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.
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