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Ichiro Suzuki broke a Rickey Henderson record
Monday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at Ichiro’s newest record, Cody Bellinger’s big day, and interest in trading for Matt Adams.
Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images
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Ichiro Suzuki wants to play baseball until he’s 50. If he gets to do that in MLB, he’s going to end up setting a bunch of age-related records just for showing up on a given day. He got one of those on Sunday, when he started in center field for the Marlins. At 43 years and 246 days old, that made him the oldest player to ever start in center field, breaking a record held by Rickey Henderson.
No matter how you slice it, that’s pretty impressive. Lasting long enough in baseball to set any “oldest to” record isn’t something players can just will themselves to, since they need to have performed well enough that they get the chance to make it to the record. That being said, Ichiro hasn’t been playing well in 2017, so maybe this is the last age-related record we see from him.
Ichiro has played in 63 games, but mostly as a pinch hitter. He’s batting all of .200/.232/.284, a line poor enough that you don’t need me to tack on any kind of contextual number at the end to understand that it’s awful. He’s going to be 44 before the World Series begins. He doesn’t need to be finished playing baseball by then, but if he doesn’t turn things around this summer, Ichiro might be finished in MLB soon.
He has a $2 million team option, so if he does start to recapture some of the magic of 2016, it’s not hard to believe the Marlins would keep him around for another year. And who knows — maybe Ichiro will decide he wants to start pitching or something if he can no longer hit, and he’ll inexplicably make it to 50 that way.
Thinking about all of that is much more relaxing than considering even for a second that Ichiro might not be able to play baseball well anymore.
- Cody Bellinger had himself a Sunday, hitting a pair of dingers to keep him atop the NL leaderboards while also making a diving grab in right.
- Giancarlo Stanton is having a bounceback year after a good, not great 2016, and he’s also set to defend his Home Run Derby title next month when the All-Star Game heads to Miami.
- Tim Tebow was promoted to High-A by the Mets, which is interesting mostly because he’s been notably bad for their Low-A team.
- Just make Tebow a knuckleballer and be done with it.
- A Nationals fan’s obituary proclaimed that the cause of death was watching the bullpen “blow yet another lead,” so maybe it’s time to make that David Robertson trade.
- Despite a couple of rough games, LSU has made its way to the finals of the College World Series and will take on Florida.
- Jim Lohmar writes that those two teams are perfect dance partners for the CWS.
- Ben Lindbergh wants you to know that the rise in strikeouts and homers isn’t dooming baseball.
- The Braves might not need Freddie Freeman to play third if trade interest for Matt Adams is as strong as reported.
- The Phillies’ rebuild is not going so great at the moment. The Good Phight has some ideas on how to speed it back up.
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