Ichiro in pursuit of.....Eckstein?

[651akathepaul]

Yo Juan. I got you man, but it's one of those agree to disagree type deals. The best way I can say it is how I did. Having personally seen the guy being nopart of the discussion, I'm hard pressed to say that anyone with his lifetime avg. and hit numbers would not be considered in the discussion.

Again, like i said in this post earlier...The discussion. I, myself, would not put Ichiro in at the top. In fact, I'm not putting him in the top 7 forsure, without thinking about it. I'm only stressing the fact that when you talk about arguing great players of all-time in categories or whatever it maybe, the top 10 usually becomes the bulk of the players being discussed. And I, without a doubt feel that Ichiro, it can be ARGUED, is a top 10 hitter all-timein baseball. However long that argument lasts, is up to those involved. I'm just saying the dude can hit, and no way I will believe any different.

 

[CP1708]

651 point taken, but we have to wait to see how he finishes out.

A great hitter can hit til the day they die. Gwynn, Molitor, Brett, etc etc.

When Ichiro's speed falls off, and those "hits" to short are no more, and he's hittin 270, then we'll all know the truth.

 

[651akathepaul]

^ Fair enough.

To be continued....

 

[juan baller]

Originally Posted by 651akathePaul

Yo Juan. I got you man, but it's one of those agree to disagree type deals. The best way I can say it is how I did. Having personally seen the guy being no part of the discussion, I'm hard pressed to say that anyone with his lifetime avg. and hit numbers would not be considered in the discussion.

Again, like i said in this post earlier...The discussion. I, myself, would not put Ichiro in at the top. In fact, I'm not putting him in the top 7 for sure, without thinking about it. I'm only stressing the fact that when you talk about arguing great players of all-time in categories or whatever it may be, the top 10 usually becomes the bulk of the players being discussed. And I, without a doubt feel that Ichiro, it can be ARGUED, is a top 10 hitter all-time in baseball. However long that argument lasts, is up to those involved. I'm just saying the dude can hit, and no way I will believe any different.

In order for Ichiro to be in the conversation of top 10 hitters of all time, I think you have to use a very narrow definition "hitting"as strictly batting average. Nothing wrong with that, except batting average by itself doesn't really have that strong of a correlation to creating runs.

Tony Gwynn finished with a .338 career average over 20 seasons (including 8 seasons in the '80s, which was a pitching era). Since Ichiro's careeraverage currently sits at .333, he would need to hit .347 starting now until he's 40 years old to catch Gwynn.


And I wouldn't be too worried about Ichiro's speed falling off. He's built like Kenny Lofton, who's speed never really noticeably declined.

Age 38 - .335 avg, successful on 22 of 25 SB attempts
Age 39 - .301 avg, successful on 32 of 37 SB attempts
Age 40 - .296 avg, successful on 23 of 30 SB attempts

Although he was a football player, Darrell Green also has a similar build and the Ageless Wonder maintained his speed into his 40's.

Originally Posted by CP1708

Juan gonna be my agent from now on when I have to battle Ichiro worshipers.

Do you know anything about Steve Nash Juan?

I have a lot of respect for Steve Nash, his shooting %'s are

... a PG that consistently shoots over 50% from the field, and he's arguably the best 3-pt shooter in the league - considering he consistentlyshoots ~45%, takes a good number of 3pt attempts, and it's simply a catch-and-shoot guy. A great stat to look at is Points per FG attempt.

However, his assist numbers are inflated from the all the extra possessions thanks to the "7 seconds or less" offense and the fact those Suns teamshad great finishers. Nash's Assist/Turnover ratio has never been spectacular (he's no Jose Calderon), but that's partly from playing in an uptempooffense. And then there's the whole defensive liability thing.

Bottom line, Steve Nash is slightly overrated as a passer, but he's extremely underrated as a shooter and scorer. But Chris Paul is the Pujols of the NBA.

 

[CP1708]

Originally Posted by Juan Baller

Originally Posted by CP1708

Juan gonna be my agent from now on when I have to battle Ichiro worshipers.

Do you know anything about Steve Nash Juan?

I have a lot of respect for Steve Nash,........

Stop right there, we're done now........... Let's just stick to Ichiro.

 

[651akathepaul]

I don't want to begrudge my argument with Ichiro, and I wish this computer let me quote certain parts of your post Juan, without all the code, but...Idigress. I just want to mention that what you just posted is the exact reason why we won't see eye to eye on this subject. I'm referring to when youmentioned batting avg. not correlating to scoring runs...In frank, I don't care about someone scoring runs because that's not what I'm talkingabout.

I don't look at scoring runs as a barometer that a guy can or can't hit by implementing a virtual reality lineup full of that one person based off ofhis hitting stats. Which, along with that, won't feed into the fact that extra base hits, or Ichiro's lack thereof, leaves him standing alone outsidethis discussion. I guess as you alluded to, I am looking at this very simply. I look more towards hitting as a correlation between hand/eye coordination andputting the ball where the defense isn't.

Again, infield hits aside, the pitches that Ichiro puts into play are pitches that only great hitters can handle. When I say put into play, I'm talkingabout taking pitches, wherever they may be, and looping, driving, slashing any ball that passes the infield onto the grass of the outfield. If it's ashallow fly ball that lands, is that not a hit? It sure isn't luck either (for the most part), because along with infield hits, Ichiro does this quiteoften. It just seems that basing someone's hitting ability is essentially on the sexy means to reaching base, a la extra base hits takes away from theargument.

Heck, it is what it is...Good discussion we got though....

 

[finnns2003]

baseball players bring different strengths to the table. to discredit ichiro is ridiculous. simply put, a lot of major league execs would laugh at juan baller.he sounds like a knowledgeable fan, but is looking too much into things. over analyzing. simply put, every GM would take ichiro and he knows it. the guy isworking on his 3rd batting title. look at what he did the past 11 games. plenty of XBH.

 

[juan baller]

Originally Posted by finnns2003

baseball players bring different strengths to the table. to discredit ichiro is ridiculous. simply put, a lot of major league execs would laugh at juan baller. he sounds like a knowledgeable fan, but is looking too much into things. over analyzing. simply put, every GM would take ichiro and he knows it. the guy is working on his 3rd batting title. look at what he did the past 11 games. plenty of XBH.

You're dead wrong about Major League executives. They use all types of analytics to value players. Unlike other sports where so many players are in motionat once, baseball is very structured and repetitive and therefore can be broken down to a numbers game. The Red Sox have employed statistical guru Bill James(the father of Sabermetrics) as a senior advisor since 2002. No team has won more championships since then. And the Red Sox have done it by filling theirlineup with patient hitters.

Ichiro wouldn't be every GM's choice for a corner outfielder. It's one of the few positions where power is abundant. Do you seriously believeIchiro increases a team's chances of winning more than Ryan Braun?

Sure, batting titles are nice. But hitting for average doesn't correlate with winning championships, which is what GM's care about. The WS championPhillies had one of the worst team batting averages in MLB last season (.255), but they ranked near the top of the league in OPS thanks to drawing a lot ofwalks and slugging extra base hits.

Originally Posted by 651akathePaul

I don't want to begrudge my argument with Ichiro, and I wish this computer let me quote certain parts of your post Juan, without all the code, but...I digress. I just want to mention that what you just posted is the exact reason why we won't see eye to eye on this subject. I'm referring to when you mentioned batting avg. not correlating to scoring runs...In frank, I don't care about someone scoring runs because that's not what I'm talking about.

I don't look at scoring runs as a barometer that a guy can or can't hit by implementing a virtual reality lineup full of that one person based off of his hitting stats. Which, along with that, won't feed into the fact that extra base hits, or Ichiro's lack thereof, leaves him standing alone outside this discussion. I guess as you alluded to, I am looking at this very simply.

Yes, we have very different definitions. As I understand it, you're defining "best hitter" as the player who amasses the most sheer hits.

On the other hand, I define "best hitter" as the most productive hitter. Hard to argue that hitting a double is not more productive than hitting asingle. Also, hard to argue that a 4-pitch walk is not better than hitting a single on the first pitch.

Originally Posted by 651akathePaul

I look more towards hitting as a correlation between hand/eye coordination and putting the ball where the defense isn't.

I can understand looks at the "hand/eye coordination" and "putting the ball where the defense isn't" aspects of hitting. There areclear cut stats to measure both, Contact Rate (the percentage of time time a batter makes contact when he swings) and BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play).Ichiro does well in both categories but he isn't the best.

A lot guys have better" hand/eye coordination" than Ichiro (89.3% career Contact Rate), such as Jaun Pierre (92.5%), Luis Castillo (92.3%), DavidEckstein (92.2%), Placido Polance (91.9%), and Marco Scutaro (90.7%). Not exactly guys you would consider to be great hitters, although they're all adepthit-and-run specialists.

Being able to "putting the ball where the defense isn't" is a rare skill. Ichiro's .358 BABIP is impressive. But guess who's better...right-handed Derek Jeter, career .360 BABIP. Jeter is actually quite a bit better than Ichiro at "putting the ball where the defense isn't" whenyou take into account that, because he bats right-handed, he doesn't nearly beat out as many groundballs as Ichiro (BABIP includes groundballs).

Originally Posted by 651akathePaul

It just seems that basing someone's hitting ability is essentially on the sexy means to reaching base, a la extra base hits takes away from the argument.

The reason I place additional importance on extra base hits is not because they're "sexy". The end goal of coming up to bat is to score a run,not simply reaching 1B. Extra base hits put you closer to scoring a run.

 

[finnns2003]

that bum ichiro keeps on bumming it up, 2-4 with 2 doubles, 2 RBI and 2 runs and a major league leading .370 average.

 

[thezephyr777]

Yeaaaaa

%@@+ Ichiro blows

 

[john ohh]

Originally Posted by finnns2003

that bum ichiro keeps on bumming it up, 2-4 with 2 doubles, 2 RBI and 2 runs and a major league leading .370 average.

Give it up, he is not the greatest, maybe top 25, but definatly not sniffing top 10.

 

[finnns2003]

Originally Posted by John Ohh

Originally Posted by finnns2003

that bum ichiro keeps on bumming it up, 2-4 with 2 doubles, 2 RBI and 2 runs and a major league leading .370 average.

Give it up, he is not the greatest, maybe top 25, but definatly not sniffing top 10.

no one said 'the' greatest... but keep it up. you've already been embarrassed enough in this thread.

 

[throwmonkey]

Originally Posted by Juan Baller

Ichiro wouldn't be every GM's choice for a corner outfielder. It's one of the few positions where power is abundant. Do you seriously believe Ichiro increases a team's chances of winning more than Ryan Braun?

Braun and Ibanez are the only corner outfielders with a higher VORP than Ichiro so far this year. So the numbers would indicate no.

 

[john ohh]

finnns2003 wrote:

---

Originally Posted by John Ohh

finnns2003 wrote:

---

that bum ichiro keeps on bumming it up, 2-4 with 2 doubles, 2 RBI and 2 runs and a major league leading .370 average.

Give it up, he is not the greatest, maybe top 25, but definatly not sniffing top 10.


no one said 'the' greatest... but keep it up. you've already been embarrassed enough in this thread.

Embarrassed? How so? Last time I checked, you stuck by a guy who is single handily the most overrated player in baseball. Im not embarrassed by any means, Istuck by my opinion,I'm not throwing some ob sense stats out there, why would I,any non mariners fan would give him credit,but early in the thread you werestating this dude was god and could break tons of records. Give me a break and stop slurpin.

 

[finnns2003]

Originally Posted by John Ohh

finnns2003 wrote:

---

Originally Posted by John Ohh

finnns2003 wrote:

---

that bum ichiro keeps on bumming it up, 2-4 with 2 doubles, 2 RBI and 2 runs and a major league leading .370 average.

Give it up, he is not the greatest, maybe top 25, but definatly not sniffing top 10.

no one said 'the' greatest... but keep it up. you've already been embarrassed enough in this thread.

Embarrassed? How so? Last time I checked, you stuck by a guy who is single handily the most overrated player in baseball. Im not embarrassed by any means, I stuck by my opinion,I'm not throwing some ob sense stats out there, why would I,any non mariners fan would give him credit,but early in the thread you were stating this dude was god and could break tons of records. Give me a break and stop slurpin.

the most overrated player in baseball huh?

credibility. get some.

 

[john ohh]

Originally Posted by finnns2003

Originally Posted by John Ohh

finnns2003 wrote:

---

Originally Posted by John Ohh

finnns2003 wrote:

---

that bum ichiro keeps on bumming it up, 2-4 with 2 doubles, 2 RBI and 2 runs and a major league leading .370 average.

Give it up, he is not the greatest, maybe top 25, but definatly not sniffing top 10.

no one said 'the' greatest... but keep it up. you've already been embarrassed enough in this thread.

Embarrassed? How so? Last time I checked, you stuck by a guy who is single handily the most overrated player in baseball. Im not embarrassed by any means, I stuck by my opinion,I'm not throwing some ob sense stats out there, why would I,any non mariners fan would give him credit,but early in the thread you were stating this dude was god and could break tons of records. Give me a break and stop slurpin.

the most overrated player in baseball huh?

credibility. get some.



Non Biased Attitude.
Get some.

 

[651akathepaul]

Hey guys, it's me again.

Here is the latest of Ichiro's pursuits soon to be jinxed.

Edit: LONGEST STRETCH WITHOUT CONSECUTIVE HITLESS GAMES

142: David Eckstein, STL NL, 8/22/2005-8/5/2006.
133: Ron LeFlore, DET AL, 6/16/1978-5/22/1979.
129: Al Oliver, TEX AL, 8/15/1980-9/7/1981.
128: Glenn Beckert, CHI NL, 4/7/1971-9/1/1971.
128: Ichiro Suzuki, SEA AL, 8/16/2008-current

I think Ichiro has 129 now though.

 

[Sinner]

not again...

 

[finnns2003]