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G,
Thanks for the put. It's certainly lonely out here right now. And the fan in me WANTS to be wrong. And maybe I'm just allowing some of my recent reading to color my analysis. I recently finished "Thinking: Fast & Slow" by Daniel Kahneman ... which speaks on the vast and varied ways that humans, as a group, mis-perceive things.
In this particular case, I know that attempting to pick age-based collapse is a high-risk proposition. Absolutely nobody has a good methodology for doing so. Seems like every great player is great ... until he isn't anymore. Yet, I've seen precious little research into even attempting to separate the "down year" from the "end of career" changes in production.
In all honesty, 8 years ago, I would have been drafting Ichiro high in my fantasy draft, because I'd seen so many aging players bounce back after a sub-par season. So, I recognize that I could easily be wrong in this case. But, I was doing that during the height of the steroid era.
Ultimately, I think BABIP is vastly misunderstood and poorly applied by the majority of baseball analysts today. The "all batters" norm of BABIP - LD of 100 is being used (not just by Doc) as a "standard". But, it's NOT standard.
Ichiro ran +150 for a decade. That is certainly NOT luck. Doc doesn't think so, neither do I. I completely believe there was a specific reason for Ichiro running BABIP rates at the extreme end of the envelope. His .351 BABIP is inherently tied to his speed, and his infield hit abilities. Derek Jeter has a similarly high (.355) career BABIP.
On the other extreme, you've got a guy like Tony Batista. Career BABIP of .257. His 5 years of LD data show a normal 18% LD rate. You look at what he did in '02-'04, three full seasons of data, and what do you see?
Year - Babip - LD% - OPS
2002 - .246 -- 16.0 -- .766
2003 - .240 -- 20.7 -- .663
2004 - .225 -- 16.5 -- .728
Clearly there are dozens of different hitter types. And with those different hitter profiles, there are a LOT of different BABIP/LD "standard and repeatable" skews. From my view, as soon as BABIP is mentioned these days, the standard response is to view it as a one-size fits all interpretation of the leage-wide norm. I don't.
Batista is a completely different hitter than Ichiro. But, the above is *ANOTHER* case of a guy able to maintain an "impossibly low" BABIP for three years. This is incredibly rare because hitters with such low BABIPs will nearly always have such horrid slashlines that they don't last. In addition, his BEST LD% year happens to correspond to his WORST OPS year.
My explanation for the disconnect between the guys who can watch Ichiro and myself is simple. Ichiro *IS* hitting the ball harder ... harder than Ichiro of previous years. But, is he hitting his LDs harder than Kotchman? How about Beltre? Or Branyan?
Back in 2009, was it possible to "tell from looking" that Ichiro had a BABIP-LD of 202 and Branyan was at 125? Was it possible to tell from looking that Ichiro was running an 18.2% LD rate and Branyan only a 17.5?
Was Doc dismissing Smoak as a hitter in 2010, when he was running a .298 - 21.3 skew of only 80? Was he pointing out how ridiculously "lucky" Smoak was in 2011 when his numbers were .273 - 13.8 ... and his skew leapt up to 135?
It gets even worse once we plant an idea in our head that a specific event is skewing against us. Because we then "notice" every event that we're looking for. The reason we HAVE to count these things is because as humans, we are lousy at perceiving them correctly.
In the end, the same data can often lead to completely contradictory conclusions. Doc sees Ichiro visually as being the most selective at the plate he's ever been. I look at a walk total of 3 and do the math and come up with 21 walks for the entire season. Selective isn't the first word that leaps to my mind.
When I look at Ichiro's Fangraph's Plate Discipline - O-Swing (swings outside of zone) is better than his last 3 seasons. But at 30.5%, this is still below his career 27.5%. In point of fact, Ichiro didn't go over 25.2% in his first five years. As a rookie, Ichiro had a 20% O-swing%.
However, his Z-contact and O-contact rates are BOTH career highs at the moment. He is "connecting" with everything. In fact, he's connecting with 96.2% of pitches in the zone and 88% outside. In the last 3 weeks, Ichiro is destroying his established ability to lay wood on ball, (which was always excellent). With a career 5% swinging strike % suddenly at 2.9% - (previous bests were 4.0 and 4.3) - I see a hitter who is "on fire", in a completely unsustainable manner. His LD% is unsustainable, (by ANY previous standard). His contact rate is unsustainable. So, I see a hitter who at some point will cool off and suffer accordingly.
Matt and Doc both project a hitter who has at the age of 38 made himself "better" in multiple facets of his game, that they fully expect to continue for the next 5 months.
In the end, the next 5 months will tell the story.