Earlier on Wednesday, we brought you video of Ichiro’s Willie Mays-like over the shoulder catch in Spring Training. This prompted Joe Posnanski to not only name him the Player of the Day (a rather arbitrary award that Posnanski made up), but also opine that “there has never been a player in baseball history quite like Ichiro Suzuki.”
An Appreciation Of Ichiro Suzuki
↵↵Or, anyway, there certainly has not been a player quite Ichiro since Deadball, when players like George Sisler and Ty Cobb whacked lots of hits and didn’t walk much and stole bases. Sisler, in many ways, seems like a decent offensive comp to Ichiro — great batting averages (Sisler .340, Ichiro .333), surprisingly low corresponding on-base percentages (Sisler .379, Ichiro .378), good stolen base numbers, some ridiculously high hit seasons (Ichiro, of course, broke Sisler’s hit record when he picked up 262 in 2004. They are the only two players to have two seasons with 240 hits).
↵But that’s just offense. And while Sisler was a first baseman — and there has been some disagreement about how good — Ichiro is one of the most dynamic defenders of his time. You have already seen, I hope, the catch he made during a spring training game on Tuesday — it’s spectacular. I have watched in about 23 times already today, and I’ll probably watch it at least a few more before dinner. One catch does not define a player, I suppose … but just WATCH THAT CATCH. It tells you an awful lot about the kind of defensive player Ichiro has been for almost a decade now.
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