most other eras
then his K-rate dropped some 30-40% and he averaged 3-5 homers a year the rest of his career- he wasn't hurt- he was Pete Rose and he was obsessed with getting 200 hits a year and getting to 3000 then 4000 hits... (And walk rate went up as his k-rate went down too- he was a very selective hitter in the later half of his career- his whole approach was geared to making solid contact but not necessarily to drive the ball- lost of doubles but no homers)
I'm half rooting for him to hit 20 in 400 at bats just to see the Ichiro naysayers have anyuerisms
I'm entirely rooting, but only if his batting average is .198, with 139 strikeouts.
I guess if you're going to call your shot that way, you'd want to do it against the league's worst pitching staff and its best home-run-hitting park.
That's not a knock on what Cobb said & did; just that he was smart not to bring it up, say, before the Tigers' 4-game series at Comiskey a couple of weeks earlier.
In 1925, Cobb went from May 7 to June 1 without a homer, and then from June 26 to October 1 without a homer. Weird. Eerie.
All of us could have done it if we'd wanted to. It's the one and only qualification for the Old Farts Club. All ages welcome!
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/24437/the-day-ty-cobb-hit-three-home-runs
Well, Clara Bow had the it, and Bill Clinton can tell you all about the is. It's on first and is is rounding third and heading for home.
I once hit .520 in high school and .600 in a DC sandlot league that had at least one future Major Leaguer and several minor leaguers. I'm sure if I'd stuck with it I could've hit .680 in AAA and who knows what in Japan, as long as they didn't make me eat fish.
at least per the myth, is that Cobb "had made his point," as Alexander says: much like a prestige writer suddenly cranking out a bestseller (the Autobiography of Alice B Toklas comes to mind, as well as a short story idea: Ty Cobb visits Gertrude Stein to discuss aesthetics …) After you show you can do it, you go back to the more refined style of play.
Nobody can discuss aesthetics like Ichiro, so I look forward to some sort of colloquium after his inevitable 3-HR game this year.
into looking at strike three, using a fake IBB Ruth set-up, going thru 3 pitchers to do so, and a lot of fake rage, "if I tell you to %$^&ing; walk this big
gorilla, you damned well are gonna walk him. Unnerstand bush?" Something like that.
After Ruth looked helplessly at strike 3, bat on shoulder, Cobb supposedly rolled around on the outfield grass, cackling.
Anybody else hear of this tale?
Sounds like a handle change is in order!
I remember the trolling well, but not the revelation.
Speaking of rsbb trolls, whither Roger L. Maynard?
Cordially, as always.
Behold! A new BTF meme!
I've heard this before, but with "some player", not Ruth. Basically it goes like this:
- Cobb walks to the pitcher's mound to pretend to tell the pitcher to IBB the batter. Instead tells the pitcher to groove a fastball. Cobb goes back out to CF.
- Pitcher puts a strike right down the middle. Cobb goes nuts, runs in, yells at the pitcher, brings in a reliever, goes back to CF.
- New pitcher puts a strike right down the middle. Cobb goes ballistic, runs in, screams at the pitcher, brings in a reliever, screams at the new guy, goes back to CF.
- Newer pitcher throws strike three right down the middle.
No clue whether this story had ever been verified.
in CF after its pull-off, laughing his butt off, etc.
If that rule was not in effect in 1925, Retrosheet should have a box score showing a reliever who did not complete 1 BFP.
No idea whether that one is true, either.
Done!
LOL
I think you've captured the myth and mystique of baseball right there.
Historians might know better than I -- was there an environmental shift (bats, balls, stadia, lighting, pitching style) that made a flyball/HR swing more effective in the 20s than it had been earlier? I recall hearing tales of prohibitions on uppercut swings. If true, were they grounded in truth or faulty conventional wisdom?
Well, perhaps he really wanted to make an as$ out of the Babe. I can see Cobb gloating on occasion, like he did when he drove his shiney new Chalmers around and around the streets outside of the ballpark, honking the horn and rubbing his MVP in all the other players' faces, years earlier.
Wait, don't tell me this one's apocryphal, as well?
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