Ichiro

This is 100% true ...

Ichiro Suzuki collided with Brandon Barnes during a communication drill Tuesday at Miami Marlins spring training camp. The impact was minor but enough to send the 43-year-old to the training room with a limp. It was his first visit to such a place in his career.

Let that sink in. Ichiro has been playing professionally since 1992, before Bill Clinton took up residence in the White House. He played nine injury-free seasons in Japan before coming over to the Seattle Mariners in 2001. Since then he’s been on the disabled list once, in 2009 with a bleeding ulcer.

His remarkable longevity is even more impressive when one considers the high level of production he was able to sustain. He hit .322 in limited action at age 38 and .284 in 143 games at age 40. On total, his stats are incredible. Add his 3,030 Major League hits with the 1,278 he racked up in Japan for a total of 4,308. Pete Rose can rest easy knowing that Ichiro will never be the American Hit King, but the diminutive lefty is surely the International Emperor of all things hitting.

It’s difficult to say that a future Hall of Famer, who was an immediate and prolonged cultural phenomenon, has been undervalued in the 16 years he’s been on U.S. soil. I’ll say it anyway.

I’ll also go a step further and say that Ichiro’s body of work is not just underappreciated in baseball circles, but in sports as a whole. When one looks at his physical accomplishments and the way he was able to get the most out of his body, a case can be made that he’s been one of the best athletes in the four major leagues this millennium.

He deserves to be mentioned alongside talents like LeBron James, Cam Newton, J.J Watt and anyone else you want to put on that list.

Ichiro was not blessed with great size. He stands 5-foot-11 and is 170 pounds soaking wet. He’s a man of average proportions who has been able to harness every ounce. Stand him next to Watt or James and the difference in stature would be comical.

That doesn’t mean what he does with his body is any less impressive. Perhaps no hitter in baseball has ever been as good at making contact as Ichiro while standing still. He perfected the art of putting the ball in play while running to first base.

It’s difficult to appreciate just how impressive this unique skill is after all of these years. It’s very rare for a player to come along that does something truly different. Ichiro’s forward momentum hack was like nothing we’d seen before. It’s no gimmick either. The stats speak for themselves.

Any calculus of athletic greatness must include the ability to do something no other athlete can do. Ichiro checks that box. He’s a baseball unicorn.

There’s also plenty of evidence to suggest that he could do more, that he could be a different player. Throughout his career he was a table-setter, providing value by reaching base and putting pressure on the defense. But anyone who has seen him take batting practice has seen him hit home runs at will. Many have suggested he could hit 30-plus homers in a year if he tried. He himself said he’d blast 40 at the expense of a .220 average.

Ichiro’s speed was always devastating. He’s racked up 707 professional steals. His home-to-first time in his younger days was an almost impossible 3.6 seconds. Then there’s his arm. Look at the zip he gets. Insane for a little guy.

Ichiro was also ahead of the curve when it came to baseball-centric fitness. His obsession with stretching and increased flexibility has been on constant display between pitches. He came into the MLB in the wake of the home run wars, when bulky muscles were the most valued commodity. During his career, the prevailing school of thought has caught up to Ichiro and his core-based principles.

Perhaps it a little-guy bias that’s obscured me from a true assessment of Ichiro’s place in the athletic pecking order. Perhaps there’s something too alluring about an average-sized guy performing seemingly impossible feats. Perhaps it’s just way easier to connect with someone who has the same general body type.

If that’s the case and Ichiro is not one of the most stunningly athletic athletes of our time, there should be no debate over his uniqueness. He may be cut from a somewhat common mold, but what he does with that mold is anything but ordinary.

quoted from Kyle Koster - thebiglead.com

Ichiro might be the best hitter ever. At the very least, he ranks with Williams and Cobb.

Hank Aaron weighed 180 pounds. ...

Tony Gwynn..... Rod Carew... Ichiro is the third best hitter in that group.

Ty Cobb hit against pitchers that would have struggled to make minor league teams of today.

Hank Aaron could have hit 40 homeruns and still batted .355..... Oh yeah, he did!

Ty Cobb hit against pitchers that would have struggled to make minor league teams of today.

16 teams 30 teams Somehow, I don't think so. Cobb dominated baseball for 20 years against pitchers who would happily knock your head off. It was a different game, a different era. Aaron did hit .355 with 40 homers in a season. Cobb hit .366 over his lifetime. Williams hit .344 over 19 years with 521 home runs and never legged out a hit in his life. Ichiro has more hits in professional baseball than anyone who ever played the game and broke Sisler's dead ball single season hits record in the modern era. I would be interested to see how Japanese professional teams would fare against the watered down talent in our 30 team swing hard in case you hit it MLB. They are disciplined, can execute the hit and run, play outstanding defense, and sound fundamental baseball. They're better than they are given credit for, I think. I have nothing against Carew and Gwynn, they are both great players. I just think we should give Ichiro his due.

I would be interested to see how Japanese professional teams would fare against the watered down talent in our 30 team swing hard in case you hit it MLB. They are disciplined, can execute the hit and run, play outstanding defense, and sound fundamental baseball. They're better than they are given credit for, I think.

We are about to find out how Japan fares in the WBC. In prior WBC's they have done far better than the US teams have.

Radagast only highlights non-white players and discounts all baseball prior to blacks entering the game in 1948. Both of these are why he thinks Cobb wasn't a great player.

I was a Gwynn fan. Carew maybe a bit before my time. But going by his cards in Strat he was an average to below average fielder at second who prolonged his career by playing first base.

Iwould take Ichiro over either of them any day of the week. He played RF because of his arm but in the seasons he was allowed to play CF he was the best defensively of anyone at the time. And he has performed at a time when in my opinion we have the best players we have ever had. The best athletes with the best training methods, not only nutrition and workouts but the video that is available to expose any weaknesses one might have. And Ichiro excelled.

I just wish we could convince those making card decisions to give us Ichiro in one of his CF years.

I think the only thing that kept him from being a "complete" player at least in the opinion of the sabermetric community, was not enough "patience" at the plate to draw walks and have a higher OBP at the top of the order. But personally I always liked his approach - see the ball, hit the ball. It didn't matter if he had three balls, if he got a pitch he liked, he swung at it and made contact. He wasn't a hacker swinging at bad pitches, he was aggressive, but not too aggressive if that makes any sense. His BA was high enough to compensate for a lack of walks. Most managers would take a hit or at least putting the ball in play over a BB any day. It's not always true "a walk is as good as a hit".

Ty Cobb hit against pitchers that would have struggled to make minor league teams of today.

It is hard to compare different eras but Cobb totally dominated his era making him one of the greatest players of all time.