Clicked on the link immediately, before I read the rest of the article, and noticed two things you touched upon. (I didn't notice the wider stance right away)

1.  There is much more wrap of the bat.

2.  He still has lots of head movment through the hitting zone.

I suspect #2 still exists because Ichiro has spent a (incredibly productive) lifetime driving into the ball, head, shoulders and all. When he got pitches in, and when he could just explode the hips and not drive his upper body into the ball, then he creamed it. Otherwise, he (p)laced it. 

The wider stance and greater wrap will allow for greater explosion, but I'm not sure what the head movement will do to counteract that.

If Ichiro were a golfer he would have been Lee Trevino, a "wiper" of the ball with lots of movement, but one of the handful of greaest ball-strikers ever.  His new move isn't Bubba Watson, but it has moved away from Trevino, too.

If he makes it work and rebounds with ferocity we should all take it as a sign of just what an incredible talent we've had he pleasure to watch.

moe

Ichiro has transferred the responsibility from his lower body to his upper body.  He used to have a golf swing, and a golf swing is a leg swing.  Now he's got the swing used by .... wait for it .... Dustin Ackley.

Ackley loads his bat and reads the pitch, but he doesn't have to worry about timing his front leg.  It's all centrifugal force in the shoulderline, and the vitality, the sparkle, comes from wrist snap.

Funny how that happened the year after Ichiro spent time with our next HOFer and got to examine his results with a critical eye.  Phenomenal contact ability + wrist hinge + still lower body = disaster for opposing pitchers.

And he and Ackley share points of similarity that would allow Ichiro to shift his approach to Ackley's and get results.  Not something Michael Saunders could do - and kinda shows Ichiro's rubber stamp of approval on Ackley as well.

We'll see what the results are, but it's gonna be interesting to go L Ackley / L Ichiro / R Montero / S Smoak / L Carp.  Two stingers, two pounders, and a guy who swings with 9000% bad intentions and a chip on his shoulder.

I hate relying on the kids that much, but if there were kids to do it to...we've got em. And if an old man like Ichiro can still contribute in a big way and take some of the pressure off, I'd love to see it.

~G

Has Montero been annointed as the #4 hitter.  I haven't seen that.  I'm willing to bet, that coming out of ST, he isn't the clean-up guy.

Seems a lot to put on his plate right away.

moe

There is no reasonable lineup given the current roster.  Wedge "wants" a classic lineup, and simply doesn't have the tools to match.  So, he's going to compromise six ways from Sunday and likely end up with an opening day lineup generally dispised by the masses, (but which might just be perfect in terms of "quick" identification of which bodies need to be dumped:

1. 3B - Figgins - last hurrah - put up or shut up - no other OBP/Steal guy on the roster.
2. 2B - Ackley - best projected hitter needs plenty of PAs.  Likely destined for #3 slot in the near future.  He's better suited to bat third than Ichiro is already, but this whole lineup is full of compromise.
3. RF - Ichiro - he might start here, but I doubt he'll stay here.
4. CA - Olivo - horror upon horror - but he led the club in HRs and he isn't a lefty.  Of course, this likely could place the three worst hitters on the ROSTER all at the top of the lineup in the ill-conceived attempt to match specific skills with "designated" top of the order "job descriptions".
5. 1B - Smoak -- Star prospect isn't going to hit lower.
6. LF - Carp -- And we end up hitting the best hitter (by OPS) from 2011 6th in the lineup. 
7. DH - Montero/et al? -- while the great debate on whether Montero and Olivo will play in the same lineup routinely continues, you can either bench your 2011 team leader in HRs or your top prospect --- so you can plug in who, exactly -- Trayvon?  Liddi?  Seager perhaps?
8. CF - Guti -- his comeback will start with minimal pressure.  Accept his golden glove then see what happens with the bat.
9. SS - Ryan -- might swap with Guti - but Ryan has already hit 9th regularly.

This is basically what you get if you start with Figgy leading off and Ichiro hitting third.  Once you pencil in Ackley/Ichiro for 2/3, you end up with planning on three straight lefties, (Carp led the team in cleanup appearances, despite playing only 1/2 the season), or you shove Smoak where Wedge said he didn't like him, or you give the job to your entitled veteran who led the team in HRs.

This is why I keep saying, I'll believe these Ichiro/Figgy rumors are true once the season starts.  It could happen.  The only upside is that you allow Figgy, Ichi and Oli to fail quickly, while allowing your prospects to work with less pressure for awhile.

"Long" term? 

1. RF - Ichiro -- (assuming his bat returns enough to generate a .330 OBP).
2. CF - Guti - (assuming Figgy implodes and Guti returns)
3. 2B - Ackley - (where he should be hitting from day one)
4. LF - Carp -- (where he should be hitting from day one)
5. 1B - Smoak - (where he should be hitting from day one)
6. CA - Olivo/Montero - (relative PT will likely move throughout season)
7. 3B - Seager - (after Figgy implodes)
8. DH - (you're the next contestant on Seattle's Got Talent!)
9. SS - Ryan

Realistically, the political heat of moving Ichiro *way* down in the order is going to prevent this from happening unless Ichiro truly stinks from day one.  Since it is far more likely that Figgy will stink from day one, and the club doesn't have anything resembling a 'true' leadoff hitter - Ichiro's SB prowess will return him to leading off in short order.

Wedge's love for aggression (and the inate weakness in total HRs on the roster), likely prevents Olivo from slipping lower than 6th in the lineup, unless he implodes. 

DH will be a revolving door - (last year 10 guys played DH - and Cust was #1 with 63 games with Carp #2 at only 19).   Pena was third at 17.  Of course, upon reading the name "Pena", my first question was "Who the heck was Pena?  I don't remember any Pena"  It was Wily Mo, just fyi.  You could win the America's Cup with the breeze from the revolving door that DH will likely be in 2012.

watching the vids, I predict the following:

Ichiro looks to have incorporated the same kind of things that Jeter does to fight off the inside pitch. We all know they've been pounding him inside the last few seasons, and that Ichiro has not seemed to adjust well. If you look at the vids, he looks like he will now be able to start his swing dropping his hands vertically before bringing the bat head through, rather than windmilling through. Like Jeter from the other side, this should allow him to keep his hands near his body and get the head solidly on the inside pitch.

The first guy that tries to pound him inside like last year with a mediocre fastball navel high is going to watch it go to section 108.

Ichiro looks like he will not have as much control of the bat head impact angle as he has had. Instead of meeting the ball at a precise angle and puching it through the hole on the ground, or a lofted line drive over a infielder's head, the ball will get more energy from his bat, but the angle will be less precise.

Hard fast balls outside are going to be sharply lined - if Verlander-class, fouled sharply down the 3rd base line (Datz be nimble, Datz be quick...), otherwise, there will be quite a few one-hopped off the left field wall while slicing toward the line.

Ichiro's new swing is more conventional, as many have noted. This means he will have more vulnerability to high-inside, low-outside patterns. If his bat speed remains good (and the vids are encouraging) this shouldn't be as much of a problem as it is to "normal" hitters. Ichiro's incredible eye-hand coordination will help the adjustments he needs to make - perhaps better from this swing than from his old one, which was optimized to meet the ball anywhere somewhat away from his body, but with little additional energy added from the swing. Now he should add the energy.

When the first few months of batted ball departure speeds are posted, Ichiro will show a significant increase. However, his average may be down, and his OBP (which is partially a function of patience) will continue to be ~.040 above his BA, as nothing in the swing change will make him less aggressive.  But, with the increased batted ball velocity, and a few men on base to give him holes, he will produce.

I knew I'd seen the swing somewhere...!

I admire Ichiro for what he's doing -- and obviously this is something that he's been working on all offseason long, so it's not like a brand new thing.  But count me among those who are a bit skeptical as to whether or not this is actually going to work.

Think about it.  Over the course of his 20 year long career (Japanese leagues and MLB) ... and all the years prior to that (minor leagues, little league, etc.) Ichiro has logged thousands upon thousands of hours ... doing things the exact same way ... repeating and perfecting his swing over and over and over again. 

To me, the issue is about muscle memory.  We talk about it all the time in athletics -- it's much easier to teach "good habits" early on ... than it is to correct bad habits later on.  That's not to say that what Ichiro is doing is a "bad thing" ... it's just to acknowledge how very hard it is to make those adjustments once patterns get set in place.  In the NFL, people talk about what it would take to change Tim Tebow's mechanics and most agree that it will take several years, as he has learned to do things a certain way.  We talked about swing changes in relation to Michael Saunders and just how hard that process is going to be for him ... and he's only 25 years old -- not 38 like Ichiro. 

Monkeying around with mechanics CAN potentially be a dangerous thing for an athlete.  THE prime example of that ... is Tiger Woods.

As all of you know, Tiger Woods WAS the most dominant golfer on the face of planet for many years.  There was Tiger ... and there was everyone else.  But due to a series of events and failures ... Tiger decided to adjust his swing.  He made adjustments again ... and then again.

Tiger Woods made so many adjustments in his swing ... that he forgot who he was and what made him successful in the first place.  In the process he has watched his status go from the #1 Ranked player in all the world ... clear down to the #20 Ranked player.  In combination with his physical issues and all the personal chaos in his life that has weighed him down ... those swing changes really messed with him. 

Interestingly enough, his 4th swing change and his latest  ... is (according to Tiger) a return to OLD swing and the things that he used to do with his dad ...

"I went back to all of my old stuff that my dad and I used to work on," Woods said. "And that's when I felt that my stroke started becoming more sound, more solid, my speed became better. I don't know what that dude saw in my game, but he really knew putting and he knew my stroke. My dad really knew my stroke."

http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=6251973

So in terms of Ichiro and the adjustments he's making, it's possible that this might work because (I mean after all) he is Ichiro.  BUT, we've also got to acknowledge that attempting to change the leopard's spots has an equal potential to be an exercise in frustration.  We might be able to spread bleach on those spots and get rid of them for awhile --- but over time, my guess is that those spots will re-appear once again because that's just who he is.  Just ask the fox who allowed the scorpion to crawl on his back in order to cross the stream.

MA

I remember Edgar reinventing his swing every 2-3 years, it seemed. Boone reinvented his swing to get more power.

For 10 years straight, Ichiro beat the spread by a large margin.  Every doubter, starting with Mike "He'll run himself to .270" Hargrove was crushed by a large margin.  Last year was the only year where Ichiro didn't play exactly as well as he wanted to, and now the old doubters are coming in force.

 Now, I know that Ichiro will eventually get old and die, but if I were to pick one turnaround story, and bet a mortgage payment on it, and I had to choose between:

Ichiro fixing his swing

Figgins happy again

Gutierrez fixed his problems

Smoak's stronger

I wouldn't even take five to think it over.  If Ichiro says he fixed his swing, its because he did.  Now that his whole "I'm better than Ty Cobb and Pete Rose" thing is over, we can put the shades on, and get ready for Ichi-Bash.

I think that all of the anti-Ichiro prejudice is merely a reflection of distaste for wierdness.  Who is wierder than Ichiro?  He wears Zebra striped stretchy pants in public, when he knows he will be on TV.  He speaks good English but never does.  He conducts bizarre rituals with his bats, which include tuning them, and placing them in a traveling Humidor  (He throws out the bats that do not resonate on his tuner).  Rumor has it that the Mariners had to drill a batsize hole in the dugout bench to accomodate Ichiro, who apparently wanted to have it on hand in case he needed it.

On top of that, you have the interviews, where Ichiro can give a lengthy monologue, and not say a single thing that is understood by anyone.

On top of that, what is Ichiro's mood?  We've seen him smile before, but has he ever been angry, sad, excited, dissapointed?  He seems to lack the full range of human emotion.

The only hypothesis that covers all of the facts, is that Ichiro is an alien robot.  This is probably why you shouldn't worry about age arcs and such.