sad to see. One of the greatest ever, and I can only think of one man ever being a greater lead-off man than Ichiro.
Another soul is lost to the giant wurm.
No he isn't, not this year. And not last year as well. In fact, his offense as an OF has been pretty much bottom of the barrel.
Stil, I fully expect him to rise to the occasion with the Yanks, as apparently they do as well.
If you're thinking Ricky, he too went to play for the Yankees. Those bastards.
Other components to his game
Ichiro entered Monday ranked second among major league rightfielders with 12 Defensive Runs Saved, a stat that combines his ability to turn batted balls into outs with the deterrent value of his throwing arm. The only player who ranks higher is Josh Reddick of the Oakland Athletics.
The Yankees defense ranks third-worst in the AL with -20 Defensive Runs Saved, better than only the Orioles (-26) and Tigers (-21). They have been without their top defender, leftfielder Brett Gardner, for nearly the entire season. Gardner ranked second among outfielders with 23 Runs Saved last season.
Ichiro also entered Monday with 15 stolen bases. That’s more than anyone else on the Yankees, who entered the day ranked 11th in the AL with 50 steals. Alex Rodriguez is the top basestealer, with 11.
So the Yanks get the #2 best defensive outfielder/HOFer/speedster for a subpar pitcher and a player they picked up off waivers? The M's must be having a huge firesale this year.
Ichiro = NY now has 3 players with >2500 hits (Jeter and Arod the other two). Insane pickup and the M's are idiots.
So the Yanks get the #2 best defensive outfielder/HOFer/speedster for a subpar pitcher and a player they picked up off waivers? The M's must be having a huge firesale this year.
Ichiro = NY now has 3 players with >2500 hits (Jeter and Arod the other two). Insane pickup and the M's are idiots.
Seattle is a small market team. They are never going to compete by trading off their assets.
Now he will get to play for the greatest franchise ever
lol, no. Yankees are horrible. They have over double the payroll compared to over 2/3rds of the MLB teams and still can't win the world series.
All they do is buy their teams, and they still end up sucking. It's laughable.
If they are horrible wonder how they won 27 World Series and make the playoffs almost every year..
I don't know if Ichiro is past his prime. His style of play is not one that you'd expect to diminish too much with age.
Put yourself in his shoes--he is at his job for over 11 years, often one of the best players on the team. For the past 10 years, the company has gone nowhere. Management surrounds him with young, unqualified people who can't perform. Despite the fact that he is a top performer, rumors circulate that he isn't carrying his weight because he doesn't do enough to mentor the inept people around him.
If it were me, I'd probably show up and do enough not to get fired. Where is the motivation? Put him on a good team and maybe that makes the difference.
Speaking as a lifelong M's fan
While it's true his type of player does age better than most, he still is 38 and it's extremely rare any player is close to what they were in their prime at that age. I don't know the man, but from every thing you can read about him, he has way too much pride to ever not play at his very best.
It's far more likely that he's lost a step and lost enough bat speed to make him what he is today, and when you're the type of hitter Ichiro is-one that swings at everything and doesn't walk-it only makes it worse. Still quite a good defender, but not more than a 4th outfielder at the plate.
Look at my previous post. Willing to bet they've always had a ton of money for their roster.
As of late they have done pretty shitty for all that money they have.
The Yankees are a high expense team, just like the Red Sox and Phillies. Guess who's in last place in their divisions? Not the Yankees. Yankees are in 1st place.