Ichiro/Sisler Watch!

"Ichi's 3.13 GB/FB ratio is second in the majors.  Anyone bent on driving the ball into the ground knows that he won't be getting many doubles, and will get no triples or HRs that way...."

ie, It's an amazing skill... the question is if he'd help the team more than if he sacrificed the few-walks, 84% singles approach for a potentially higher OBP *and* SLG.

That's a problem with Seattle's offense this season -- their best hitter is a singles hitter, so he needs a lot of help to drive in or score runs. Ichiro's SLG isn't so bad ~.480, but that's a bit misleading since most of hit hits are singles. His isolated power is ~.110, which is actually quite awful.

So yeah, a team with a below average offense like Seattle would probably be better off if he were hitting .330/.420/.520 with ~50-60 XBH than the .370/.420/.480 or whatever he's hitting now.

doc, why would you think ichiro would be capable of batting even .275 if he started sitting back and trying to drive the ball? his entire strategy is to rely on his speed and ability to make contact, slap the ball to deep second or deep short and either beat the throw or hope it squeezes through. it might be an interesting experiment if it hadn't already been done - that schwarz article said molitor tried to get him to do just that at the beginning of the season, and it was a disaster.

David Eckstein and Juan Pierre, 2 players that are fairly similar offensively to Ichiro, have much worse ISOPWR: .054 and .087

I'm speculating on the consequences of Ichiro trying to drive the ball *some* of the time, as opposed to slapping it almost *all* the time. His ceiling in MLB seems to be 50 XBH a year.

i would be curious to see how well ichiro would adjust if he were moved down in the order to the second or third spot. in those cases, with other, slower players on base, the deep grounder that ichiro can beat out becomes a liability, not an asset. judging by ichiro's phenomenal bat control, i would be willing to bet that he would become much more of a line drive hitter...

Ichiro I think is pretty similar to Tony Gwynn or perhaps even Rod Carew, who also was good at getting infield hits (especially by bunting).

23 games * 4.4 ABs/game = 102 ABs

26/102 = .254 to tie the record, .265 to break it.

he's 0/8 for the weekend so far (you can't ignore his career numbers which long suggested that he was overdue for a fall back to reality). his 3 year splits show that September is by far his worst hitting month (.283, one of only 2 months that he averages less than .300). this really could go down to the wire. could you imagine if he got intentionally walked if it got close?

Here is SI's Ichiro countdown page, which is pretty cool.

"Their bats are probably not much different than the one George Sisler swung back in 1920, when he banged out a major-league-record 257 hits."

Except for, like, their center of gravity and the thickness of their handles and their weight, sure.

He's batting .200 in the past 7 days.

With a projected 84 at bats remaining in the season, he needs 25 hits to tie the record (.300), 26 to break it (.310).

maybe i should be posting this in the barry vs. ichiro thread...

oh and to paraphrase gygax up yonder, Raul Ibanez is 6 for 6, wtf