Ichiro

Sunday, August 07 2016 @ 06:40 PM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

Amazing. Just freaking amazing.

Almost exactly ten years ago, I assessed the chances some active players had of making it to 3000 hits. I had something of a method (or as close as I get to having a method.) I looked at the 26 players who at that date had managed 3000 hits, and compared how my group of guys active in 2006 were doing at the same stage in their careers. I noted that while Michael Young and Ichiro Suzuki were the two men who regularly led the league in hits, both had started much too late to have a chance ever getting to 3000 hits.

essentially, both Young and Suzuki have to average 200 hits a year for the next ten seasons or so, until they turn 40. Which no one has ever done.

I can count. I put my money on Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. They were obvious, even then, when neither had yet reached 2000 hits ("Jeter has a realistic chance to crack the Top 10" - he finished sixth all-time.) I thought Albert Pujols was a lock, and indeed he'll probably crawl across the finish line. I was a little worried about Vlad Guerrero's health going forward, but I thought he and Carl Crawford would get there. Yeah, they let me down, but they seemed like reasonable choices at the time. While Adrian Beltre's early start put him in great position, I simply didn't think he'd maintain his high level of play as long as he has. I thought Johnny Damon had a better chance.

But Ichiro Suzuki had obviously started his MLB career much too late to have a ghost of a chance. He was 27 and a half years old when he got his first major league hit. On that day, he was almost 1000 hits behind Alex Rodriguez, who was and remains two years younger.

Even so - I finally picked him as a Dark Horse at the end of the piece. Because he's Ichiro.

Here's what I wrote about him at the time:

One wonders where Suzuki would stand if he had come to the major leagues earlier. He played seven full seasons in Japan (and parts of two others as a teenager.) His best Japanese seasons were his first and last full seasons (age 20 and age 26) - he hit better than .380 both years, and never batted below .342 in his Japanese career. This seems to me a powerful suggestion that Suzuki was ready to be a quality major league regular at age 20, which by itself is impressive as all hell. He had just one 200 hit season in Japan - when he was 20, he rapped out 210 hits while batting .385 - however, the shorter schedule also means he never played more than 135 games in a season. The most at bats he had in a Japanese season was 546; the fewest he had in the AL was 647.

So... what the hell. Let's use Suzuki's Japanese hit totals, and just add 100 hitless at bats each season. What would we get?

Year Team League   Age    G    AB    R    H    2B  3B   HR   RBI  SB   BB   SO   AVG

1994 Orix Jap Pac   20  130   646  111   210   41   5   13   54   29   51   53   .325
1995 Orix Jap Pac   21  130   624  104   179   23   4   25   80   49   68   52   .287
1996 Orix Jap Pac   22  130   642  104   193   24   4   16   84   35   56   52   .301
1997 Orix Jap Pac   23  135   636   94   185   31   4   17   91   39   62   36   .291
1998 Orix Jap Pac   24  135   606   79   181   36   3   13   71   11   43   35   .299
1999 Orix Jap Pac   25  103   511   80   141   27   2   21   68   12   45   46   .276
2000 Orix Jap Pac   26  105   495   73   153   22   1   12   74   21   54   36   .309
TOTAL                   938  4160  645  1242  204  23  117  522  196  374  306   .299

That's not bad - remember, I've added 0-for-100 to each season - but, still, this seems to me to be a very, very conservative estimate of what Suzuki would have done had he come to North America at age 20. This level of performance would force us to discuss the great leap forward Suzuki made at age 27. In his five Seattle seasons, Suzuki has averaged 226 hits and .332. In this scenario, he would be sitting with about 2400 career hits as we speak.

Only one man in history had more than 2400 hits by age 31. That was Ty Cobb, which turns out to be oddly appropriate. Suzuki doesn't seem very much like Cobb as a person, but as a player.... can you think of anyone whose game is more like that of the Georgia Peach?

It still seemed so unlikely.

But it's Ichiro. If he'd come to the major leagues when he was 20... well, he'd have at least 4400 hits by now. And we'd be wondering - could he possibly last long enough to make it 5,000?

Hey, he's hitting .335 this year....

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