A few related facts for your consideration ...
What’s Wrong With Ichiro?
- Ichiro Suzuki is 37 years old;
- Ichiro has led the American League in hits in each of the last five seasons, averaging 223 per season;
- over those same five seasons, Ichiro posted a .330 batting average, easily the best in the majors; and
- this season, Ichiro’s batting .252 and is on a pace for only 170 hits;
manager Eric Wedge benched his star right fielder Friday night, after 255 straight games played.
That first fact and the fourth one have combined to result in a lot of loose talk about Ichiro getting old, or hitting a wall, or something else that might explain his surprisingly poor numbers. They’ve also resulted, in some quarters, in a collective amnesia regarding those other facts, in the middle; the ones that describe the last five seasons, including a pretty solid 2010 campaign that ended just a few months ago.
Is Ichiro really over the hill? Well, he might be. But it seems odd that a player who batted .338 last September would suddenly become an old man between then and this April.
Certainly, there are some negative markers this season. But as FanGraphs’ Dave Golebiewski points out, the biggest difference between the Ichiro we’ve admired and this strange, .252-hitting version is batting average on balls in play. To wit:
From 2008 to 2010, Ichiro’s .356 BABIP was third-highest among MLB hitters. His career mark is nearly identical, at .354. But this year, his BABIP is .273. Ichiro is hitting more ground balls than usual this season (62.3 percent, 56.9 percent from 2008 to 2010), and his BABIP on those grounders has dipped 70 points compared to his average over the previous three seasons. His BABIP on line drives is also considerably lower.
Now, his BABiP might be lower because he’s not hitting the ball as hard as he used to. But a line drive’s generally a line drive, right? Ichiro’s ground-ball percentage this season is up, which probably isn’t a good thing. But he’s lost fly balls, not line drives; his line-drive percentage is almost identical to last year’s. The problem with the line drives is that not as many of them are hitting the ground.
Granted, maybe he’s slowing down. He’s not picked up as many infield hits this season, and his Ultimate Zone Rating is subpar. But his baserunning metrics are just fine, and of course UZR’s not particularly meaningful in just a third of the season.
Maybe we’ll never see another batting title again. But Ichiro’s track record suggests that it’s far too early to give up him as a .300 hitter and a good every-day player. Most likely, the grounders will start sneaking through the infield and the liners will start falling safely. It’s all he knows. It’s all we know ...
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