Ichiro Suzuki: Japan's Secret Slugger? l Baseball Bits

japanese baseball has had a rich history of power hitters from the great Sadaharu OH to Hideki Matsui to now show hey Otani the Land of the Rising Sun has produced some fantastic batsmen over the years Ichiro Suzuki is probably the greatest of these hitters but he was never renowned for hitting home runs yet the idea persists that he had plenty of power potential himself so the question we're going to answer today is pretty straightforward was Ichiro a secret Slugger it's one of the most beloved what-ifs of 21st century baseball Ichiro Suzuki the best contact hitter of his generation made a living off hitting the ball into the ground and running out infield singles standing in with his wiry frame at 5 foot 11 175 pounds is it possible that the Japanese sensation could have hit 300-400 or even 500 homers with a different approach to answer that question we need to go back to the beginning before 3000 hits in the email be the single-season hit record and a rookie year MVP award Ichiro started as a teenager playing for the aurochs Blue Wave and Osaka Prefecture Japan [Music] as a major leaguer Ichiro's career if it even is actually over has been nothing short of sensational that being said the biggest knock on each row is that he has slugged a measly 402 as a corner outfielder in the majors it's just not his game in Japan however Ichiro slugged 522 from his debut in 1992 to his last season in 2000 to put that into perspective that's more than Giancarlo Stanton Freddy Freeman and Joey Gallo slugged in 2018 now there are caveats to this of course the NPB is a high offense environment and it's also very possible for non power hitters to put up great slugging if they hit for average Ty Cobb for example slugged 620 in 1911 despite hitting just 9 home runs and each Rose this generations Ty Cobb that all being said there's no doubt that Ichiro it was a more prolific home run hitter in Japan he had his initial power outburst at the young age of 21 clubbing 25 homers in 130 games in his age 25 season which took place in 1999 he slugged another 21 in just a hundred and three games you're watching video right now of some of his early home runs and I hope you enjoyed them because they required some ingenuity to track down the uploader of the video is Japanese so I used Google Translate to write Ichiro and home run and Japanese characters and find it you can find the link in the description but I must warn you Japanese baseball YouTube is a real rabbit hole speaking of Japanese baseball I took a quick look at the npb numbers of another young Japanese Slugger but I would have to admit that otah Nissan has each row firmly beat still if Ichiro had maintained his NPB homerun percentage throughout his years in the MLB you would have a whopping sorry I meant to say 427 career home runs between both leagues and it's very possible to maintain or even improve your home run rate in the MLB you can just ask Otani [Music] if you're watching this video I hope you've seen some prime Ichiro but if not he was nothing short of a joy to watch in the last waning hours of the homerun happy steroid era Ichiro was slapping every baseball in sight and standing on first before you could even collect the ball he was honestly playing dead ball era baseball and it worked for him plus he had a cannon in right field but there's no doubt that his style had been changed up from his days in Japan gone was the 20 to 25 homered pop as Ichiro would max out at just 15 home runs in 2005 even more profound when you consider that he began in the MLB at age 27 when his home run power should have been beginning to peak if anything so in the words of Allen Iverson I don't want to talk about games we're talking about practice because each Rose batting practices are nothing short of legendary in the cage the singles hitter turns into a slugger putting on a show for the fans it's where a lot of each Rose mythos as a power hitter comes from the implication is the East Rose decision to hit exclusively for contact is a hundred percent conscientious and he could turn on the power anytime he wants now I couldn't find any video of each Rose BP from his supposed heyday but I'm fine with that if we can find examples of old man Ichiro putting on a show that we can only imagine what prime Ichiro would have been capable of let me just say each Rose BP isn't just dingers left and right it's methodical and he has a routine that he takes very seriously he takes about five pitches at a time and the first pitch is this Big Daddy heck it's going out at the park every single time the subsequent pitches are line drives that were more accustomed to seeing in this video from 2012 the 38 year old Ichiro begins all three of his rounds with a dinger fast-forward to 2017 with the Marlins and Ichiro and how 43 years old launches one out of the cavernous Marlins Park as well he closes out his session with another pair of homers whether you were more of a Slugger or a slap hitter in your younger days you'd be hard-pressed to find another player who can do this at age 43 in fact the record for most homers by a forty three-year-old in the season is only 18 held by Carlton Fisk meanwhile at that same age each row defeated his teammate Giancarlo Stanton in a mini homerun Derby of their own he was such a force in batting practice the Marlins hitting coach even said that each road win the real home run derby outright if he entered but what does that guy know about hitting home runs anyway Oh Ichiro may be a 21st century baseball er but he still played in the pre statcast age of mystery so I wish we could have his batted ball data from both npb and his MLB prime it sadly doesn't exist so we're still on old man Ichiro for a bit as statcast began in 2015 he's aged 41 season I got curious as to what each rows hardest hit ball in the statcast era was it was a hundred and six point nine mile-per-hour double off Stephen Strasburg that's pretty good but not exactly the mind-blowing 120 mile per hour missiles we see from the biggest boppers I did find something interesting though Ian Kinsler who has 248 career home runs hit 30 in a season twice and hit 28 in the statcast track 2016 season has not hit a single baseball harder than a hundred and six point one miles per hour in the statcast era which is below Ichiro statcast best if I said statcast enough when talking about each rose power potential players like Ian Kinsler as well as Brian Dozier and didi Gregorius are good to bring up they are proof that you don't need crazy raw powered hit in game homers they succeed in doing so because they pull and elevate Brian Dozier hit 42 home runs in 2016 but none of them were technically hit harder than Ichiro stubble Justin Turner had 313 batted ball events in 2018 and none of them were hit harder than Ichiro stubble the relationship between pure exit velocity and home runs or even just good hitting isn't always a direct correlation even with the ability to flip the switch and hit the ball harder than some consistent twenty to thirty homerun guys Ichiro still doesn't really go yard which is likely result of his consistently low launch angles and if the overall question we're trying to answer simply how many home runs Ichiro would have hit if he actively tried to hit them we need to keep in mind his freakish amount of plate appearances a result of each rows crazy durability between Japan and the MLB Ichiro has stepped in the batter's box fourteen thousand eight hundred and twenty six times over the course of 27 years if he could have hit a home run just every twenty eight and a half plate appearances the same rate at which Dean Kinsler has done so since twenty sixteen Ichiro Suzuki would have five hundred and twenty professional home runs so when you look at this thumbnail it is not clickbait do not be smudged my good name in the comments section with false accusation we have done a lot of speculating so far but what does the man himself have to say about his power potential after the 2007 all-star game each are equipped that he could hit 40 homers a season but only if he was allowed to bat 220 and nobody wants that Ben Lindberg of the ringer did a great article a couple years back in which he tried to project what a 40 Homer 220 batting average each row would look like and he came to the conclusion that it would make Ichiro less effective overall mostly due to his pedestrian walk rates he basically be a Joey Gallo that doesn't walk as much not a great look as for me I think there's a compromise somewhere in there Ichiro demonstrated the Selective ability to seek out homeruns over the course of his career I'll give a quick example in 2018 with the bases empty hitters cranked out a homer every 31.8 plate appearances that number stayed roughly the same with the bases loaded Ichiro however loved to go to for the grand slam when it was convenient with the bases empty he homered only every eighty three and a half plate appearances with the bases loaded his homer rate basically doubled hitting a grand slam every forty two and a half plate appearances do you know what else would be a convenient time to turn on the power how about when you're the winning run against the greatest closure of all time [Music] my closer [Applause] [Music] I think it's very easy to imagine Pizarro each row having a career slash line less like himself and more like Torii Hunter maybe he puts on some weight and lose his baserunning and offensive value in the process but at the plate it could have made him more productive but there would be no 3000 MLB hits or outrageous batting average and George Sisler would still be the single-season hit King I guess this is just a roundabout way of saying that Ichiro had the talent to be a different hitter but then would he have really been Ichiro hey thanks for watching this episode of baseball bits do you agree with my conclusion how many home runs do you think each row could have hit let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this video please check out my other episodes and consider subscribing and following me on Twitter at foolish BB

Channel: Foolish Baseball

Views: 553,440

Keywords: ichiro, ichiro suzuki, ichiro power, ichiro power hitter, ichiro home runs, ichiro mariners, ichiro marlins, baseball bits, foolish baseball, ichiro mlb, ichiro npb, ichiro japan, ichiro japan home runs, ichiro mlb home runs, ichiro orix blue wave, japanese baseball, mlb, npb, major league baseball, baseball, nippon pro baseball, ichiro homer, ichiro home run off mariano rivera, ichiro suzuki: japan's secret slugger? l baseball bits, ichiro slugger, ichiro suzuki home runs

Id: eh9HP-9xZFs

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Narkolepse]

I worked at Safeco, witnessed many batting practices.

Bret Boone used to pride himself on hitting opposite fields homers. It was our job to grab home runs and toss them back on to the field before fans came in. He and Ichiro used to aim at us seating hosts in the right field bleachers before the gates opened. Freddy Garcia got a kick out of it, we'd often throw the balls back to him.

Ichiro was PROLIFIC when he wanted to be and would nail the Hit it Here Cafe window to scare us, too.

[u/ShipB_Scrabble]

This was great thanks for sharing! Went down a little rabbit hole after this haha. I love ichiro so much

[u/01greg]

Great video.

[u/x0xligerzerox0x]

Now I'm convinced he purposely hit a homer during his last at bat when he played us with the Marlins.https://youtu.be/qlcHpQLOS6o