More on Ichiro

After my post about Ichiro's Platinum Season, I had a conversation with my friend (okay let's be honest, this is how all these blogs start. From now on, he'll be known as Jon) about Ichiro's career and comparing him to other folks in the Majors and the work they've done. I mentioned in my post that Ichiro has over 2,800 hits in America, and over 4,000 total in professional baseball - and here is where Jon's wisdom set me off again: could Ichiro have surpassed Pete Rose's all-time hits record?

Honestly, I think a lot of it depends. Let's see if I can give you some evidence to make you decide for yourself.

Ichiro's Favor
1. Speed. Pete Rose is known as Charlie Hustle, but Ichiro's left-handedness (3 or 4 fewer feet to run to first), swing style,

Ichiro is already a few steps to first while making contact with the ball. 

and pure speed aided him in getting infield hits. Pete Rose didn't have the speed to beat out a chopper to short, but he did have the hustle to stretch a single into a double. At that point, a hit is already a hit, it's just for slugging percentage. But on any random groundball to the left side, Ichiro has a much better chance at beating it out than Pete Rose because he's faster and has a shorter distance to run. This also made him a stealing threat (led the league in 2001 and is the active leader in steals) while Pete Rose only has 198. 

2. BABIP. BABIP, or batting average on balls in play, is a stat used by sabermetricians to determine a players' effectiveness when they don't strike out. It's useful for guys like Ryan Howard or Adam Dunn, because it seems like they either hit it 450 feet or strike out. BABIP is used to show their average on when they make solid contact. As of 2009, Ichiro's BABIP was insanely higher than the league average on ground balls (.242) and bunts (.441). Ichiro's averages: .305 and .663, respectively. This means out of 1,000 ground balls, Ichiro reaches base safely 63 more times than average Joe. On 1,000 bunts, he reaches 222 more times. On a larger scale, Ichiro's career BABIP is .344 compared to Pete Rose's .319. Ichiro has 453 career infield hits, just around 16% of his hit total.  

3. Age. Ichiro entered the league at age 27, basically his athletic prime. He's still in great shape, but the hits aren't coming in bunches like they used to, and that's to be expected when you hit the dinosaurish landmark 40th birthday in the sporting world. Ichiro has played 2,184 career games in the MLB and has amassed 2,834 hits. In 2,184 games, Pete Rose collected 2,773 hits - 61 fewer hits is about a quarter of a season for these guys. Bear with me, this is where it gets confusing. Through 2,184 games (odd sample, I know, but it's Ichiro's career), Ichiro has 1.297 hits per game compared to Rose's 1.269 hits per game. If you were to adjust Ichiro's debut to match Rose's at age 22 and match their games played, Ichiro would have approximately 100 more hits. Remember, this is strictly mathematical. I took Rose's 3,562 games x 1.269 hits per game to equal 4,520 (he finished with 4,256) versus if Ichiro payed 3,562 games x 1.297 hits per game to equal 4,619 hits. Factor in depreciation, age, pitcher recognition, etc., like with Rose and you're right around 4,300 hits. 

Rose's Favor
1. Speed. I know this was a point for Ichiro, but players lose speed over the years. Like I said before, 16% of his hits in his career are infield hits. If he were to rely on that his whole career, teams would guard against it (reverse shift) or throw pitches up in the zone to make him fly out since he has no home run power. Not to mention he would lose a step or two as he got older and be easier to throw out. While Rose's speed never got him more infield hits, his style stands the test of time while Ichiro's wouldn't.

2. Pitching Quality. Pete Rose was a pure hitter. He didn't care who he faced or what he was throwing, he hit it - he's a .306 career hitter against Hall of Fame pitchers (he faced 22 in his career), including 60-177 off Don Sutton, 42-147 off Juan Marichal, and 35-114 off of Bob Gibson. Now, compare this to Ichiro, who was a teammate of the best pitcher of our generation (Randy Johnson), but is 8-18 against him. Here are some career lows for Ichiro against the studs:

• .262 against Roy Halladay
• .217 against Pedro Martinez
• .200 against Roger Clemens
• .125 against David Price
• .077 against Curt Schilling

That said, Ichiro is .500 against Kershaw and .333 against CC Sabathia, but I think Rose has a serious advantage in this category. See for yourself: Rose vs. pitchers or Ichiro vs. pitchers. 

3. Teammate Protection. Pete Rose played for the Big Red Machine in the height of the Reds' dominance of the NL. In fact, the Reds were the first team ever to have 5 different All-Star Game MVPs (Perez, Griffey, Foster, Morgan, Concepcion) on the same roster, meaning these guys can seriously hit. Pete Rose was the Reds leadoff hitter for all that time, but do you really want to pitch against Joe Morgan (HOF, 2 MVPs), Johnny Bench (HOF, one of the greatest catchers ever), and Tony Perez all in the same inning? No! You're going to go after Rose and get him out as early as possible. That means he'll see plenty of strikes and pitches to hit. Bad news for pitchers: it's Pete Rose. He won't miss. Compare this to Ichiro, who, other than 2001, has been on mostly losing teams. After Ichiro, you have Mike Cameron (.249 career), John Olerud (.295 but no power), and Edgar Martinez, who is a legitimate power threat but grounds into a lot of double plays. I think if I were a pitcher I'd take my chances with this 2-3-4 than Ichiro. Pitch around him. 

So there are my reasons for both sides. Between you and me, though, if Ichiro played in America since his career began at age 20, he would have passed Pete Rose by now. But we can only make guesses at this point. Let's just leave it at this: they're both amazing.

And so are you. Thanks for reading.