With Suzuki, There’s Less Than Meets the Eye

It was April 2001, and I had gone to Oakland Coliseum to see what the big deal was with the new Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki.

In the eighth inning, I found out. On a single to right field by Athletics catcher Ramon Hernandez, Terrence Long attempted to go from first to third. When Suzuki came up with the ball, he steadied himself and fired the ball to third on a low, hard line drive that shot like a laser out of his arm. The ball landed perfectly in third baseman David Bell’s glove, and Long was out by a wide margin.

It was a jaw-dropping event, a play you tell your grandchildren about years later. And if I ever have a grandchild, I plan to do just that. As the years have passed, though, I’ve come to realize that Suzuki, perhaps more than any other player, has an ability to trick you into believing that he is a far more valuable player than he actually is.

There is no doubt that Suzuki is phenomenally talented, regardless of his struggles this season, and that his skill set makes him a fan favorite. The issues boil down to three categories: how effective is he as an offensive player, how much does he do to help his team score runs once on base, and how much can his defense be applied to his test of greatness when he plays right field?

On-Base Machine?

Suzuki’s accomplishments are well known. He holds the single-season hits record, he has recorded at least 200 hits in each of his previous major league seasons. He hits well above .300 every season. But for all his hitting prowess, he is unwilling or unable to take pitches and draw walks. A walk, after all, is nearly as good as a hit for a singles hitter like Suzuki, and yet he has seemed almost allergic to them. In 2009, he was unintentionally walked only 17 times.

Despite his stellar .328 career batting average through Friday, his career on-base percentage of .373 ranks 26th among active players and tied for 228th in baseball history.

In 2004, he set the single-season record for hits with 262, 225 of which were singles, but his low walk total of 49 led to him being on base a total of 315 times. That is the highest total of his career, but it is the 58th-most times a player has reached base in a season and well short of the major league record of 379 set by Babe Ruth in 1923.

Excluding the truly elite players like Ruth, Ted Williams and Barry Bonds, who easily exceeded Suzuki’s total, some less impressive names have reached base more than 315 times in a season: Todd Helton (three times), Jason Giambi (twice) and Jeff Bagwell (twice).

The difference between Suzuki and those players is that they also were hitting with power. It stands to reason that if two players are getting on base at the same rate, and one is hitting with more power, then the player with more power is considerably more valuable. And yet Helton and Bagwell are rarely talked about in the reverent terms reserved for Suzuki. Giambi finished second to Suzuki in Most Valuable Player voting in 2001, a season in which he outpaced him in on-base percentage, doubles, home runs and runs batted in.

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This is where the argument frequently emerges that Suzuki does not try to hit for power. It has long been known that he has a perfect home run stroke that he uses in batting practice but not in games.

But if Suzuki has power to spare, why has it not shown up yet? He has been in the major leagues for 11 seasons, on a team often starved for runs, and yet his approach to the game has not changed. Clearly, standing on first base is not getting the job done, and yet a player with rumored power and excellent speed has not managed as many as 50 extra-base hits in a season since 2003.

Manufacturing Runs

Regardless of what he does in batting practice, it would seem that we have to accept Suzuki as a singles hitter and nothing more offensively.

But as a singles hitter with speed, Suzuki could play the role of table setter and help his team by stealing bases. Unfortunately for the Mariners, Suzuki has never done that much despite an impressive career mark in stolen-base percentage.

Using his speed, Suzuki had reached base through a single or walk 2,391 times through Friday. Even accounting for times when stealing was impossible (for example, a runner blocking him on second base, being thrown out trying to stretch the single into a double), his 312 steals of second seem awfully low (13 percent).

Two other speedsters, Tim Raines and Rickey Henderson, had much higher percentages. Raines reached first 3,222 times in the same situations and stole second 735 times (22.8 percent), and Henderson reached first 4,372 times and stole second 1,080 times (24.7 percent).

Perhaps a more fair comparison to Suzuki is Jose Reyes, the Mets shortstop who also has blazing speed and until this season also lacked patience. Reyes has combined for 1,172 singles and walks, and has stolen second 288 times (24.6 percent).

Getting Defensive

Even those willing to acknowledge that Suzuki does not reach base at an elite rate, does not hit with any discernible power and is not aggressive in getting into scoring position once on base will tend to bring up his defense. Watching him play right field has consistently been impressive, with his arm being his chief asset.

But to borrow a football phrase, if a cornerback could catch, he would be a receiver. If Suzuki had the skills to play a more demanding position, like shortstop or even center field, he would have been playing there (his brief tenure in center for the Mariners was ended when the team acquired Franklin Gutierrez).

None of this is an attempt to say that Suzuki is not a fine baseball player. His durability and consistency should not be dismissed. I fully expect him to be elected to the Hall of Fame when he is eligible, and he would hardly be the least qualified member of the institution.

But when I watch this game, and I try to separate the “wow” from the actual value, I’m often left wanting when it comes to Suzuki and how he puts his many talents to use.