Ichiro Suzuki Baseball Future

[danesei@yahoo.com]

10 yrs $32mm. I think that would be a near perfect contract for his skill set, as he should be able to produce more than 4.5 WAR over the rest of his career.

[Roady]

He had a better year, once again, than Jeter.

[Roady]

Is his paying time limited because of his age and inability to play every day, the perception of the coach that a 40 year old can't play every day, or just because of platooning in a crowded outfield?

[jake33]

Ichiro said he not only wanted to play in 2015, but also 2016.

Ichiro loves his statistics and I have heard that he does want to get to 3,000 MLB hits, so 2 part time seasons should cover that, or playing full time next year hitting around .280 should get it next year.

He needs 156 hits for 3000
13 stolen bases to get to 500

Also he needs about 60 more runs to crack the Top 100 runs scored all time.

If he would have had his MLB rookie season at age 20 or 21 (instead of age 27), he would be looking at a very decent chance to being the All Time hits leader in MLB history, especially if he indeed plays through the year 2016.

[Roady]

Ichiro said he not only wanted to play in 2015, but also 2016.

Ichiro loves his statistics and I have heard that he does want to get to 3,000 MLB hits, so 2 part time seasons should cover that, or playing full time next year hitting around .280 should get it next year.

He needs 156 hits for 3000
13 stolen bases to get to 500

Also he needs about 60 more runs to crack the Top 100 runs scored all time.

If he would have had his MLB rookie season at age 20 or 21 (instead of age 27), he would be looking at a very decent chance to being the All Time hits leader in MLB history, especially if he indeed plays through the year 2016.

He would have been lucky to start at 20 or 21 and most likely would have spent time in the minors as most do and had his first full season at 22 or 23. Also his BA has never been as good in MLB as it was in Japan.
So he probably would not be as close as most think he would.

[danesei@yahoo.com]

He would have been lucky to start at 20 or 21 and most likely would have spent time in the minors as most do and had his first full season at 22 or 23. Also his BA has never been as good in MLB as it was in Japan.
So he probably would not be as close as most think he would.

Assuming he wasn't absurdly held back in high-A for a completely unorthodox approach to hitting, he would have made his MLB debut at 19 or 20. Remember, Suzuki would have been coming up in the 90s, when players would regularly move up a full level (none of this weird, six levels of MiLB) per season, sometimes two levels. If he were remotely as successful in MLB as he was in NPB (meaning .280 as opposed to .350), he would have had 1200 hits over his age 20-26 seasons. 170 hits a season is all it would take. I highly doubt he wouldn't be able to post those numbers, given he absolutely destroyed that standard during his time with Seattle. Even accounting for some sort of bias against style holding him back until age 22, he would have five full seasons to add to his total. Let's assume Suzuki pre-27 was somehow only capable of averaging 190 hits per season, that puts him at 3800 for his career. 4000 hits would definitely be within reach. Now, let's be somewhat more realistic and actually track his year by year probables:

1994 - 90 hits (I think this is a safe assumption, given Eric Anthony had 79 games in LF, while batting an abysmal .237)
1995 - 160 hits (with Griffey hurt and an aging Vince Coleman taking actual reps, I could see Suzuki batting leadoff at least 100 games and playing some role in 120 games)
1996 - 185 hits in his first truly full time season
1997 - 210 hits
1998 - 220 hits
1999 - 215 hits
2000 - 210 hits

1994-2000: 1290 hits
2001-pres: 2844 hits
Hypothetical all US career for Suzuki: 4134 hits through age-40 season
123 hits shy of being the "all time hit king" at that point, I could see Suzuki not only breaking Rose's record, but possibly holding on through age-45 in pursuit of 4500 hits for his career. If he managed to beat that pace and get to 4680 by age 46, he might even stick around to get to 5000 hits.

If this were the 70s (or maybe even the 80s), I could see an argument against Suzuki getting much playing time, due to racism in the league among other reasons, but given he started with the Mariners and a progressive league that we have today, I doubt any manager would hold him back just to ensure the record remained in the name of a US born player.

[Roady]

Name all of the players who played their first MLB games at age 19 during the 90's.