One of the more interesting stories 2.5 Months into this 2016 MLB Season has been the play of Miami Marlins OF Ichiro Suzuki.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
Entering play Saturday, Ichiro is carrying a .354 batting average in 127 ab’s. He has a .816 OPS, and a .360 wOBA.
The 42 year old is playing as if he has turned back time. The last three years have mostly been a struggle. This year he’s walking more, striking out far less, and back to hitting RHP ( .811 OPS, .349 baa in 106 ab’s) as compared to the (.578 OPS, .240 baa he had posted against RHP in 965 ab’s the three previous years).
Now 20 hits away from 3,000 MLB hits, this week Ichiro reached the milestone of 4,257 combined MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) hits. Ichiro’s combined total being one more than Pete Rose’s MLB career hits record.
Rose has chaffed a bit at any discussion of Ichiro being baseball’s new hits leader.
I think anyone can understand Rose’s point. All of Rose’s 4,256 hits were in MLB. 1,278 hits in Ichiro’s combined total were accumulated in Japan.
Yes, Rose remains MLB’s hitter leader. Yes, the NPB is not as talented as MLB.
I don’t think anyone denies or questions the above two points. They seem fairly self-explanatory.
(Though my understanding has always been the NPB is closer to the equivalent of AAAA vs. the in-between AA and AAA level that Buster Olney stated it to be several times this week at ESPN. Again, not the same as MLB, but an extremely high level of quality.)
What didn’t get enough discussion in my opinion is remembrance of what Ichiro achieved in his first Major League season (2001 at the age of 27). During that ’01 season, he posted a .350 batting average, racked up 242 hits, and helped Seattle win 116 games.
Ichiro was the American League’s batting champion, Rookie of the Year, and the Most Valuable Player.
Hard to imagine how one could craft an argument that articulates he would not have produced at the MLB level, had he been able to come to the US at an earlier age.
A remarkable career that should be celebrated as such.
Some Quick AL East Takes (Outside of Baltimore):
– Boston entered today with a positive run differential of +78. They are 1st in Slugging, 1st in On-Base %, and 1st in Runs Scored. David Price has pitched better after struggling early. Rick Porcello has been solid. 31 year old Knuckler Steven Wright has been a stabilizing force. Clay Buchholz has been a mess. Joe Kelly has been worse. Eduardo Rodriguez has made just four starts. MLB Prospect Pipeline had four Boston prospects in their Top 100 list to begin the year. There doesn’t figure to be much quality starting pitching available at the Non-Waiver Deadline. However, the Red Sox figure to be aggressive with any talent that does make it to the market.
– After a 11-14 April, Toronto has gone 28-18 after Saturday’s loss to the O’s. They are within 2 games of the AL East lead. They mash like the O’s, but unlike Baltimore came in to today tied for the Major League lead in Quality Starts. One issue for the Jays, they are just 29th in Defensive Efficiency. Toronto has already played 41 games against the East (compared to 30 for Baltimore).
– It’s fairly remarkable to me that the Yankees are a .500 team. All I see is age. It’s a lineup with a lot of recognizable names, but certainly doesn’t intimidate. Lots of talk about Andrew Miller, and Carlos Beltran being trade bait. By era (2.20), CC Sabathia is having a strong ’16. A closer look at his numbers (4.52 xFIP) show not much has changed from the last couple of years. The K, and BB ratios look similar (K’s very slightly up, BB’s actually up). The big positives for him are an improved LOB%, and significantly lowered HR ratio. Wish the best for Sabathia as a person going forward (when the Yankees visited Baltimore to end 2015, Sabathia checked himself into rehab for alcohol), but don’t believe the narrative that we are seeing a return to his former success.
– Tampa Bay is 9th overall in slugging, and 4th overall in homers. Had you told me in March that would be the case come mid-to-late June; I would have expected the Rays to be better than their 31-34 record. While the slugging has been good, they Rays have struggled to put men on base, and thus are just 24th overall in runs scored. I thought Tampa Bay would have a chance to hang around in the East due to the strength of their rotation. Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Drew Smyly, and Matt Moore being a nice quartet in-terms of talent. Unfortunately for the Rays, the production has not been there this year. Archer, Smyly, and Moore each have era’s at 4.60 and above. Smyly does have a superb K% though. As ’13 ended, Moore seemed poised to consistently be one of the AL’s best pitchers for the foreseeable future. ’14 and ’15 were mostly lost to injuries. Will be interesting to see what Moore provides over the remainder of ’16. Going back to the offense, Evan Longoria is on-pace for 42 bombs. His slugging percentage in ’14 was .404, and .435 in ’15. This year he’s at .532. Former Oriole Steve Pearce is raking like it’s 2014 again, with an OPS approaching 1.000 over his initial 162 ab’s as a member of the Rays.
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