Ichiro is an unconventional player. Ichiro has always been an unconventional player. You’ve read more surprising and insightful sentences today. That “Caution: contents may be hot” warning on the cup of coffee you bought? More surprising, and more insightful.
The Ichiro Suzuki Disaster Scenario
For much of his career, people have been predicting that Ichiro would eventually decline into a Japanese version of Juan Pierre. Welcome to this season.
For so long, Ichiro made work an approach - to an extraordinary degree - that you wouldn’t think would work as well as it has. He never really walked. He never really hit for power. He just swung, and he ran. If he put the ball in the air, he’d flip it over the infield. If he put the ball on the ground, he’d leg it out. He took a very unusual route to ten consecutive .300+ seasons, to say nothing of all he accomplished in Japan.
But along the way, Ichiro has had his skeptics. Real people, too, not just PECOTA. And there have been realists. People who realized that Ichiro couldn't stay amazing forever. And the consensus opinion among them was that Ichiro would decline eventually, and become Juan Pierre. Another guy who slapped and ran, but generated worse results.
A very scientific Google search for "Ichiro" + "Juan Pierre" yields 426,000 results (with SafeSearch turned off; otherwise I couldn't ever search for the Astros). It's been a popular comparison. And though many felt on some level that the time of Ichiro's decline would never come - that he'd just keep on hitting, either forever or until he morphed into a butterfly and flew away - we've all been forced to deal with the reality of the 2011 season. And, about that 2011 season:
Ichiro: 85 OPS+
Pierre: 85 OPS+
(OPS+)
Maybe OPS+ doesn’t quite do it for you. In that case:
Ichiro: 84 wRC+
Pierre: 84 wRC+
(wRC+)
Continuing:
Ichiro: 0.3 fWAR
Pierre: 0.5 fWAR
(fWAR)
Ichiro has essentially been Juan Pierre. The scenario so many have predicted for so long is finally here. (Not that they deserve credit - they’ve been predicting decline for years.) Ichiro and Pierre have both made a lot of contact, put a lot of balls on the ground, hit a number of singles, and stolen some bases. There have been some differences - Ichiro’s been the better base-stealer and, as Grant Brisbee put it, “Ichiro can throw Juan Pierre farther than Juan Pierre can throw a baseball” - but, overall, the outcomes have been the same. Ichiro and Juan Pierre have played just about every day, and neither has been demonstrably more valuable than the other.
I find that to be simultaneously really shocking, and really not shocking at all. As a Mariners fan, I've bought into all the Ichiro wizardry over the years. I couldn't imagine a time that Ichiro wouldn't be Ichiro. But yet, I've also never been able to silence the rational part of my brain, the part of my brain that told me baseball players can't be good baseball players until they die of old age. That part of my brain has told me this would happen eventually, and so that part of my brain isn't surprised by what we've seen.
Of course, there’s evidence to suggest that Ichiro might bounce back to some degree in 2012. His BABiP is way below where it’s been in the past. And, because he’s Ichiro, I choose to believe that he’s capable of making the necessary adjustments over the offseason, maybe finally turning to a more power-based game as has long been rumored. This whole Ichiro-as-Juan-Pierre thing might only be temporary.
But then, it also might not. This just might be how things are until one or both of them get worse and walk away. And in that case, baseball will have lost a true magician. On the plus side, at least then we’ll be able to better appreciate just how magic he really was.
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