Ichiro Suzuki: The Man, the Myth, the Fraud? Part Two

For those who haven't read it, here is Part One.

Ichiro’s praise is almost never combined with statistical comparison. Ichiro is widely considered to be the best leadoff hitter in baseball. As a leadoff hitter, it is Ichiro’s job to get on base and, ideally, to work a pitcher.

Considering that about 81 percent of Ichiro’s hits in the MLB have been singles, the baseball cliché “a walk is as good as a hit” is eerily true for Ichiro. However, the uber-coordinated leadoff hitter has only 365 walks in his career to this point.

One can’t help but be frustrated seeing Ichiro foul off "ball four" multiple times in an at-bat, or any ball way out of the strike zone for that matter.

Theoretically, since Ichiro hits mostly singles, a walk is actually more valuable than a hit, because it forced the pitcher to throw at least four balls.

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