Ichiro 4K?

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A debate has been underway in the comments here at HHS today — would Ichiro Suzuki have made it to 4,000 major league hits had he played a full career in MLB? Keeping in mind that Ichiro’s first season in MLB was his age 27 season and he is currently in his age 39 season, let’s look at some numbers, after the jump.

Most regular season hits in MLB, age 27 season through age 39 season:
1. Ichiro Suzuki 2,734 (and counting)
2. Pete Rose 2,658
3. Doc Cramer 2,397
4. Sam Rice 2,374
5. Tris Speaker 2,312
6. Derek Jeter 2,308
7. Ty Cobb 2,300
8. Stan Musial 2,299
9. Tony Gwynn 2,297
10. Honus Wagner 2,287

In all, 35 players other than Ichiro have accumulated 2,000 hits from age 27 through age 39. I took those 35 guys and for each one I checked to see how many hits he had before age 27. Then, for each guy I calculated what percentage that before-27 total constituted of his age 27-39 total. On average, those 35 guys generated (assuming I’ve run the numbers correctly) 30.47% as many hits before age 27 as they did from 27 through 39. At that rate, Ichiro would have generated 833 hits before age 27 (plus 30% of whatever number of hits between now and the end of the 2013 season). That would have put him around 3,600 by the end of this season, well short of 4,000.

To be at 4,000 now, he would have needed 1,266 hits before age 27, which is 46.3% of his current age 27 through age 39 total. How many of our 35 guys who topped 2,000 hits from age 27 through 39 also managed to reach that percentage before age 27? The answer is, six of them. Ty Cobb generated 69% as many hits before age 27 as he did from ages 27 to 39. For Hank Aaron, that percentage was 59.5%; for Tris Speaker, 49.8; Eddie Murray, 48.1%, Eddie Collins, 47.5%; Nap Lajoie 46.5%. The other 29 guys on the list all generated lower numbers using this method than the 46.3% figure that would give Ichiro 4,000 now. What this all means for the question of how likely it would have been that Ichiro would have been able to reach 4,000, I’ll leave to you, but at least you have some historical data that might provide some clues.

By the way, Ichiro’s WAR numbers this season are interesting. It doesn’t require WAR to realize that he has had a terrible season as a hitter — so bad it would not normally justify a roster spot as a major league corner outfielder. But WAR suggests that his baserunning and defense have combined to make him a serviceable player despite his decline as a hitter. His positive Rfield number of 11, if it holds up to the end of the season, would be almost unheard of for an outfielder 39 or older. Indeed, the only other outfielder to generate more than 6 positive fielding WAR runs at age 39 or older was Sam Rice back in 1930. Very few players manage to keep a regular outfield spot at that age, and to do that and also be a real plus-fielder out there is almost unprecedented.

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Voomo Zanzibar

11 years ago

Here’s a glimpse of how Ichiro keeps in shape:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323494504578340672614346856.html

bstar

11 years ago

Good point about Ichiro’s fielding this year. I hadn’t noticed. A cursory glance at his UZR number from Fangraphs gives us +11.2 defensive runs saved, so the two WAR calculations are in agreement there.

b-com, Yaz put up +10 fielding runs in 1979 in his age-39 season. But he only played 35 games or so in the outfield, so I guess that doesn’t qualify him.

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birtelcom

11 years ago

Reply to bstar

Yes, I saw the Yastrzemski 1979 number, but it looks like most of his positive fielding for that season came from his play at first base (where he mostly played when he wasn’t DHing that year), so I didn’t include it.
Yaz was certainly considered a great defensive outfielder in his prime, though, and that is confirmed by the numbers.

Editor

Bryan O'Connor

11 years ago

Seems like this is a question not of Ichiro’s talent, but of when an MLB team would have called him up. Given Edgar Martinez’s lot, he’d barely be over 3,000 hits at this point. If the Mariners fast-tracked him like they did ARod, he’d probably have 4,000.

Given his style, it’s hard to imagine a young Ichiro not getting 200 hits in any season in which he gets 650+ plate appearances. Then again, that style was honed in Japan and might not have been encouraged in the US minor leagues.

mosc

11 years ago

Reply to Bryan O'Connor

I agree with this. If he was drafted by some club at age 20 or so, they would have told him to get his bat speed up and to follow through for a better stroke. He probably wouldn’t have developed into the game’s all time greatest slap hitter. That said, slap hitting isn’t that valuable a profession. Ichiro is not without power when he takes a full swing, I think the minor league baseball trained ichiro would have been a better player at his peak with 15-25 home runs and a higher obp despite the lower BA. Combined with his… Read more »

Howard

11 years ago

Reply to Bryan O'Connor

Did Ichiro actually hone that style in Japan though? He both walked and homered quite a bit more often in Japan. Perhaps it was the bigger parks in the US that prompted a change in style.

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birtelcom

11 years ago

Since his MLB debut in 2001, Ichiro has played in 2,048 regular season games over thirteen seasons, and the Yankees have 15 regular season games yet to play this year. Most regular season games played over a 3-year span: 1. Pete Rose (1968-1980) 2,071 2. Billy Williams (1961-1973) 2,066 3. Pete Rose (1967-1979) 2,057 4. Pete Rose (1965-1977) 2,053 5. Cal Ripken, Jr. (1982-1994) 2,051 6. Pete Rose (1966-1978) 2,050 T7. Ichiro Suzuki (2001-2013) and Brooks Robinson (1961-1973) 2,048 Ichiro will by the end of this season probably end up third on this list. Note that Cal Ripken’s 17-year streak… Read more »

donburgh

11 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

The 1981 strike hurts Rose, don’t forget. Rose played 162 in 1982 and 151 in ’83, but only played 107 due to the short season.

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birtelcom

11 years ago

Reply to donburgh

Very good point. He would likely have been on that top-13 seasons list even more without the ’81 strike

11 years ago

Coming out of high school, Ichiro was 5’9, 124 pounds! If there was such a thing as an international draft, I have a hard time seeing him being drafted. Even in Japan, there wasn’t much interest. He then spends two years in the minors, playing sparingly at the major leagure level. At age 20, he puts up his first big season in Japan. Hard to see that getting him brought over to the US. After all, it’s just one season, he’s still only 20 years old, he’s still small, and there’s still no precedent for a Japanese position player in… Read more »

Editor

John Autin

11 years ago

I believe Ichiro probably would have gotten close to 4,000 MLB hits, had he begun his pro career in the U.S. 1) His record in NPB suggests that he was at the top of his game from age 20 (1994), batting .385 with 210 hits, 300 total bases in 130 games — a year as good as any he had in Japan. The 2nd-best BA in that league was .317, for a batter meeting MLB qualifying standards, and #2 in hits had 154. His hits and BA towered over all others during most of his NPB career. Here’s the Pacific… Read more »

no statistician but

11 years ago

Reply to John Autin

JA:

The definitive commentary. What a discussion killer you are.

Author

birtelcom

11 years ago

Reply to John Autin

A significant reason Ichiro dominates the “hits in the first N years in the majors” lists is that his “first” year fell in the core of a hitter’s normal prime. Most MLB hitters first appear in the majors when they are good enough to be valuable but still have years to continuing maturing as hitters. Certainly other factors are also involved, including a batting style that favors base hits over other things (power, walks) and the ability or luck to play every day without fail, but the “first year at age 27” element is very important to Ichiro’s extremely high… Read more »

Editor

John Autin

11 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

birtelcom, you are technically correct on why Ichiro so completely dominates the “first N years” hits lists. But it makes no difference where one draws the groupings. Ichiro leads “3rd through 7th” and “3rd through 12th.” He leads “4th through 8th” and “4th through 13th.” He leads “5th-9th,” “5th-10th,” and “5th-11th.” He leads for ages 27-31 and for ages 27-36, the latter by about 175 hits over Pete Rose. Within the first 15 years of a career or ages 27-39, you can’t really form any group of years in which Ichiro doesn’t rank very high on the hits list. He’s… Read more »

Artie Z.

11 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

Hits: Age 27-27 – Ichiro 242, 2nd to Sisler who had 257 27-28 – Ichiro 450, 2nd to Sisler who had 473 27-29 – Ichiro 662, 2nd to Sisler who had 719 27-30 – Ichiro 924, Jesse Burkett is in 2nd with 872 27-31 – Ichiro 1130, Burkett 1075 27-32 – Ichiro 1354, Burkett 1301 27-33 – Ichiro 1592, Burkett 1470 27-34 – Ichiro 1805, Rose 1648 27-35 – Ichiro 2030, Rose 1863 27-36 – Ichiro 2244, Rose 2067 27-37 – Ichiro 2428, Rose 2265 27-38 – Ichiro 2606, Rose 2473 So, yes, Ichiro playing his first season at age… Read more »

paget

11 years ago

Reply to John Autin

John- Excellent, I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment you express in the last paragraph. The numbers, in baseball, are sacrosanct. It’s the only sport I know of where the numbers have a genuine life of their own, and you don’t mess with them. What I have been suggesting is that it is not unreasonable to, as you put it, consider Ichiro’s non-MLB performance when evaluating his career. The fact that he hit some sort of milestone between the two leagues doesn’t mean much to me as such (in fact it means far less to me than him getting 3000… Read more »

Editor

John Autin

11 years ago

Reply to paget

paget, that’s well put –“What 4K does [] is encourage me to think about his career in the fullest possible terms.”

I’ll admit that it’s only after “4K” that I looked closely at his early years and realized what a hits machine he has always been. For instance, when Ichiro had 210 hits at age 20, he led his league by a margin of 56 hits, or 18%. (And in a happy coincidence, his 210 hits in 130 games projects to 262 hits per 162 games — the same as the MLB record he set in 2004.)

Jim Bouldin

11 years ago

Reply to paget

paget, I’m not sure what you mean when you say “The numbers, in baseball, are sacrosanct. It’s the only sport I know of where the numbers have a genuine life of their own, and you don’t mess with them”. Is that just an observation of the way things are (as you perceive them), or a comment on how things should be? To me, numbers are not “sacrosanct”, in baseball or anywhere else–they’re just values of some variable you’re measuring/tracking. If they provide useful information relative to your interests/questions, you use them. If they don’t you develop something better and use… Read more »

paget

11 years ago

Reply to Jim Bouldin

Let me be more clear then, JB; numbers in baseball have a character, a life, that they don’t possess in other sports: 755, 714, 660, 61, .367, 3508, etc, are, I bet, all immediately identifiable to virtually every reader of this blog. You can’t really say that about any other sport as far as I know (do people internalize stats in basketball, football, hockey, tennis in this way? That’s not my impression). My comment was geared toward anyone who would actually want to simply incorporate Ichiro’s Japanese stats into his MLB stats. As John Autin said, you don’t say “Lefty… Read more »

Jim Bouldin

11 years ago

Reply to paget

Yes it is, thanks paget. So when you think of numbers, you think of record values. When I think of numbers I think of variables that provide me with information about a system of interest, that help me answer questions.

Personally, I don’t understand the fascination with record values at all. To me, they’re meaningless, outside of what they represent wrt a player’s contribution to his team’s success. We play the game–or we should–to win games and championships, not to accumulate records.

e pluribus munu

11 years ago

Reply to paget

paget,

The force of your claim was demonstrated to me as soon as I saw “.367”: As I’m sure you know, the Iconoclasts have deformed it to .366; the magical beauty is forever gone. It is now just as Jim would have it: a measure of Cobb’s overall contribution seen from a single, limited perspective, as much a soulless pretender as 191.

Jim, we may agree that the role of Fate on the field is a fiction, but I’m not letting you near my Hall of Numinous Numbers.

paget

11 years ago

Reply to Jim Bouldin

epm,
My god, you’re right. When did that happen? And when did he lose two hits? I feel the very ground crumbling underneath me…

paget

11 years ago

Reply to paget

Geez, and Walter Johnson has an extra strikeout now, too? Jiminy Crickets, what is the world coming too? I’ve had these numbers emblazoned in my heart since I was 7 years old! It was all I could do to get over 190 turning into 191. This I really don’t need.

mosc

11 years ago

Reply to John Autin

I think it’s likely ichiro would have 4000 hits if he was started atop the mariners linup in 1994 and left there till the yankees got a hold of him in 2012. That’s certainly not how it would have worked though. He did not have the obvious ability at the plate to make the jump. As said above, that’s not the only question. The other is would he be the same kind of hitter if he had spent considerable time in the minors. I think Ichiro could have been a left handed Molitor with exceptional defense and at least his… Read more »

11 years ago

Reply to John Autin

John A #9 – I respectfully disagree. I seriously doubt that Ichiro would have gotten close to 4,000 MLB hits had he begun his pro career in the US. A few points: 1) As I pointed out in my #8, as an 18 year old, Ichiro was 5’9 and weighed 124 pounds. How does he even begin his US career at that point? We’re talking about a very skinny kid, from Japan, with a very unorthodox swing. If he can find someone who’s interested in him (a very big if!), I think he’s destined to start at a low-level college… Read more »

Editor

John Autin

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

Ed @20 — You make several good points about Ichiro’s path had he started his pro career here. Would you consider my latest take @43 below?

Jim Bouldin

11 years ago

I like your thought process and approach to the problem birtelcom.

PaulE

11 years ago

I believe what everyone here may be missing is the fact that everyone’s career arc is a true bell curve. Suzuki has been on the down side for the last 2-3 years. Going backwards, starting from his age 26 season, give him 225 hits (age 26) 214 hits (age 25) 198 hits (age 24) 175 hits (age 23) and 145 hits (age 22). I believe that would be 957 hits from age 22 – 26. I believe i’m being very generous here in light of the fact that a guy like Pete Rose was 140#s as a rookie at Macon… Read more »

Jim Bouldin

11 years ago

Too much dissing of the quality of baseball in Japan here for my tastes. It’s not like it’s the little leagues over there and they’re all 130 pounds and play with a super ball. I think the constant domination by Japanese teams in the Little League WS probably translated to something real at their major league level. As for the “cultural differences” argument, I don’t think that holds any water. There have been dozens of players who’ve come over early from cultures just as different from the American as Japan is, i.e. Latin America, for six decades or more, and… Read more »

11 years ago

Reply to Jim Bouldin

Wow, I’m stunned that anyone could think that there’s no cultural adjustment difference in coming from Japan vs. coming from Latin America. I’d write more but I’m way too stunned to say anything.

Jim Bouldin

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

You have to provide evidence Ed. Way too hypothetical and generalized.

11 years ago

Reply to Jim Bouldin

Jim – You’re demanding that others provide evidence for their viewpoints (myself and Birtelcom for example) but not willing to do the same for yours. Sorry, but I’m not playing that game.

Jim Bouldin

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

Wrong. You raise the hypothesis, then you provide the evidence for it. And how much Ichiro weighed in high school ain’t evidence btw.

e pluribus munu

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

Gotta go with Jim on this one, Ed. The adjustment from Japan in 2001 for a guy from the Nagoya ‘burbs would probably have been roughly comparable to the adjustment from a non-English speaking Western European country for someone from just outside a large non-capital city. It would be moving from one wealthy, urbanized, commercialized, high-tech, high education culture to another.

Of course, you’d have to add in the disorientation of driving on the right . . .

11 years ago

Reply to e pluribus munu

Ummm…EPM we’re not talking about 2001. We’re talking about 1992. We’re talking about an 18 year old kid. We’re talking about someone that doesn’t speak the language. We’re talking about him being in a country where hardly anyone speaks his language. We’re talking about him being in the minor leagues, living in small towns. I could go on but I think you get the picture.

I’ve traveled extensively. I’ve lived in five other countries. I’ve never met anyone who finds living in another culture easy. And the more different the culture is, the harder the adjustment is (generally speaking).

e pluribus munu

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

Ed, You got me on the year – I wasn’t thinking – but actually, Japan was in many ways closer to the US in ’92, during its “Japan as #1” heyday before the Asian financial crisis, than in 2001. The issue isn’t the difficulty of adjustment – of course it would be hard for a kid – the issue Jim raised was the comparative difficulty, Japan vs. Latin America. I’m not sure whether it’s one of the places you’re familiar with, but Japan has been a first world country since the 1920s, with time out for its WW II self-destruction… Read more »

Author

birtelcom

11 years ago

Reply to Jim Bouldin

Yes, Ichiro is in that elite circle of outstanding contact hitters. But of those, only two made it to 4K, or even came close (number three on the all-time hits list is Hank Aaron, more than 200 hits short of 4K). There are many reasons most of the supreme contact guys haven’t made it to 4K — for each hitter there is a set of reasons. We don’t start with a complete blank slate with Ichiro, because we have the fact that in Japan he did actually produce 1,278 hits before his age 27 season. He did not in fact… Read more »

Jim Bouldin

11 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

Well, the question is inherently speculative, no matter how you look at it, and for that reason I wonder why I’m even spending any time on it. There’s some big supposed difference between being ages 20 and 27, wrt how Ichiro can handle American culture, and this would necessarily have had a big impact on his performance pre-27? To that I respond: show me the evidence. What I see is a guy who came over here at age 27, and **in his very first year**, never having seen any of these MLB pitchers or parks, immediately raked AL pitching staffs… Read more »

Author

birtelcom

11 years ago

In any counter-factual “what if?” scenario, where we speculative on how history might have proceeded if something had changes, it is always a difficult problem to select which of a thousand actual circumstances we are assuming would change and which would have stayed the same. Every different view of the Ichiro 4K question seems to offer a different of assumed changes and assumed continuities. I tried to avoid these issues in my original post by just sticking to stuff that we can study: how real guys with Ichiro’s relevant attribute (lots of MLB hits from age 27 to 39) actually… Read more »

e pluribus munu

11 years ago

Reply to birtelcom

“guys who get diminutives for their first names?”

Ichiro means #1-guy (as a name, first-son), and you can’t get much more diminutive than 1. I think you’ve stumbled on a little known Law of Baseball, birtelcom.

PaulE

11 years ago

He would have needed 1300 hits before age 27 and he was NOT going to be playing on a ML field before age 22. If you believe he could average 260 hits per year from age 22 through 26, then you also believe in Santa Claus, the single-bullet theory, and …… For crissakes, he wasn’t even going to get drafted out of high school in 1991 at 140#s. So, now he’s going to college and waiting to put on 30#s so some scout feels he doesn’t have to go out on a limb. There is just no way he plays… Read more »

Jim Bouldin

11 years ago

Reply to PaulE

Well, you sure do know what would have happened in this alternate reality with great certainty don’t you?

And by the way, he’s not done playing yet.

Now how about you go back to watching football or whatever it is you do Einstein?

Author

birtelcom

11 years ago

Reply to Jim Bouldin

Now, now, guys. Just a discussion among friends here.

Paul E

11 years ago

Reply to Jim Bouldin

Jim Bouldoin:
This from Wikipedia:
Despite his outstanding numbers in high school, Ichiro was not drafted until the fourth and final round of the professional draft in November 1991, because many teams were discouraged by his small size of 5 ft 9 1⁄2 in (177 cm) and 124 pounds (56 kg).

A little light in the ass out of high school for the professional draft in the US, no?

Roll Tide

Richard Chester

11 years ago

Most career hits by a player at his age 26 season who started playing in his age 20 season: Hank Aaron 1309

Most career hits by a player at his age 26 season who started playing in his age 21 season: Lloyd Waner 1174

Most career hits by a player at his age 26 season who started playing in his age 22 season: Al Simmons 957

PaulE

11 years ago

Richard Chester,
Thanks for the info. Joe Medwick had 1,072 hits between age 22-26. That won’t help Ichiro, either

MikeD

11 years ago

For Ichiro to have played his entire career in MLB he almost assuredly would have then been a product of MLB. His hitting style would never have survived, meaning he would have been coached differently and he would have been forced to change through college and the minor leagues simply because he wasn’t Ichiro then, he would have been just some kid who needed to be “fixed” if he had any hopes of making it to the majors. For the most part, I believe the homogenization of both batting stances and pitching motions have increased the overall level of play… Read more »

Editor

John Autin

11 years ago

I may have missed it, but I don’t think any of the speculation has taken this path: Suppose Ichiro had come to MLB *after* his phenomenal breakout year in NPB, starting here at age 21. — No one would have tried to change his stance. — His adjustment would have been helped by the confidence gained from a superstar season in a high-caliber league. — That would give him 6 more MLB seasons than he has now. In his first 6 MLB seasons, he totaled 1,354 hits. If he had totaled 200 less than that in these hypothetical MLB years… Read more »