There has never been a player like Ichiro.
He gets more hits than anyone—almost all are singles.
He has power but decides not to use it.
He almost never walks.
He is one of the fastest and smartest baserunners around.
He plays a great CF.
He has a legendary arm.
What does all this add up to?
Ichiro has all five tools, but basically stifles one (power) to boost another (contact). This isn't necessarily a bad strategy, but it ties all his value up in batting average. Ichiro's isolated walk rate and isolated power are very low.
That's not to say that what he does isn't great. The question is, how great is it?
Last week I introduced Ultimate Value Index, which is my new statistic that compares both hitters and pitchers, and takes baserunning and situational hitting into account for hitters. Given Ichiro's profile, he is very prone to being overrated ("Look at the batting average, hits, and steals!") or underrated ("Yeah, so he's good for a fast singles hitter. So what? It's just Juan Pierre with a bit more contact.") Using UVI, I thought that maybe I could actually find out where Ichiro's true value lies. Ichiro's career UVI ( drum roll please) is:
.516.
And yes, that includes adjustment for playing in cavernous Safeco Field.
I ran that in the middle of writing this article with no preconceived notion of what I was going to say. Had it come out .600, I would have said that Ichiro is awesome. However, Ichiro didn't come out at .600; he came out at .516. If you remove the Safeco adjustment, he's at .498.
Is .516 a good UVI? Yes it is. And it most certainly is an improvement on Juan Pierre. But to look at the complete opposite of Ichiro, let's look at Jack Cust. Cust's career UVI is (cymbal crash please, just to change it up some):
.525
.512 without park adjustment.
Cust isn't a better player than Ichiro—Ichiro makes up that .009 difference with his defense. But that's not the point.
The point is simply that Ichiro isn't a particularly great player. He's fun to watch. He's interesting. He does things we've never seen before.
The bottom line is those things don't make him an amazing ballplayer.
With Ichiro, everyone always focuses on what he does well. He gets hits, he runs fast, and he defends well. No one ever notices that he swings at everything and has a career .103 ISO, because they see the average, hits, and steals and assume "That's enough to make you great."
Players who slug a career .435 need to get on base way more than Ichiro to be great.
With Cust, everyone always focuses on his flaws: he strikes out a ton and can't play defense. No one will ever forget that "Stumble-A-Thon" in Baltimore in 2003. No one noticed when he nearly broke the minor league walks record en route to a 1.067 AAA OPS in 2006. No one noticed when he hit 26 homers and put up a .408 OBP last year, despite not arriving in the Bigs until mid-May and playing in a park with a factor of 948.
But for their careers, they've essentially had equal or near-equal value.
Ichiro is good, and he certainly should be leading off for the Seattle Mariners. But there's much more to him besides the hits and the steals, and it isn't all that good.
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5 months ago
That's sort of weird that his UVI isn't that great considering he has the best batting average of active players. He plays good defense, too, though. Right?
from 5 months ago
Yeah he does...
Batting average is nice, but if it's all singles and you never walk, this is what happens.
from 5 months ago
Remember that if you have a .400 batting average but it's all singles, that's just a .400 UVI. It's one of the most misleading stats in baseball, and it's a shame that it gets top billing everywhere. Every stat has flaws, including UVI, but batting average has more than just flaws.
5 months ago
I had a feeling that Ichiro's UVI wouldn't be that great. Even counting his great baserunning, and (I assume) low GIDP rate, the Custs and Dunns of the world still are more potent with the bat in their hands...and the fact that Ichiro doesn't work the count is what separates him from the truly great leadoff men (see: Rickey Henderson).
from 5 months ago
Yeah, his career OPS isn't eye-opening either.
5 months ago
I had a feeling that Ichiro's UVI wouldn't be that great. Even counting his great baserunning, and (I assume) low GIDP rate, the Custs and Dunns of the world still are more potent with the bat in their hands...and the fact that Ichiro doesn't work the count is what separates him from the truly great leadoff men (see: Rickey Henderson).
5 months ago
Hey Nat, you def wrote a good article here and on your previous article that explained your basis behind your UVI rating. However, I believe that the findings of your stat in respect to Cust and Ichiro merely proves its flaws as opposed to revealing the flaws of Ichiro. As a fan of the game for countless years, I have seen both players in action more than enough. Without even looking at stats, I can tell you that Ichiro means much more to his team than Cust ever has. In addition, your UVI stat fails to take defense into an account, which is pretty much 50% of a player's value, probably even more for Ichiro considering he plays a premium position. Anyway, you still did a great job and the articles were definitely a good read, but i simply feel like somethings missing.
from 5 months ago
Yeah, like I said, Ichiro's defense makes him overall better. I still think that it's more of an Ichiro thing that an UVI thing, however...looking at OPS or OPS+, they seem to agree he's pretty good but not great. It's not like my metric refutes all the others.
from 5 months ago
In Nathaniel's defense, Jeremy, he's never stated that UVI accounts for anything more than batting, and he admits that Ichiro's defense is valuable and he should be starting. The point he's making with this article is that he believes, with UVI as his witness, that Ichiro's style is not ultimately the most effective for scoring runs.
from 5 months ago
Offensively, Cust>Ichiro. There are no stats that will say otherwise. (Batting Average doesn't count as a legitimate stat).
from 5 months ago
Hate it when I accidentally make a new comment instead of responding.
5 months ago
Be careful with that, Kyle...pretty sure their OBPs are very close. But yeah Cust trumps him in SLG.
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