League Pennants, playoff appearances 2001-2010:
Pujols - 2, 6
Rodriguez - 1, 9
Bonds - 1, 3
Berkman - 1, 4
Suzuki - 0, 1
Jones - 0, 5
Rolen - 2, 4
Beltran - 1, 2
Jeter - 7, 15
Helton - 1, 2
Utley - 2, 4
Ichiro slides pretty far down that list. I understand that most of those players managed to get on great TEAMS so it's not a fair comparison, but I do find it interesting that Beltran is right next to Ichiro on this list of "least results from the most talent" and he too was a well-rounded contributor who was good in all phases (though he played CF to help his positional value). Ichiro's WAR does not go as far as some other WAR, and being a well-rounded contributor in 3 phases of the game doesn't allow you to have one of those monster years that crushes the competition in one phase. When a team builds around a player who might be 3 WAR or might be 9 WAR, then if they plan for 3 and get 6 extra wins they're good to go. Ichiro has plenty of variation in his batting value due to the fluctuation of BA, but he'll never be a giant WAR contributor with a bat.
It's not his game.
His game is beautiful, unique, and hall-of-fame worthy. But Rickey Henderson doesn't win a title without the bash brothers - and we've seen teams without table setters take a title.
Pound-for-pound, Ichiro's greatness can't really be disputed. But he's not a heavyweight and in a fight against heavyweights he's come up short. Not his fault.
It doesn't do anything to his legend - but it should show us that building around a table setter is a bad way to structure your offense.
Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling won a World Series over a far better lineup with basically one monster bat and some grinders on their side. It can be done.
Ichiro will never win anything without some bash brothers of his own and some monster pitching.
Maybe we will finally have enough of the second part, and I'd love for Smoak to be a piece of the first part.
I'm just sorry for him and us that it took us this long to be able to discover that and do something about it, instead of asking him to do one of the few things that he cannot do.
~G
Hey, have you guys seen Joshua Maciel's WAR grids? Here are the top Wins Above Replacement ballplayers for the decade of the '00's:
This is exactly what Bill James wanted when he invented Win Shares -- a 30,000 foot aerial of a player's value over the course of his career. That way, you could get a sense of how good an idea it was, or wasn't, to trade Carlos Guillen and Freddy Garcia for Randy Johnson. Stuff like that.
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=== All-Decade Team ===
Notice that Ichiro is the 5th-best player of this decade, and that's if you count Barry Bonds, which I kind of don't.
There are two OF's in a tier by themselves, that being Ichiro and Beltran. The second tier has Vlad and ... here, let's chart it out:
---- Tier 1 ----
- ICHIRO 51 (what a coincidence)
- BELTRAN 49
---- Tier 2 ----
- Aw. Jones 44
- Vlad 42
- Edmonds 41
- Abreu 40
- Manny 40
- Drew 39
---- Tier 3 ----
- Every other ML outfielder was below 35
There were a clear 8 outfielders who made the decade's All-Star team ... and Ichiro was miles ahead of all but Beltran.
So, if you pick an All-Decade team for the '00's, Ichiro is one of the first players you put into the starting lineup. That is, of course, a seminal definition of a Hall of Famer.
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=== Set Your Watch Dept. ===
One reason that Ichiro doesn't "scare" you like Vlad and Manny do, is that Ichiro gets you 5 WAR (50 runs) every single year. He doesn't get you 9-10 WAR in a single career year and then get you 2 the year after.
Another reason is that Ichiro spreads his contribution across every aspect of the game. He helps the club on defense, on the bases, and at the plate.
Bill James observed that overrated players are those who contribute in a single flashy stat, those who have flashy single seasons, those who play in big markets, those who play in the playoffs...
For all Ichiro's hype, his contributions to the game have still been harder to perceive than those of Vlad Guerrero, who used to hit .330 with 35 homers.
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=== Caveats ===
The above WAR grid overstates Ichiro's greatness in a couple of ways. To look at the grid, you'd think that Ichiro was basically about as good as anybody who ever played, except the Ruths and Williamses and ARods.
That's not really so. If you take most WAR grids, say the one from 1995-2005, the totals on it are higher. For some reason, the 2001-10 WAR grid had few superstars on it.
Jim Edmonds had 61 WAR, far more than Ichiro's, from 1995-2005. Andruw had 59, Manny 56 ... there were fully 11x outfielders with 50+ WAR during those ten years. Not sure why the 2001-10 WAR grid is weak for superstars.
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Also, WAR is not the beginning and end of player value. It gives Ichiro a nice adjustment for hitting well in Safeco, for example.
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Also, Ichiro is never the best outfielder in any particular year. He gets +50 runs, but in any particular year there will be a handful of guys with 50-80.
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That said, it is obvious that Ichiro has been a 5x10 outfielder since he hit our shores, and that has made him the best outfielder in baseball over that span.
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=== Punch Line Dept. ===
Ichiro's just as good now as he has ever been.
Nice to see Justin Smoak emerging, but let's remember that he becomes the second bigtime hitter the Mariners have, not the first.
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BABVA,
Dr D
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Comments
If we're goimg to talk WAR and team achievements, then...8.1 WAR as MVP for the greatest winning season in modern baseball history. Yeah, he can't carry a team all by himself, but put some talent behind the guy, and what can happen is extraordinary. The M's had greater superstar lineups before that season, with far fewer results. The M management totally wasted what may be baseball's rarest commodity: the ignitor that tops the lineup and thus gets most of the at bats. But you gotta have something to act as fuel behind the spark.
Should have stated I am in agreement with most everything G said above. Good post G!
A lot of the guys around and above Ichiro on those lists are also known or suspected steroid users. I think that has to be taken into consideration.
Also, IIRC, some of the WAR formulas understate the value of baserunning, where Ichiro also excells.
OTOH, I also think that it needs to be taken into consideration that Ichiro in RF does block a position you can use for a power bat. Sure, his defensive value there is huge, but it does make it harder to find MOTO bats. This probably detracts from his overall value a little, despite the great consistent WAR numbers. Despite this, he's obviously a HOFer and I'm glad to have had the privilege of him on our team.
BTW, this CAPTCHA is torture.
Steroid-usage was at its craziest in the late 90s early 2000s which I think contributes to a lot of that.
Fangraphs doesn't include GIDP and baserunning which boost Ichiro's career WAR totals higher. BRef has Ichiro averaging 5.5 WAR a year. Hes been criminally underappreciated.
Pleasure to have your authoritative input on the science Q's, including when they bear on issues like these.
I'll relay the input on the CAPTCHA.
Could not agree more, G. Always have looked at it that way.
The Q always comes up, would you prefer 6 years of Sandy Koufax or 16 years of Jamie Moyer?
Stars & Scrubs rides again, with your superlative pennants chart. Give me Koufax for 6 years, and I'll leverage his impact into seasons worth remembering... the other 10 years, I'll go about attempting to find another Felix or somebody...
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Ichiro is definitely a Honda Civic by comparison to this group, and no surprise that Civics make pennants harder work than Lexuses do.
Agree 100% that Ichiro is at his best as a magnificent complementary piece -- as were Pete Rose, Rod Carew, etc.
Imagine Ichiro leading off for the Yankees or Red Sox. ... when the Indians had Belle and Manny and Thome, that's when Kenny Lofton was impossible to deal with.
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I suspect that almost all HOF GM's, every sport, recognize that Stars & Scrubs is the right way to go. But there are probably some guys, Pat Gillick e.g., who can't bring themselves to deal with Terrell Owens and so play Civics for personal reasons.
cpoints
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In basketball superstars have huge influence, in baseball you can have the greatest player of all time on your team and still be meh (early 2000s Bonds).
As in roto, Miguel Cabrera by himself is not the pennant. What he does is make the rest of your work much easier, and much more likely to work out well ...
The GM is sequencing chess moves. The available chess moves are much more appealing, if you start your ballclub with Willie Mays.
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It's possible to lose 100 games with Felix Hernandez, but with Felix, you're only a few Pineda dice rolls away ...
Try turning the 1978 Mariners into a contender. :- ) The work is a bit more tedious...
Right, but Felix isn't really that much of a better player than prime-Ichiro. Its a 6 WAR player vs 5.5 WAR. The salary considerations weigh much larger at that point.
The Ms had Ichiro locked up at a bargain salary for the bulk of the 2000s. He was one of the most valuable assets in the entire game.
There were very few guys you could have traded Ichiro for straight up in 2001 and actually gotten better. Pujols for sure. ARod was far less valuable during that decade due to salary. Ichiro>Berkman considering overall value+salary and then who else?