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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