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Let's see if I can summarize my position.
Doc: "Ichiro has really taken well to the #3 slot nicely. He's seeing the ball better ... is far more selective ... and he's hitting the ball extremely well. The rest of 2012 should be great."
Sandy: "But his results so far are a basic replay of his 2011 results."
Matt: "His results are suppressed because he's been unlucky."
Sandy: "Then he's been "unlucky" for 172 games in a row. At what point exactly does "unluck" turn into "un-talent?"
Doc: "But if you saw him, you'd understand."
Sandy: "I completely trust your opinion of how he looks, Doc. Absolutely. But, if Ichiro has done everything you say ... if his LD% is a *hot* LD% as Matt says, (and I agree that this is the case) ... and he's only running a .295 BABIP today ... and he's only running a .690 OPS today ... exactly what happens to his production when he hits a cold spell?
Matt: "But a single 4 for 5 day and all of your statistical arguments vanish."
Sandy: "Absolutely true. But the converse of that would be?" What if we look at what Ichiro has done just over the last 10 days ... excluding only the 1st game of the season?
May29-April 15:
.225/.256/.325 (.581) -- BABIP = .231
Sandy: "So, the last 10 games of Ichiro ... successfully adopting a new approach ... and running a sky-high LD% ... and non-existent strike-out rate, (he hasn't fanned in 8 games) ... is we have Ronny Cedeno hitting third?!? And I'm supposed to be enthused about this?
One of my favorite things about Doc's approach is his old saw: "If I was wrong, how would I know?" Doc and Matt both "see" a solid hitter with a solid approach and are happy about it. My question is this: Given what you are seeing on the field, what *production* would you be expecting to come from that? If this were Ichiro in 2002 or 2003 ... with this approach ... what would his slashline have been then? Because I believe the difference between that theorhetical slash-line and his current real-world slash-line is the difference between how much his skills have actually declined.
My question to both of you is ... at what point ... how many PAs ... how many games played ... does Ichiro have to run a sub-.700 OPS before the production trumps the eyes-on assessment? This is no easy question.
Coming into the season, I was expecting a .350 April followed by a rapid decline. I would've been prepared for a transition where Ichiro was trying something radical, (like the Ackley swing), and might be struggling, in which case there could be an eventual leap in production. For me, the current situation is the worst of both worlds. He has "successfully" transitioned, and is actually currently "hot". Yet, his production remains tepid at best. That's a horrible combo for projecting production forward.
With Saunders, you can posit that with more work and dilligence, maybe the "quiet" swing gradually takes hold and he stops reverting to detrimental instincts so readily. That's a path for eventual improvement despite immediate woes.
With Ichiro ... with everything falling into place ... and a .690 OPS to show for it ... my perspective on the positive spin essentially boils down to (and I'm not intentially being snarky here ... I just can't come up with a better analogy) ... "He's not really hitting .690 ... he's actually hitting .850 ... because he looks like he's hitting .850."