Yesterday, we covered a projection of the newest Yankee, Kevin Youkilis, and today we’ll take care of the imminent re-sign, Ichiro Suzuki. It looks like Ichiro will be headed back to the Bronx, but this time to replace Nick Swisher.
(Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE)
The 39 year old will most certainly provide the Yankees with a top level defender in right field, as well as speed on the bases but the biggest question is hit hitting. Last season, he swiped 29 bags and posted a 13.6 UZR/150.While Ichiro is getting older, he’s shown very little signs of regression on defense or speed. Although the stolen bases fell from 40 to 29 between 2011 and 2012, his 81% success rate is right on pace with his career 82% rate. In fact, it looks like the rate dropped because he wasn’t on base enough with the Mariners. If he had played all 663 plate appearances with the Yankees, he was on pace for 39 stolen bases.
As for his hitting. I spoke about a tale of two seasons with Youkilis in 2012, and with Ichiro we have the same story. Before he was traded to the Yankees, Ichiro looked as if he was in full decline. Between 2010 and 2011, his BABIP fell from .353 to .295, and then from 2011 to 2012 it fell all the way to .279. This is unsurprising for a late 30′s player facing regression, but there was also reason to believe that Suzuki was battling bad luck. Matt took a look at this case at the time of the trade, and now we have 3 months worth of data to see if a change of scenery helped him out.
The first thing you notice is that, from 2011 to 2012, Ichiro’s batted ball rates didn’t just stay the same, they improved drastically. In 2011, the outfielder lost some hits because he hit more fly balls and less groundballs, but in his time with Mariners in 2012, he boosted his line drive rate from 19.1% to 25.6%. With those types of numbers, you’d assume a player was hitting well above .300, but Ichiro was averaging just .261 in late July.
The reason was a low batting average on line drives. While the league usually hits around .700 on line drives and Ichiro has averaged .673 in his career, he hit just .571 in all of 2012. If Ichiro had a career normal BABIP on all the line drives he hit, he would have finished the season with a .297 batting average and a .320 on base percentage.
To add to this, his batting average on ground balls also fell from a career .301 rate to .247. There’s more reason to suspect that this number is more legitimately due to decline. Aside from his stolen base success rate and defensive metrics remaining the same, there are no real numbers to indicate that he’s lost speed though. If he’d hit for a career average on his ground balls, he’d have finished 2012 with a .313 batting average and a .336 on base percentage.
When Ichiro finished his season in Yankee Stadium, he finished with a slash of .322/.340/.454. The average and on base percentage are right on line with our projection, but the power is still nearly impossible to project. Yankee Stadium has the shallow right field porch, and there was a lot of speculation that he’d hit for more power once his left handed bat made it’s way into the Bronx. With the sample size we have, I find it hard to project whether or not this can continue, but if he had kept the same pace as he did for the Yankees in all of 2012, he would have hit 14 homeruns.
In Yankee Stadium, Ichiro hit .338/.363/.531 in 2012, and over his career, he’s hit OPS’d .913 in the new stadium and .811 in the old one. Surely we’ll see some regression from these marks, but like we’ve witnessed with these other one-year deal from the last few years, the Yankees are trying to buy low and they have good chance with the 39 year old. They’ve had a lot of success with these older pick ups lately, so Ichiro could become a very good replacement for Nick Swisher.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
9 Responses to Projecting Ichiro Suzuki
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
So I guess no older player ever really declines, they just get unlucky – right?
And what makes you think that Suzuki wasn’t luckier than good during his hot streak in NY as opposed to being unluckier than bad in his much longer cold period in Seattle?
Read the whole piece. Doesn’t matter how old you are, player’s line drive averages don’t just fall .100 points.
I did read the whole piece the first time – not impressed.
Are you certain that all of those line drives were created equally so to speak? How about the ground balls – how many of them resembled the harmless ones that Suzuki produced a seemingly endless series of during various stretches with the Yankees (like in the ALDS)?
I think this “unlucky” meme is really getting out of hand. Yeah, luck plays a big part in things like BABIP and the like but how likely is it that Suzuki was unlucky for such a long period in Seattle and then all of a sudden his luck factor became neutral six weeks after he joined the Yankees? And how likely is it that the worst luck of his career came when he reached 38, 39 yrs old (like you were claiming for Youkilis yesterday)?
Isn’t it more likely that he was more bad than he was unlucky (they’re not mutually exclusive you know) in Seattle and then got more lucky and maybe a little better in NY? That’s an equally valid way to interpret the data (I would say a lot more valid way).
I guess I’m a little confused. I thought the purpose of statistical analysis was to eliminate the naive and/or wishful thinking aspect of sports commentary and apply a bit of skepticism to the typical facile judgments of fans and beat writers. But I guess maybe not.
Like I mentioned in the article, the ground ball averages are more likely due to regression.
I never said that he his luck was neutral in New York, in fact, I said he’ll see regression from those numbers.
Kevin Youkilis is 6 years younger than Ichiro, so I’m not sure if calling him 38,39 yrs old was a typo.
Yes, being bad and being unlucky are two different things. If you increase your line drives, but they’re caught, it means you’re unlucky. If you’re hitting all fly balls and ground balls, you’re bad. It’s not as simple as that, but you get the gist.
I have no problem debating the numbers I used here, and I’ll admit that no projection is definitive. But it seems that your idea of statistical analysis is more wrapped up in the age of the player. You’re welcome to disagree with the bad luck theory, but don’t dismiss all the numbers we have because he’s 39 years old. Show me how he’s lost speed – how have his contact rates dropped?
Yes, I goofed on Youkilis’ age but the point is the same – I think it’s a rather fantastic coincidence that his luck should change so drastically as he got older and more injury prone.
I do understand the batted ball profiles – I’m merely disagreeing with your conclusions which I don’t think are supported by the data – by which I mean all the data including the sample size. You have not produced a convincing argument as to how Suzuki could be unlucky for so long with Seattle and then miraculously become luckier (or have neutral luck) for a few weeks in NY. Shouldn’t luck be, you know, kind of random and intermittent?
My idea of analysis is not “wrapped up in the age of the player”, nor does it need to be. We do know that players, even great players like Suzuki (was) get worse as they age and eventually will become unable to even play at a minimal major-league level if they hang on long enough. The sample-size factor alone is ample evidence that age-related decline rather than luck was the major factor in Suzuki’s poor performance in Seattle during 2011 and the first half of 2012. You can cherry-pick a statistic like the line-drive percentage and try to make a counter argument but I think you need quite a large, willing suspension of disbelief to buy into it.
I ultimately expect Ichiro to hit under .300, not .270 or anything like that but under .300. Which because if his low walk percentage becomes a real problem, especially when they want him hitting 2nd. At the end of the year I think we’ll be seeing Ichiro get most of his at bats in the lower half of the order, I think he’ll probably end up with a line somewhere around .290/.320/.390, maybe a little more power if he decides to really shoot for home runs.
I personally just don’t see his four year decline before coming to the Yankees as him being bored or upset he was on a losing team. He’s getting really old in baseball terms and I think his ability to make contact at 30+ percent clip has come to an end. They had no real choice because of the payroll issues but this is a player who screams get out a year early rather than a year late.
I was seriously hoping the reports of two years for Ichiro weren’t true, it now appears they are true. What the hell are the Yankees thinking? You’ll give two years and 12-14 million to a 39 year old Ichiro but not 2 years 17 million to a 31 year old Russell Martin? That makes absolutely no sense. I don’t see any reason to want Suzuki that much, if he really wanted to stay a Yankee so bad let him take a 1 year deal or leave. I’d much rather have Youkilis and Martin rather than Youkilis and Ichiro. You could find a Ryan Sweeney type for 1 year that will do better than a Stewart, Cervelli, or Romine will this year.
Seriously who in the front office is dying to see a 40 year old Ichiro Suzuki playing right field?
Michael,
Good read and gives me optimism for at least the first year of this contract (if it does turn out to be a 2 year deal. Year 2 of this contract I fear Ichiro’s age will affect his bat speed.
Oh, and don’t pay too much attention to roadrider….he was rooting against Ichiro from day one predicting he would fail. Now he can’t admit he was wrong.
Yeah, nice “fact-based” argument there. Your “optimism” is nothing more than the wishful thinking of the typical Suzuki-fan boy. Eder’s “analysis” was bullshit and I called him on it – he never provided a cogent response and neither did you. I have nothing to admit to – Suuzki was not good for most of his time with the Yankees his good few weeks notwithstanding and his return is a poor idea (especially for two years) that is really being driven by cheapness and marketing rather than a reality-based assessment of Suzuki’s value. The fact that I do not like Suzuki does not change those facts.
And by the way (and I welcome you to look this up in the archives) I never said I was rooting against Suzuki. What I said was that I didn’t have to root for him to not get hits because he was doing a good enough job of that by himself and that I wouldn’t exactly cry any tears if he flopped and was DFAd.
If you’re going to call me out then get your fucking facts straight.