Ichiro Career Stats

Most of Ichiro's career NPB stats can be found at here.

I've done some study of what that performance means at a major league level in an article entitled "Japanese Possibilities for the MLB for 2003" [BaseballGuru.com].

I've also written advocating Sadaharu Oh's induction into Cooperstown, in part using a similar approach. These articles also appear in the baseballguru.com website. Ichiro's got to keep it up for a while, even if one includes his Japanese data, to merit Cooperstown consideration. I, for one, hope he and/or H. Matsui do so, as I personally believe that the acceptance of NPB data for purposes of Cooperstown will not come until a Japanese player creates a constituency over in the US. From that point of view, it would be preferable if they need NPB data to put them in. Actually, a power hitter hitting like a true power hitter (say Godzilla getting at least 25 MLB HR with some frequency) might be necessary to get Oh in, because otherwise some will try to keep out Japanese power hitters on the "poor pitching/small ballparks" argument I've heard quite often.

There are a few other candidates I could go for, say three managers (Tsuruoka, Kawakami, and Mizuhara), and at probably a starting nine, plus a few more pitchers and miscellaneous players. Actually, the Oh and 2003 possibles research has convinced me there are many fewer good HOF candidates than when I wrote my first article, for Big Bad Baseball Abstract. The main reason for this is that you've got to take away 40% of NPB HR and drop the batting average 6-7% or so. This pretty much eliminates .300 major league equivalencies, and pushes basically everyone but Oh and Nomura to 400 HR or less equivalent MLB HR in a career. It's hard to make Cooperstown with a sub .300 average and 400 or less career HR, though not impossible. If you get 3,000 hits, that would get you in. Other than that, you'd better pitch, or play somewhere other than first or outfield if you want a good chance at a plaque in Cooperstown. There still are exceptions, but many of them are the choices that are frequently criticised, mostly correctly.

Eventually, I'll do that article, but I've tried to keep what little attention there is on the issue confined to Oh. I figure the first guy inducted almost solely on the basis of his NPB play ought to be the best player ever in NPB, and Oh is clearly that man. There will be time for the others after that, though I have little doubt I'll do the article before any player with over 5 years in NPB is inducted. Ichiro could well be the first, but he'll probably need to keep this up for 4-5 more years at least, and then we'll have to deal with the 5 year waiting period. That puts us into the next decade if we have to wait for Ichiro.

The biggest issue to overcome is one Josh Reyer wrote quite nicely about here [Great American Sports Fan - gasf.com]. Unfortunately, I suspect that the scenario in which Ichiro needs his NPB accomplishments considered in order to be seen as qualified is the kind of thing that will be necessary to break down the wall posed by the view discussed by Josh's article, which I consider short-sighted and not in baseball's best interest on either side of the Pacific.

This rant has been brought to you by the elect Sadaharu Oh to Cooperstown committee, Craig Tomarkin presiding and Jim Albright, Treasurer, and we will now return to your normally scheduled programming.

Jim Albright

Thanks for all the info, Jim. Patience is a virtue, and if it takes ten years, then I will wait that long for Cooperstown to address NPB.

There should be a petition compiled by the Sadaharu Oh to Cooperstown Committee, Oh's numbers are too good to be ignored for this long.

Thanks.

VMM

I noticed that ESPN now lists Ichiro's Japanese stats under his player profile page. I haven't checked Matsui, Nomo, et. al.

ESPN lists Japanese stats for batters (Ichiro, Matsui, etc.) but not pitchers (Nomo, Ishii, etc.).

Well VMM, we've asked people on this board to push the cause, we've asked the "j-ball" mailing list folks to push the cause, we've asked SABR members to push the cause, we've contacted papers in almost all of the major league cities trying to get them to run stories, we've contacted Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford (he's written in favor of it several times), some of the ESPN guys, and several others I'm sure I've forgotten. The baseballguru.com site has a link which will set you up to tell the HOF Oh belongs. We've also mailed our presentation out to each and every member of the HOF board, which sets the rules on who belongs (current rules bar Oh because he didn't play 10 years or more in MLB or the Negro Leagues).

We actually got a polite response from Bud Selig, which also appears on the baseballguru.com site. In short, Craig Tomarkin and I have done just about everything we can afford to do to push the cause, and like it or not, we may have gotten the matter in motion, but it's very slow, and it won't gather much steam unless we can get support from Japanese players and/or fans of Japanese baseball, including those from Japan. Those are the politics of the HOF, and wishing ain't gonna change them.

I certainly would love help, even in the form of ideas to get things moving faster. However, it seems to me we've already tried ideas similar to what you suggest.

By the way, we aren't really a committee (for one thing, it's pretty much a two man operation). About the only thing we haven't done is write the Japanese players in the majors asking them to push for Oh. We haven't the contacts in Japan to get anything going over there, but if anyone can help there, we'd sure appreciate it. Beyond that, we've put the facts as we see them out there for all to see, and yes, patience is a virtue.

But if we just wait for the right set of circumstances to come, that might not happen. For instance, Ichiro might get hurt, and H. Matsui might decide to return to Japan after a few years in New York. If those things were to happen, 10 years would become wildly optimistic if we just sit and wait. To me, that's the frustrating thing. I can't sit by, but at least right now, the work I'm doing nets precious little progress toward that goal.

Thanks for the kind words, though -- it helps me soldier on.

Jim Albright

John Holway has one of the best approaches to NPB. John accepts and acknowledges Japanese accomplishments along with Negro League stats in his books.

As expected, Melvin Mora's average has fallen (.349) and Ichiro has emerged, once again, as the batting leader(.352). Ichiro is amazing.