Is Ichiro heading for the Hall of Fame?  Which one?

“One day, a warrior will ride from the East to the West, and by his feats, their halls of greatness shall become one”

-Unknown drunk prophet

A few years ago, the belief came to me that Ichiro Suzuki was not only a Hall of Famer, but that he would become the first player to be inducted into Cooperstown’s
Hall of Fame as well as Japan’s Hall of Fame. I’m not sure how the powers that be in Japan view him, or what their eligibility rules are, but it is becoming increasingly
obvious that Ichiro will one day be in Cooperstown. For eligibility, all he needs now is to have played 10 seasons. This will be official as soon as he steps up to the
plate or takes the field in Seattle’s 2010 opener. His critics for the most part do not believe he won’t be inducted; they seem resigned to that and focus their
arguments on saying that he shouldn’t be inducted.

The Case for Ichiro

Ichiro, through the end of the 2008 season, had accumulated 45 wins above replacement (WAR) according to Baseballprojection.com (full disclosure: it’s my website).
This is not a high enough total, by itself, to warrant induction. For eligible players, those with 70 or more WAR are 98 percent likely to be in the Hall of Fame. (The exception is Bill Dahlen, an overlooked shortstop who played from 1891 to 1911, and the calculation excludes Pete Rose, who is not eligible.) With 60-69 WAR, 64 percent are in; with 50-59 it’s 54 percent; and from 40-49 it’s 30 percent.

The players with high ratings who have not been honored are mostly players who played after 1960. Dahlen is the only exclusion that sticks out, according to WAR,
from the 1870s to the first half of the century (though it can’t speak to the Negro Leagues). The next best two are Jack Glasscock, a shortstop from the
1800’s, and Sherry Magee, an outfielder from the 1900-1919 deadball era. As far as WAR rates them, they had equivalent value in their times to Willie Randolph and
Bobby Bonds.

We aren’t looking at total career value with Ichiro however. First of all, he played regularly for seven years in Japan. Second, he is still active, hitting over .350 as I write this, and has shown no signs of slowing down at age 35. Since we don’t know how long Ichiro will keep turning out 200+ hit seasons, trying to evaluate him on
career value is like trying to guess where a car driving 80 mph will wind up when it hasn’t even applied the brakes yet.

Comparing Ichiro’s eight completed major league seasons to the best eight consecutive years of other great players, he stacks up well. The players I picked for comparison are Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente, Duke Snider, Reggie Jackson, Richie Ashburn, Tony Gwynn, Billy Williams, and Dave Winfield; contemporary outfielders Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and Vladimir Guerrero, and one more, Tony Oliva.

PlayerWAR8Years
Roberto Clemente55.21964-71
Duke Snider53.31949-56
Reggie Jackson50.41969-76
Sammy Sosa47.41995-02
Ichiro Suzuki45.32001-08
Richie Ashburn44.31951-58
Vladimir Guerrero43.91998-05
Tony Oliva41.81964-71
Manny Ramirez40.41996-03
Tony Gwynn40.01984-91
Billy Williams38.31963-70
Dave Winfield34.91977-84

There’s no point in bringing guys like Mays, Aaron, Mantle, and Frank Robinson into the discussion. Ichiro is not within a mile of those guys, but if the Hall of Fame
were limited to players of that caliber, it would be very small indeed. In addition, I’m not bringing some of the questionable veterans committee picks into the
discussion. Ichiro’s better than they are, but so are dozens of other outfielders who sit outside the hall.

Ichiro is behind Clemente, Snider, and Jackson, but ahead of Winfield, Gwynn, and Williams. The latter three aren’t in on peak value though; they are in for excellent long careers that lasted long enough for each to approach or surpass the 3,000-hit level.

Ashburn and Gwynn are the closest comparisons in player type. Gwynn was very similar in being a high average hitter with few walks and not much power. Gwynn
was a strong defender and base runner in his younger days, but as he got older, he got a lot bigger, limiting his contributions in these areas. He remained a great
hitter past the age of 40.

Ashburn is nearly identical in eight-year value, and without a long career, probably Ichiro’s best comp if we only look at his MLB seasons.
Ashburn was similar in value as a hitter, leading Ichiro +150 runs to +132 for the eight years in question. Each won two batting titles. Ichiro was more consistent at
providing a high average, never falling below .300, and had more extra base power. Ashburn drew more walks and led the league in OBP four times. Both were
outstanding fielders and speedy base runners. Ashburn played a tougher position in center field (Ichiro played some center but mostly right) while Ichiro had the
better arm. Ashburn was not voted in by the BBWAA, but honored by the veteran’s committee 33 years after his last game.

Among the recent contemporaries, Ichiro has shown similar overall value to sluggers Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and Vladimir Guerrero. They are all much better
hitters. Ichiro averages 17 batting runs above average during this stretch; the three sluggers average 43 runs per year. Two of the other three were able to add some value beyond the bat. Sammy and Vlad ran well when younger, Sammy had good range in the field, and Vlad had a cannon in the outfield when he was able to move
well enough to set himself up for a throw. Ramirez was all bat, though he was a notch ahead of Vlad and Sammy as a hitter.

Ichiro picks up little advantages here and there. In an average season he’s +5 runs on the bases (75 percent of that from stealing and rarely being caught, 25 percent other base running), +4 runs in avoiding the double play, +1 from reaching on errors, +9 with his range in the field, and +4 from outfield throwing. Add all that up and it’s 23 runs, compared to the 26 runs he loses in hitting. Ichiro gets a small boost for his durability, playing virtually every day, and the overall value is a wash. Seattle is justified in paying Ichiro $18 million per year, right about what Vlad and Manny average today, and what Sosa made if you adjust his peak salaries for inflation.

Finally, there is Tony Oliva. Oliva was a great hitter during his peak, and had more power than Ichiro. He was a five-tool player as well, helping his teams on the
bases, with his range and his throwing. Then severe knee injuries took their toll, reducing his ability as a hitter and limiting him to designated hitter. As a result, virtually all of Oliva’s value is concentrated into that eight-year stretch. While he has his supporters, Oliva has not been elected to the Hall of Fame. With similar value in an eight-year stretch, Ichiro is a questionable candidate if you only look at those eight years.

What I see is a player with a peak value that measures up to the standards of non-inner circle Hall of Famers. It is not so great that it must put him in by itself; in
other words, he is not the Sandy Koufax of hitters, or comparable to Albert Pujols, who would go in on peak value alone if he retired after the 2010 season. In Ichiro’s case, we need to look for value beyond those eight years.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

What about his value beyond his first 8 ½ years with the Mariners?

“Like the wind, the earth, and sea, Ichiro is timeless. He is immortal as time has no meaning.”

-unknown drunk prophet, after a few more beers.

For one thing, Ichiro is still playing great. If he keeps hitting .320-.350 for another five years, then we won’t even need to look back at his Japanese stats. But
if he doesn’t, or in any case if we want to truly appreciate his whole body of work, it is necessary to investigate how good Ichiro was during his seasons in Japan.

I’ve looked at many years of players moving from Japan to MLB, and from MLB to Japan, and have been fairly accurate in predicting how players who cross over will
do. For hitters coming from Japan, they will hit just as many singles, doubles and triples as they do in Japan, and they strike out no more often. They will however lose
much of their home run power and walk significantly less.

In Japan, the fences are shorter than in the US by an average of about 10 feet. Whether this is enough to explain the loss of 44 percent of their home run total I don’t know, but that’s the drop that has been observed. Since Ichiro’s game relies less on homers and walks, he has been the perfect player for maintaining his game over here. He lost much less of his relative value than Hideki Matsui did.

I use the following adjustment factors to translate players from the East to West:

HR: .56 (home runs lost become outs)
BB: .72
2B, 3B, 1.10

Other stats are held constant. Playing time is adjusted for the shorter schedule, though I’ve noticed that far more players in Japan play the full 162 games.
I didn’t think it was likely that they would all do so over here, and prorated the schedule to 150 games instead of 162. So here’s an estimate of what Ichiro’s
numbers would look like had he been born in Jacksonville, Fla.:

YearGABRH2B3BHRRBISBCSBBSOTBBAOBPSLG
19941054417916036464023630432220.3630.4030.503
199513554488170265157051951542510.3130.3710.461
1996150625104213305108740347662830.3410.3870.453
199715059690196385119243450402770.3290.3810.465
19981505627719344487312434392690.3430.3810.479
199911445773144332136413136512200.3150.3650.481
20001134236715626177023142392050.3690.4260.485
2001157692127242348869561430533160.3500.3810.457
2002157647111208278851311568622750.3210.3880.425
2003159679111212298136234836692960.3120.3520.436
2004161704101262245860361149633200.3720.4140.455
20051626791112062112156833848662960.3030.3500.436
200616169511022420994945249712890.3220.3700.416
200716167811123822766837849772920.3510.3960.431
200816268610321320764243451652650.3100.3610.386
2009903955114221362521619351870.3590.3910.473
Total22879503151431794519314999054110468989342630.3350.3800.449

I left off Ichiro’s cup of coffee seasons at ages 18 and 19. The rules are different over here, and I doubt that a team would want to place him on the 40-man roster so quickly, and they don’t really add much value anyway. Ichiro completely dominated Japan’s minor leagues at those ages though. His age-20 season is a top-range Ichiro season, much like 2001 and 2004 were. Would he have been in the majors from the start at such a young age? I say yes, especially if we assume American Ichiro
plays for Seattle the whole time. This would have been 1994. Five years earlier the Mariners started a 19-year-old center fielder with Hall of Fame talent. Two years
later they’d do the same for a 20-year-old shortstop.

What I see here is the lack of a clearly defined aging pattern. Ichiro’s skills, and the magnitude of his play, appear to be the same at age 20 as they were at age
27, and remain so at age 35. He is the timeless warrior. He has up years and down years. With a constant ability of a .335 hitter, some years he’ll hit .310 and
some years he’ll hit .360. Some years he gets on a good power streak and swats 12-15 homers. Other years his hits stay on the ground and he only hits six. Those
seasons also appear randomly interspersed through the years, with no detectable aging trend.

If you give him credit for his play in Japan, his career length and excellence certainly meets the standards for Cooperstown, and of course, he’s still going strong.
He may even reach 3,000 hits for his U.S. career alone. Not everyone is in favor of giving credit for seasons played in Japan, for the purposes of the Hall of
Fame. My personal opinion and standards are as follows:


  1. To warrant consideration, a player must play major league baseball. (This does not apply to the Negro Leagues; it’s a different issue). Saduhara Oh may have
    had a HOF-worthy career, but Japan has its own Hall of Fame to honor him.

  2. The player must demonstrate a Hall of Fame level of play in the United States. If Saduhara Oh played his HOF career in Japan, came to the U.S. at age
    38, hit .260 with 15 homers, then went back, I would not vote for him. I would not vote for Hideki Matsui, who has been a good player, but not a HOF-level one
    in the U.S. I stand by this even as he approaches 500 combined home runs. He is certainly worthy of Japan’s Hall of Fame, where his record
    is much more impressive compared to his peers.

  3. If a player has demonstrated a HOF-quality peak in the U.S. but lacks career length, it is appropriate to investigate how many years he played at a high level in a league outside the U.S.

  4. As of now, this applies only to Ichiro. He is the first, but there will some day be others. It doesn’t seem so likely right now as he’s had all sorts of problems
    in 2009, but if a pitcher like Matsuzaka had 175 wins or so in the U.S., I would fully support looking at his Japanese record to add length to his HOF case.

Are these WAR numbers any good? Do they accurately rate Ichiro?

Let’s look at these by components.

Offense: I have Ichiro at +132 batting runs. Baseball-Reference lists him at +130 through 2008, as does Fangraphs. Ichiro gets a huge number of infield
hits, which are worth less than standard singles because they don’t advance base runners as well, but Colin Wyers on a Baseball Think Factory thread posted Ichiro’s
numbers based on situation specific run expectancy. The result: 132 runs. Offense is the easiest thing to measure.

Speed: Ichiro’s base running is +43 runs. Of that, about 30 runs is due to stealing 315 bases and only being caught 70 times. For the rest, which depend on hidden calculations (not because they are proprietary but because they would take a book to explain) I’m just saying Ichiro’s speed is worth about two runs a year. This shouldn’t be controversial since nobody is going to suggest Ichiro is a poor base runner, and suggesting he’s average would seem strange given how fast everyone can see he is.

Avoiding the double play: He hits into five double plays per year. My numbers say that’s worth four runs. If the average player in his opportunities hits into 14 per year, that’s seven times where Ichiro’s speed beats the relay throw to first, saving his team an out and gaining a base runner, essentially equivalent to the opposite of a caught stealing (.44 runs). Nine x 0.44 = 3.96

So far, nothing that should be controversial.

Defense and Arm: TotalZone has Ichiro at +74 runs and another +34 with his throwing. TotalZone is not the state-of-the-art defensive system, judging by detail of inputs. UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating, available on Fangraphs) accounts for more detail. UZR has Ichiro at +54 for range and errors, and +28 for arm. It’s close, but Fangraphs only includes seasons 2002 and on. For those seasons only, my numbers show +61 for range and +32 for throwing. Even closer.

Zone rating, as published by STATS (Fangraphs uses Baseball Info Solutions data) does not like Ichiro so much, rating him as about an average defender. Zone rating does not attempt to measure the impact of a throwing arm. The Fielding Bible Vol. 2 has data for 2003 to 2008 and shows Ichiro at +48 range and +32 throwing for right field and center field combined. Those who observe Ichiro, such as the fans who respond to Tango Tiger’s scouting report for the fans, consistently rank Ichiro as a great defender.

One criticism of the arm ratings is that they aggregate too much and do not consider the hit location of the ball. It is true that Bengie Molina will score on a sac fly caught by Roberto Clemente if it is caught 375 feet from the plate. And Juan Pierre will hold Carl Crawford at third if he catches the ball 150 feet from home. (Well, maybe.)

But the data show that these things even out over a long season. Large sample size is our friend. We may not be able to trust throwing ratings
compiled game by game or week by week. But the season ratings are reasonable, and the career ratings look very good. If the problems were as bad as the critics
say, we’d have random data, with the leaders in arm rankings changing year to year and bad throwers likely to put up good numbers by accident, and good throwers
looking bad. This does not happen. The guys who are observed to have the best arms, like Roberto Clemente and Jesse Barfield, rate well. Those who don’t, like Juan Pierre and Bernie Williams, rate poorly. Sometimes a big slow guy like Frank Howard will rate poorly despite a great arm, and a guy like Tim Raines or Kenny Lofton will rate well. In these cases, what we are seeing is that arm strength is only one factor that affects base runner advancement. How fast you get to the ball matters too.

Conclusion: the TotalZone ratings for defense and arm are similar to such ratings by more advanced systems and backed by observational data. Zone rating, as regards to Ichiro, stands on an Island by itself. Quantifying defense is difficult. I don’t expect everyone to trust the results of these systems. I do think it is much more likely than not that a player with great speed, who looks great playing the outfield, and who wins a gold glove every year is in fact the outstanding defender that these metrics claim he is.

I am convinced that not only will Ichiro be inducted to the Cooperstown Hall of Fame, but he will deserve to go.

Will Ichiro be elected to Japan’s Hall of Fame?

This is a tougher question for me as I’m not as familiar with the eligibility requirements. The rules are similar as Cooperstown’s in that players must be retired
for five years and receive 75 percent of the votes. I did not see a requirement for a minimum number of years played. Ichiro played seven full seasons in Japan and parts of two others. He has more playing time than Randy Bass, who has been eligible for election though he did not receive the minimum number of votes.

JapanBaseballDaily.com, which is an incredible resource for statistics, lists the leaders in batting average with a minimum of 4,000 at-bats. The leader is Leron Lee, at .320. Ichiro has 1,278 hits in 3,619 at-bats for a .353 average. Ichiro could return to Japan, collect the extra 381 at-bats, and need only three hits to claim the top spot from Lee by percentage points. I’m not sure where his .422 on-base percentage ranks, but it must be up there, with a 30-point edge in batting average and a higher walk rate than he’s shown in the U.S.

I don’t know if the Japanese Hall of Fame voters will hold it against Ichiro for leaving to play in the United States. With the fans, he could not be more popular, and he certainly has not hurt his national standing with his play in the World Baseball Classic.

I believe that in the end he will be the first player to be enshrined in the Halls of Fame of two nations, and I look forward to that day.


18 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jack
14 years ago

The hall of fame is a museum of baseball history, not a wholly-owned subsidiary of MLB. Ichiro is one of the greats of the game, wherever he played it, and it’d be a shame if he didn’t make it in.

roadrider
14 years ago

Let me understand, you want to include Suzuki’s – I don’t go for that narcicisstic “I go by one name” crap)Japanese statistics in Hall of Fame considerations? Then why not include other players’ AAA statistics? Ever hear of Tuffy Rhodes or Randy Bass (fringe major leaguers who were superstars in Japan)? How about Kei Igawa or Hideki Irabu? Yes, there are MLB caliber players in the JPBL – this dos not make it major league level competition any more than the fact that there are major-league caliber players that come out of AAA and even AA leagues every year.

Your own data shows that Suzuki’s qualifications are on the level of Richie Ashburn’s (a questionable selection based on sentimentality and a huge PR campaign).

If Suzuki gets to 3000 hits in MLB he should go in. Otherwise he hasn’t got a case.

Jon Samuelson
14 years ago

In reply to Brandon Tingley, I would just like to point out that it’s the “National Baseball Hall of Fame”, so it is logical and right that it’s statistic accrued in American baseball that earn one a plaque in Cooperstown.  That said though, I think Ichiro falls into a Koufax like crowd of absolute brilliance over a relatively short career, and for my money is definitely a Hall of Famer.

mlyons
14 years ago

No, it actually is the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Travis M. Nelson
14 years ago

Actually, Brandon, it IS the American baseball hall of fame.  Or, more accurately, it’s the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, as in this nation, the United States, not Japan or the world, but the US. 

That’s why Saduharo Oh and Jose Contreras aren’t already in the Hall, and that’s why the baseball writers will not (and technically cannot) give extra credit for Ichiro’s exploits overseas. 

I have some other thoughts on this too, but I intend to post them as a column of my own on http://www.boyofsummer.net, so I won’t lay them all out here.

mlyons
14 years ago

Or what Jon Samuelson said. Sorry.

NadavT
14 years ago

Roadrider, you might not have fully understood the way that Sean presented Ichiro’s JPBL stats.  He didn’t just list the actual numbers that Ichiro put up in Japan, but rather presented the adjusted numbers based on the average change in Japanese players’ performance when they move from JPBL to MLB.  If you had an MLB player with a HOF-worthy peak who for some reason was kept in AAA for most of his twenties (like, say, Edgar Martinez), then you could make a similar case for including minor league stats, so long as you first adjusted them to major-league equivalencies.

Hunter
14 years ago

Actually, while its official title is the “National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum” there is no reason why it must limit itself to only the U.S.  In fact, foreign citizens are eligible for induction, as are foreign and U.S. players who played for certain teams that not domiciled in the U.S. (e.g. the Toronto Blue Jays and Montreal Expos).  Really, its name should be changed, as should some of its rules.

A player can get into the HOF in one of the following five ways (and note that Executives, umps, broadcasters, and others are also elibible for the HOF):

(1) Play 10 “Major League” seasons and be voted in by BBWA;

(2) Play 10 “Major League” seasons and be voted in by the Veterans Committee;

(3) Play 10 Negro League seasons starting pre-WWII and be voted in by the Veterans Committee;

(4) Play a combined post-WWII 10 Negro and “Major League” seasons and be voted in by the Veterans Committee; or

(5) Be voted a recipient of the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award.

I’m unaware of any definition of the term “Major League” which limits that to only the American and National Leagues (e.g. MLB).  In fact, players from Leagues which predate MLB in the HOF?

In any event, Lefty O’Doul (already in Japanese HOF) and Oh should be strong candidates for the Buck O’Neil award.

Eric/OR
14 years ago

“roadrider” = troll.  This was an excellent article.

mathgeek
14 years ago

1 ROY, 1 MVP, 1 all-star MVP,
8 gold gloves and counting, single season record holder for most hits in a season (262), record for most consecutive steals, 8 (most likely 9) consecutive seasons with at least 200 hits and counting, will achieve 2000+ hits in nine seasons and his total hits are still a work in progress…I believe he his very close if not already HOF ready…i mean 2000 hits in 9 seasons? how many Hall of famers with 3000+ hits ( a benchmark for hall recognition) had 2000 hits in 9 seasons?…it is possible for Ichiro to get 3000 hits in 14 seasons, which would be phenomenal, so we shall see…10 years is the minimum amount of playing time but I don’t believe a long career should be a requirement for judging whether a person is hall worthy.
is a person who has 2700 hits in 13 seasons less worthy than someone who has 3000 hits in 24 seasons? i think it depends on what other accomplishments each person does in the time in the majors. it is subjective but this is what makes the hall of fame interesting.

Brandon Tingley
14 years ago

It IS the baseball hall of fame, not the American Baseball Hall of Fame. There is EVERY reason to include great players from Cuban and Japan—and any place else they happen to crop up where they are not allowed to play in the US. Otherwise, you are demonstrating a prejudice similar to that that refuse negro-league players entry.

In my opinion, of course.

Personally, I’d LOVE to see a little international section at the HoF. It would help attract visitors—particularly Japanese—to the museum and additionally be politically astute. Some day Cuba will open up again, for example (how many more fans would the Havana Marlins attract?) and it would be forward-thinking to have one or two of their stars from their personal dark ages already enshrined in the HoF?

Possuum
14 years ago

5. Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame voting requirements do not say that you have to use statistics at all.  How can it have strict requirements on what stats are in bounds or out of bounds?  Even if you want to argue that his Japanese stats shouldn’t count as a contribution to his MLB team, they could be evidence of his playing ability.  His Japanese stats confirm what his MLB stats suggest, that he was a great player.

UberMitch
14 years ago

roadrider:

I’ve heard of Hideki Irabu.  I hear he’s a fat toad.

Travis M. Nelson
14 years ago

Possum, what do you think they mean by “playing record”?  Of course they mean statistics.  Playing ability gives them a little leeway to vote for someone they think got a raw deal in terms of playing time or something, such as segregation, WWII service or retiring at 33 due to glaucoma, but basically it’s the player’s numbers they look at. 

It’s just a question of which numbers they’re going to use.  For the most part, Ichiro does well in the numbers they like to use, but he’ll need to play several more years to have the kinds of counting stats the BBWAA likes to see. 

http://www.boyofsummer.net/2009/08/ichiros-cooperstown-chances-still.html

Nathaniel Dawson
14 years ago

NadavT said…

“If you had an MLB player with a HOF-worthy peak who for some reason was kept in AAA for most of his twenties (like, say, Edgar Martinez), then you could make a similar case for including minor league stats, so long as you first adjusted them to major-league equivalencies.”

If you included Edgar Martinez’ MLE’s for his minor league time, it would do little to nothing to help his Hall of Fame case. The reason he spent so much of his time in the minors during his twenties is because he did things like hit .260 in AA for two years with little power. That’s not a way to forge a Hall of Fame career. He became a great hitter, but not until his mid to late twenties.

David in Toledo
14 years ago

Compare Ichiro to Johnny Damon.  They’re the same age.  If Ichiro had been living here, would he have played in MLB starting at approximately the same age as Damon?  Would he undoubtedly have played as well as Damon, based on their performances for the past nine seasons?  Okay, add Damon’s stats through age 26 to Ichiro’s from age 27 on.  3,000 hits and counting, 12 or more Gold Gloves and counting.

I agree with your conclusion, Sean.

Ed
14 years ago

roadrider ACTUALLY said…

“Your own data shows that Suzuki’s qualifications are on the level of Richie Ashburn’s (a questionable selection based on sentimentality and a huge PR campaign).

If Suzuki gets to 3000 hits in MLB he should go in. Otherwise he hasn’t got a case. “

Gee – a well informed baseball fan here …
Richie Ashburn is not a questionable selection.  He just happened to play at the same time as Willie, Mickey and the Duke – and of course, there’s no NY bias … no … 

Check out his number of put outs in CF – phenomenal totals.  He certainly could hit for average, and for the 50’s, he was more than a good base stealer.

And as for your next statement – so you’re saying that if Suzuki got 2999 hits, he’s not qualified, but one more bunt single makes him? 

Tell me the truth – you HAVE to be a METS fan, right?  Only a Mets fan would make such uninformed statements …

Jim Albright
14 years ago

Ichiro will get into the Japanese HOF.  Bass has come close, and he’s a gaijin (foreigner).  Ichiro has shown the best of Japan can make it with the best of the world, and he’ll get credit for that.  That said, he’ll probably have to wait 15 years after his MLB retirement to get in (so long as he’s not coaching in Japan, as they don’t vote on guys in uniform) as that’s the usual wait.

The Japanese Hall is not limited to professionals, but has college and high schoolers in it as well.  In a way, it’s about being famous for playing ball in Japan, and Ichiro is certainly that.