Is slump the beginning of the end for Ichiro?
Data: .260/.313/.303, 0 HR, 20 RBIs, 14 SB, 4 CS, 20 BB/19 K
Malfunction: It looks like a misprint. Ichiro isn't just batting under .300 in June — something that has only happened in one other season, his difficult 2005 season in which he hit .303 — but he's struggling to hit .250 in June. He isn't just a few hits from the league lead — he has been the major league leader in hits for the past five consecutive seasons — he's tied for 28th in the majors. What's more, after spending years as one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball, all the top defensive stats agree that this year he's started to slip badly, and manager Eric Wedge has already given him three starts at DH. (But he hasn't yet given Ichiro a day off.) Is this the beginning of the end for Ichiro?
Diagnosis: Power was never a big part of his game, but that has pretty much vanished with the singles. He's walking more and striking out less, but while he's making more contact than ever — a career-high 92 percent contact rate, tied for third in the majors — his otherworldly ability to deposit the ball exactly where he wants appears to be slipping. His Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is .280, which is just 10 points lower than the major league average, but it's 74 points below his career average of .354, which is tied with Derek Jeter(notes) as the fifth-highest career BABIP of all time. (The four players above Ichiro and Derek? Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Rod Carew.) Ichiro is the sort of player who's supposed to age gracefully: typically, big lumbering slow guys who hit a lot of home runs, draw a lot of walks, and strike out a lot (these are collectively known as "old player skills") are the sort of people who age quickly, and fast finesse guys are the guys who manage to hang around for a long time, like Omar Vizquel(notes) or Kenny Lofton.
It's hard to tell how much of this decline is permanent and how much is just a fluke, but the first place to start is speed. He's already equaled last year's total of three GIDPs, his defensive stats are worse, and after two straight years with at least 60 infield singles, he's on pace for just 42. On the other hand, he has 14 stolen bases in 18 tries, and his Fangraphs Speed Score this year is 5.7, better than the 5.2 he posted in 2009 or 5.4 he posted in 2010. (Speed Score is a stat that "is an average of Stolen Base Percentage, Frequency of Stolen Base Attempts, Percentage of Triples, and Runs Scored Percentage.")
Still, he's already 37, and he's an old 37. He's been playing major league baseball — first in the Japanese NPB, and then in MLB — since he was 18 years old. In 20 overall seasons, he's played 2,706 games, 1,649 in 11 years in MLB. That's a lot of miles on any set of wheels.
A scout whom Jayson Stark talked to was cautiously optimistic about the rest of Ichiro's season: "He's slowing up. But I don't think he's headed for rock bottom any time soon."
Some stat analysts are reaching the same conclusion, like Matthew at Lookout Landing:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/bi...t=AnFPfrbSP3CidIugYk3TI4IRvLYF?urn=mlb-wp8806
Data: .260/.313/.303, 0 HR, 20 RBIs, 14 SB, 4 CS, 20 BB/19 K
Malfunction: It looks like a misprint. Ichiro isn't just batting under .300 in June — something that has only happened in one other season, his difficult 2005 season in which he hit .303 — but he's struggling to hit .250 in June. He isn't just a few hits from the league lead — he has been the major league leader in hits for the past five consecutive seasons — he's tied for 28th in the majors. What's more, after spending years as one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball, all the top defensive stats agree that this year he's started to slip badly, and manager Eric Wedge has already given him three starts at DH. (But he hasn't yet given Ichiro a day off.) Is this the beginning of the end for Ichiro?
Diagnosis: Power was never a big part of his game, but that has pretty much vanished with the singles. He's walking more and striking out less, but while he's making more contact than ever — a career-high 92 percent contact rate, tied for third in the majors — his otherworldly ability to deposit the ball exactly where he wants appears to be slipping. His Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is .280, which is just 10 points lower than the major league average, but it's 74 points below his career average of .354, which is tied with Derek Jeter(notes) as the fifth-highest career BABIP of all time. (The four players above Ichiro and Derek? Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Rod Carew.) Ichiro is the sort of player who's supposed to age gracefully: typically, big lumbering slow guys who hit a lot of home runs, draw a lot of walks, and strike out a lot (these are collectively known as "old player skills") are the sort of people who age quickly, and fast finesse guys are the guys who manage to hang around for a long time, like Omar Vizquel(notes) or Kenny Lofton.
It's hard to tell how much of this decline is permanent and how much is just a fluke, but the first place to start is speed. He's already equaled last year's total of three GIDPs, his defensive stats are worse, and after two straight years with at least 60 infield singles, he's on pace for just 42. On the other hand, he has 14 stolen bases in 18 tries, and his Fangraphs Speed Score this year is 5.7, better than the 5.2 he posted in 2009 or 5.4 he posted in 2010. (Speed Score is a stat that "is an average of Stolen Base Percentage, Frequency of Stolen Base Attempts, Percentage of Triples, and Runs Scored Percentage.")
Still, he's already 37, and he's an old 37. He's been playing major league baseball — first in the Japanese NPB, and then in MLB — since he was 18 years old. In 20 overall seasons, he's played 2,706 games, 1,649 in 11 years in MLB. That's a lot of miles on any set of wheels.
A scout whom Jayson Stark talked to was cautiously optimistic about the rest of Ichiro's season: "He's slowing up. But I don't think he's headed for rock bottom any time soon."
Some stat analysts are reaching the same conclusion, like Matthew at Lookout Landing:
- Ichiro may be finally declining, but it is highly unlikely that the beginning of that decline would see his BABIP drop from .336 (April) to .214 (May). Maybe 10-15 percent of that drop could be legitimately the result of Ichiro aging, or not adjusting to more inside pitches or whatever. However, the vast majority is probably just plain bad luck.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/bi...t=AnFPfrbSP3CidIugYk3TI4IRvLYF?urn=mlb-wp8806
