Through their first 701 plate appearances of the 2019 season, the Seattle Mariners hit 38 home runs and posted a wRC+ of 145. Both marks were the best in the game by a fair margin, though you probably knew or could have guessed that already, because Jay Jaffe wrote about the team’s strong offensive start on this site last week. What you might not know is that if you ask Seattle’s hitters about the source of their success, they’ll tell you — after getting through the usual platitudes of “just playing as a team” and “taking it one game at a time” — that this year’s daily hitters’ meetings, led by first-year hitting coach Tim Laker, have been good. Really good.

“Those hitter meetings,” says fellow first-year Mariner Tom Murphy, “have been fantastic. It’s been one of the things that’s stood out to me this year. From the analytic staff to the hitting staff to the players speaking out about what they’re seeing, it’s been a triple-headed effort. Not only are we getting the statistics on what guys are throwing, their locations and pitch tunnels and stuff, we’re also getting real-world advice from players and hitting coaches together. That communication has been spot-on, and I really think it’s contributed to our success.”

Laker, 49, came up as a coach in the Diamondbacks’ system after spending parts of 11 seasons as a big-league catcher, mostly for Montreal. In Arizona, under the guidance of  instructors Craig Wallenbrock and Robert Van Scoyoc, he developed an approach to hitting and communication that focuses on finding the intersection between a hitter’s natural strengths and a pitcher’s natural weaknesses, then communicating an approach based on the center of that Venn diagram that’s simple enough for hitters to take to the plate without needing a cue-card.

“Pitchers have ranges, philosophy-wise, in which they throw their pitches,” Murphy says. “And our hitting team has put that into a simple system, which says, for example, that if a guy has low-ride [meaning a pitcher’s pitches do not deviate substantially up or down from their apparent path upon release] then he’s a ‘zero-ride’ and if he’s high, you’ll go up to three. Nice and easy. And then from there you can visualize the center of the strike zone, and know that a fastball right down the middle that’s a three-ride would play up at the top of the zone even if visually it starts out right in the middle. And if a guy has a lot of sink, anything that starts down in the zone is not going to be a strike, regardless of whether my eyes are telling me it’s a strike out of his hand. You have to find ways to prepare in advance for the tricks your eyes are going to play on you.”

Put that way, the system sounds almost too simple — bucketing continuous data into three or four tranches is not, after all, rocket science. But in the psychological world of hitting, simplicity is a virtue in its own right, and finding ways to communicate complicated data simply and actionably is where teams are currently looking to find any edge they can. In the Mariners’ case, the particular challenge they’re working to tackle this year is finding ways to get their players attacking each night’s particular starting pitcher while not getting too far out of their own comfort zone. That’s a tall order for hitters who have often been raised spend their days thinking of ways to keep their approaches consistent, not tailor them to each night’s starter. But Laker things he’s found an approach that works: translating the message into a specific external cue or physical action.

“For example,” says Murphy, “if we’re facing a big sinker-ball guy, then maybe a good external cue for most guys is to try to hit a popup or a ball way up in the air, so we get underneath that ball path and our swing plane plays better to that guy. Whereas against a guy with a lot of rise on his fastball, like a Verlander, we’re going to try to hit a lot of line drives or almost ground balls to manipulate ourselves without thinking too mechanically to get the desired bat path to that ball. That’s what we do well as players, is move physically, and Laker has been great about taking the statistics and giving us a plan to take into the game that’s more externally focused; that’s still us, but tailored to the pitcher.”

“I think what we’re looking for is guys that have swings that can cover more than one spot,” Laker told me. “I think our guys are good enough that if we adjust the slices they’re swinging in just a little bit on a monthly basis, that they’re good enough to hit in different zones and not just get pigeonholed into one specific spot where they are kind of at the mercy of the pitcher, just hoping that he’s going to make a mistake in the one spot that they’re looking at.”

Perhaps to Laker’s surprise, that approach has found resonance even with Seattle’s veterans, like Jay Bruce. “I think you have to try and walk the line a little bit,” he told me. “Because at the end of the day, they have to throw the ball over the plate. They’re going to miss, and they’re going to make mistakes. And on the one hand if you go chasing what they do you get yourself in trouble, but also I think being cognizant of their approach and their plan and what makes them have success against you is important, too. Finding that balance has been good this year.”

For a relatively young team, hearing that message from all angles — coaches, analytics staff, and veterans — is critical. “That’s when those meetings become really powerful,” says Laker, “When our younger guys can listen to Jay or Edwin, guys who’ve faced other starters a number of times, and hear them say, ‘Here’s what he’s done to me, here’s what his pitch looks like to me, here’s how it moves, here’s what he’s trying to do.’ I think that carries a lot of weight. I think the more we can get hitters involved in what we’re trying to do, and have a collaboration in an open forum, that’s good.”

The Mariners probably aren’t going to have the best offense in baseball all year long. They might not even have the best offense in baseball all April long. But if you’re chalking up their early-season numbers to mere good luck, or running into a stretch of pitching that’s performing below its level, I’m not sure you’re correct. Pitching has under-performed against Seattle for much of this young season (the just-concluded Astros series perhaps excepted) because the Mariners have been highly intentional about finding ways to make it so, and about communicating with their players in such a way that tailoring an approach to each night’s pitcher doesn’t feel like telling hitters to do things they’re not used to. So far in 2019, it may just be working.

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Cole Tucker, SS, Pittsburgh Pirates
Level: Triple-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 5   FV: 50
Line: 3-for-5, HR, 2 SB

Notes
Readers are often looking for a prospect outside the top 50 who might break out and move near the top of our overall list. My answer to that question is typically some big, projectable teenager who I expect to experience sizable physical growth. Tucker is rare in that he’s also a viable answer to this question even though he turns 23 this summer. Having answered once-relevant, shoulder-related questions about his arm strength, Tucker is now seen as a plus-gloved shortstop who has good feel for contact. But because he still has this big, seemingly unfinished frame on him, we think it’s possible that he comes into power a little late, and he might take a sizable leap. A source indicated to me that Tucker looks noticeably bigger and stronger this year. He hit for power during the first week of the season, and his batted ball data should be monitored for a possible indicator that he’s made a mechanical adjustment, too.

Tarik Skubal, LHP, Detroit Tigers
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: HM   FV: 35
Line: 6 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 1 R, 6 K

Notes
Kiley saw Skubal last night and had him up to 97, with an average breaking ball. A possible second or third rounder as a college underclassman, Skubal’s amateur career was derailed by an elbow injury that required Tommy John. He missed his junior year, instead throwing side sessions in front of scouts close to the draft. Nobody was confident enough to pull the trigger on drafting him, and he went back to school and couldn’t throw strikes. The Tigers signed him after his redshirt junior year for $350k and he threw almost all fastballs during his first pro summer. Things seemed to have clicked a bit.

Michael Baumann, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
Level: Hi-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: 28   FV: 35+
Line: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 10 K

Notes
Orioles pitching prospects should be considered potential movers this year as the new front office applies the player dev philosophy that seems to be working in Houston. Baumann already has some components Houston might have otherwise tried to install; he has a vertical release point that looks like it creates backspin, he throws hard, and he works up in the zone. Maybe that just means he has less to fix and is likely to improve more quickly than others in the system. He was up to 96 last night.

Brendan McKay, LHP, Tampa Bay Rays
Level: Double-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: 2   FV: 60
Line: 4.2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 3 R, 11 K

Notes
McKay’s stuff is not especially nasty — he was 91-95 last night — but his fastball plays up because of good extension. All of his pitches look the same coming out of his hand, and he has shockingly good feel for pitching even though his attention has been split between the mound and the plate for much of his career. If he keeps dominating Double-A hitters like this, it’s fair to start considering him as a potential big league option sometime this year.

Shed Long, 2B/3B/LF, Seattle Mariners
Level: Triple-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: 6   FV: 50
Line: 4-for-5, BB, walk-off HR

Notes
Shed’s defensive assignments mimic what we saw during spring training. He remains a 40 glove at second base who survives through a combination of athleticism and will, but he’s going to mash enough that you want him in your lineup every day. I tend to think of multi-positional players as individuals who excel defensively at various spots, but maybe it’s time to consider if players who can really hit can be barely playable at several positions and just spend each game at a different spot in the field, wherever they’re the least likely to touch the ball that day. Willians Astudillo would seem to be another candidate for a role like this, and perhaps it could be taken to a batter-by-batter extreme. Hiding your worst defensive player is old hat in other sports; maybe there’s a better way to do it in ours.

A Quick Rehabber Update
I saw Angels lefty Jose Suarez rehab in Tempe yesterday. He looked good, sitting 91-93, with command and an above-average curveball (it’s slow but has good bite, and he commands it), and some plus changeups. He didn’t break camp due to a sore shoulder, which is kind of scary, but the stuff looks fine. The Angels rotation has struggled with injuries, so Suarez might see the big leagues this year. He’s in our top 100.

On Pedro Avila
Padres righty Pedro Avila makes his big league debut tonight against Arizona. Expect him to sit 90-94 and touch 96, have scattered fastball command, and try to work heavily off secondary stuff — a change and curveball — that is consistently plus. His long term role may ultimately be in the bullpen, especially since three-pitch relievers may become more necessary due to forthcoming rule changes.

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Yerry Rodriguez, RHP, Texas Rangers
Level: Low-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 14   FV: 40+
Line: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 6 K

Notes
If you’ve watched Padres righty Chris Paddack at all this spring, you’ve probably seen how he gets after hitters with his fastball at angles and in locations where they struggle to do anything with it, even in the strike zone. Though Rodriguez’s delivery doesn’t look anything like Paddack’s, the same concept applies, and Rodriguez is able to compete for swings and misses in the strike zone in a notable way. Lots of pitchers’ fastballs perform better than you’d expect given their velocity, but Rodriguez also throws hard. His changeup is good, and while I’ve taken umbrage with his breaking ball quality during in-person looks, he does have strong raw spin and his arm slot helps his breaker play up. I think there are a lot of strong components here and consider Rodriguez a dark horse top 100 candidate for next year.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the Dodgers’ bolt from the gate isn’t too surprising given their back-to-back NL pennants and preseason playoff odds around 90% (though yes, I reaaaally nailed the timing of my investigation into their hitting), the Mariners’ hot start is the kind of early-season anomaly that reminds us how reality often fails to conform to our preconceptions. Expected to be a bystander during a rebuilding year, Seattle opened the season by sweeping a two-game series in Japan against last year’s upstarts, the A’s, and has continued to roll. They own the majors’ best record (11-2) and run differential (+40) so far.

The Mariners did spend most of last year in contention, ultimately notching 89 wins — their highest total since 2003 — but finishing eight games behind the A’s for the second AL Wild Card spot. In missing out on the October festivities, they ran their postseason drought to 17 years, the longest in North American professional sports. Given a club record payroll ($157.9 million as of Opening Day 2018) and the game’s worst farm system, general manager Jerry Dipoto opted to plunge the team into rebuilding mode, bidding adieu to free agent Nelson Cruz and trading away Robinson Cano, Alex Colome, Edwin Diaz, James Paxton, Jean Segura, and Mike Zunino, among others — nearly all of the popular kids, basically. With Kyle Seager suffering a torn tendon in his left hand, the only players common to Seattle’s 2018 and ’19 Opening Day lineups were Dee Gordon, Mitch Haniger, and Ichiro Suzuki, the last of whom used the Japan series as a farewell tour. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Tyler Anderson, Steven Brault, and Mike Leake — on how they learned and developed their change-of-pace pitches.

———

Tyler Anderson, Colorado Rockies

“In high school, I tried to learn how to pitch by watching other people. And I was doing all kinds of stuff. I was dropping down, throwing from all arm angles, throwing sliders. Then I got to college. At the University of Oregon, they preached fastball-changeup. Not only that, in the fall you weren’t allowed to throw breaking pitches; you had to go fastball-changeup only. Then, just before the season started, you could start mixing in curveballs and sliders.

“Before that, I’d thrown a palm ball. Honestly. I would hold it in my palm and throw a palm ball. It was slower. My dad knew about it from back in the day — it’s an old-school pitch — and mine was actually pretty good. It didn’t have a lot of spin, and as you know, limited spin creates drop. Mine would drop a lot, but it was too hard to control. Read the rest of this entry »

After a strong 2017 campaign for Tampa and Baltimore led some observers to declare, perhaps prematurely, that the former No. 1 pick had finally figured out how to sustainably deliver on his sky-high potential, Tim Beckham’s 2018 performance was sufficiently awful (a 79 wRC+ over 402 plate appearances) that the Baltimore front office declined to tender him a contract and left him to sign a $1.75 million deal with the Mariners in early January. Well, for a guy who was probably only intended to hold the middle of the field warm until J.P. Crawford gets the call up to Seattle at some point later this summer, Beckham has had a remarkably good first week in the Queen City:

Usually, I wouldn’t note a first week like this except in passing — Preston Tucker was hitting .435 through his first seven games of 2018, after all — except for two things. First, Beckham was hurt — with a core muscle injury that required surgery — throughout much of 2018, which suggests that perhaps his poor performance over the full season was less a reflection of a regression from 2017’s breakout and more what you’d expect from a player toughing it out through a debilitating injury. Second, Beckham has actually had a pretty good five weeks, dating back to September 1st of 2018. Since that date, his wRC+ of 186 is eighth-best in the game.

Beckham has always had good power to all fields, but until 2017, that power was too often undercut by a tendency to end at-bats early by swinging at the first pitch he saw offered close to the zone. In 2017, he solved the mental hurdle that had pushed him to try to do too much and instead started taking a few pitches early in at-bats until he found the one he wanted. “These days,” he told me back then, “I want to see the ball in the zone where I can drive it, and if it’s not” — here, a pause — “I want to trust that it’s going to be a ball.” The core injury hindered his ability to execute on that mindset in 2018, yes, but since September of last year, he’s been able to put it into practice again. The results have been impressive. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for Yusei Kikuchi. Not only did he see his first action as a major leaguer, a well-documented dream of his since his high school days, but his father passed away after a long battle against cancer. He is staying in the United States in accordance with his father’s wish that he concentrate on baseball. It is quite hard to imagine what the young pitcher must be feeling, and we wish for the best for him and his family in this difficult time.

Kikuchi has made two starts for the Mariners. While some data exists from his days in the NPB, MLB presents a new challenge. We can’t reach any grand conclusions about him as a major leaguer yet, but we can make observations and possibly, some extrapolations. At this moment, here are the basic numbers: 10.2 innings pitched, five hits, three earned runs, two home runs, eight strikeouts, and one walk. Kikuchi currently has a 2.53 ERA and a 4.25 FIP. It’s too early to make any calls, but Seattle has got to be pleased with the return so far.

Our analysis of this limited sample becomes trickier because we only have Statcast data for one of his starts. His Tokyo start – you know, the one where Ichiro announced his retirement mid-game – is not registered there because the Tokyo Dome isn’t equipped with Trackman or PITCHf/x cameras. So, we have his 91-pitch start against the Red Sox on March 29, which is quite a small sample to work with. Kikuchi’s tendencies could change as he pitches in the majors and adjusts to either his strengths or hitters’ weaknesses (or both). With those the caveats understood, his early efforts still merit examination.

Let’s start with the obvious here: the fastball. Since he was an acclaimed prospect at the Hanamaki Higashi High, Kikuchi has been known in Japan for his fastball velocity. In 2017, he set what was then an NPB record for the fastest pitch recorded by a left-handed pitcher with a 158 kmph (roughly 98 mph), though it should be noted that his average fastball velocity was 148.6 kmph (around 92.3 mph). In 2018, his velocity slipped a bit. According to Delta, an NPB sabermetrics site, it went down to 147.3 kmph (around 91.5 mph) last year. He suffered shoulder tightness that was later diagnosed as decreased functionality of shoulder last year, so that seems to have played a part in the decline in velocity. Of all his pitches, the fastball is the only one that Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel did not describe as above average in their write up of Kikuchi for in this year’s top 100.

Against the Red Sox, Kikuchi averaged at 93.1 mph. Statcast had him as high as 95.4 mph. It is not Ohtani-esque big velocity, but it is a range that should work in the majors, especially if he can maintain it through starts consistently locate it like this:

By average velocity, he’s comparable to the likes of David Price and Sean Newcomb. Maybe he’ll gain a tick or two as the season goes on or maybe he’ll get worn down. I don’t know. But as far as the velocity goes, Kikuchi can say he belongs in the majors. One thing of note is that his fastball only induced a whiff once out of the 43 times he threw the pitch. Statcast measured the pitch’s average spin rate at 2,173 rpm. According to Travis Sawchik, an average fastball around 93-94 mph measures out to 2,240 to 2,300 rpm. At least for that one start, his fastball was not seen to be a swing-and-miss weapon, as his velocity would indicate. Obviously, Kikuchi has arm strength, but not all 93 mph fastballs are created equally. Luckily for him, he has another tool in his toolbox that drew many more swings-and-misses: his slider.

Kikuchi’s slider features a nasty 10-5 tilt. He used it as a swing-and-miss pitch in Japan, and he’s used it as one in his early going in the majors as well. Against Boston, he generated seven whiffs from 22 sliders used, which is pretty good! Here’s one to Xander Bogaerts that I feel is representative of how he likes to use the pitch.

And here’s one to Sam Travis that had a particularly vicious bite.

Looking at Kikuchi’s slider heatmap from that game, we see a lot of low and inside pitches to the right-handed heavy Sox lineup. Being aware of his pitch tendencies from the NPB, I’d assume he meant to locate them that way as well. It’s hard to draw a conclusion at this moment, but Kikuchi’s slider has been rated above-average, as noted by Eric and Kiley. Future value grades don’t always come to fruition, but I would say that Kikuchi’s slider could forecast well in the majors.

As for the bad, Kikuchi did not necessarily avoid the meat of the zone. Here is his pitch heatmap:

The good here is that Kikuchi located well to the inside edge versus right-handed hitters, and away versus left-handed hitters. However, there’s that big dark and red circle towards the middle-up part of the strike zone that indicates that he was also prone to leaving pitches “up there.” FanGraphs rated his command as a 45-grade, which is just below major league average. As of this moment, Kikuchi has thrown 64% of his pitches for strikes and allowed only one walk in 10.2 innings pitched. Those are good control numbers. Command is a different thing. The Red Sox hitters were much less than forgiving on Kikuchi’s mistake pitches.

Here’s J.D. Martinez going yard on a fastball right down the middle. The catcher had his glove up and in, but the ball missed the spot and Martinez drove it over the center field fence.

Here’s another home run allowed, this time against Xander Bogaerts. The explanation is simple – the catcher appears to have wanted it down and away but the fastball went right down the middle, which is likely to be punished by many major league hitters.

Pitching is extremely hard. You must stand a mark and locate each pitch into a glove size smaller than a pie tin from 60 feet 6 inches away. But it’s also the nature of the business – if you miss even so slightly, major league-caliber hitters can hit it a long way. It is worth noting that every pitcher makes mistakes. It’s the matter of minimizing the amount of them. There will be days when Kikuchi will makes fewer mistakes, and there will probably be days he makes more.

What’s curious for now is that Kikuchi has noticeably bumped up his curveball usage. Here’s the chart of his March 29 start versus his 2018 pitch data with the Seibu Lions, thanks to the NPB sabermetric website Delta.

It’s an interesting bump. He never threw his curve more than 11.1% in a season with the Seibu Lions. He was known for his fastball/slider mix in Japan. The curveball, according to multiple scouting reports, was a third pitch that he would use to give different looks. And it’s not just his start against the Red Sox either. Over at Lookout Landing, Jake Mailhot recorded Kikuchi’s pitch data by hand during the Athletics game in the Tokyo Dome. The chart below indicates that Kikuchi has shown very similar pitch mix for his first two starts as a big leaguer.

One theory on why Kikuchi increased his curveball usage lies in data. Last June, Jim Allen of Kyodo News wrote on how Kikuchi relies on data to make adjustments to things like his release point and extension. I’m not sure how much attention he puts on his pitch metrics, but his curveball does grade out well on Statcast. Take a look at his pitch data from Baseball Savant:

Not only does an effective curveball give hitters another thing to worry about, but the velocity difference can also make his heater stand out more. Here’s a curveball that he threw to the reigning AL MVP Mookie Betts. Betts reacted like he was not expecting this pitch. He held up a for a microsecond and got his bat head out, but made weak contact that ended up being a groundout.

He didn’t generate any whiff with the pitch, but it induced two bits of weak contact for an overall .124 xBA. He also used it to get ahead in counts. Out of 18 curves thrown, nine of them were called strikes. Here’s one of them to Betts.

Kikuchi has had two decent starts and the pitch has worked well, so I don’t anticipate him making drastic changes anytime soon. It will be something to monitor, though. History has shown that many successful pitchers – Tanaka, for instance – have demonstrated the ability to modify their approach to survive in the majors. As time goes on, major league teams will have a book on how to approach Kikuchi. Once they know better what to expect, I don’t know how successful they’ll hit against him, but surviving in the majors involves series of adjustments. If Kikuchi runs into a harder time getting hitters out, I would expect him to take a different approach.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that Kikuchi seemed to struggle when facing the order the third time around. In a very small sample, Kikuchi faced five batters a third time through the order between the A’s and Red Sox games, and allowed two hits, including that aforementioned JD Martinez home run. Again, it is hard to draw conclusions out of five-batter sample, but the concern is not unfounded. The lack of a big fastball could become a problem late in games in instances where he struggles to give hitters different looks. As Bill Petti has written for FanGraphs about how pitchers with a big fastball — who can maintain that velocity late in games — are more likely to pitch deeper.

There will be so much more Kikuchi to watch. Personally, I’ve waited for awhile for him to arrive to the majors, as I’ve written about the lefty a couple of times in the past. Two starts in, Kikuchi gave his team a real chance to win on both occasions. For a starting pitcher, there’s not a lot more you can ask for.

Spring training numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt, but there’s no denying that Ryan McMahon has been a monster in the month of March. In 59 Cactus League at bats, the Colorado Rockies infielder banged out 25 hits while slashing a behemothic .424/.470/.763. His 1.233 OPS led the leaderboards in Arizona and Florida alike.

No, he isn’t about to approach those numbers in games that count — this isn’t Ty Cobb we’re talking about — but the 24-year-old is being counted on to provide value to the Rockies lineup. Three games into the regular season, he’s done just that. McMahon has four hits, including a pair of doubles, plus two walks, in a dozen plate appearances. Lilliputian sample size? Sure, but it’s nonetheless a nice start for the 2013 second-round pick.

His 2018 rookie season was a disappointment. In 202 big-league PAS, he fanned 64 times, and logged a .683 OPS. That came on the heels of spring training numbers which, while not as heady as this year’s, suggested he was ready to rake at the highest level. Instead, he scuffled.

McMahon is self-aware enough not to have forgotten last year. Asked a few weeks ago about his scorching spring, he reminded reporters that it had only been a few dozen at bats — spring training at bats, no less — and that “Baseball is a very humbling game. You never have it all the way figured out.” Read the rest of this entry »

Sure, he’s won seven straight batting titles in Japan, but it’s telling that, in English, “Ichiro Suzuki” roughly translates to “Can’t hit Pedro.”

– The Utah Chronicle, March 30th, 2001

It is late afternoon in Seattle, and it is the beginning of April, and it is quite cold. The Mariners are going to play the Oakland A’s. Today, the baseball starts counting. Across the infield dirt, just behind second base, a few faint letters mark the time: 2001.

More than 45,000 people are here, the most that have ever crowded into this still-new stadium. There’s less team spirit on display than you might expect. Most of the attendees aren’t flaunting jerseys; they’re bundled up, hands tucked into coats. The fading sunlight falls over the stadium from behind the pale, high clouds, and as a few Mariners take the field, running sprints across the outfield grass, a hearty cheer rises up to greet them. The men in white stretch, pulling arms and bouncing in lunges, before trotting back to the dugout. Not much longer, now. Not much longer.

High up on a view level fence, in front of a kid and their dad, you can see a white posterboard, letters painted in amateurish block text: “WELCOME ICHIRO.”

Many of them know only what the numbers can tell them, the list of achievements that made him worth tens of millions. Seven straight batting titles and a lifetime .353 average. Some may have gone down to spring training, gathering in the Arizona heat, and seen it for themselves: 26 hits, catching batting practice fly balls behind his back, throwing runners out at third with seemingly effortless throws from deep right. The speed — the Mariners said they’d clocked his home-to-first time at 3.7 seconds. (The fastest average home-to-first time among major leaguers in 2018 was 3.86.) Read the rest of this entry »

Even if you didn’t wake up at an ungodly early hour to watch Thursday’s Mariners-A’s game at the Tokyo Dome, by now you may have seen the stirring footage of Ichiro Suzuki exiting the game in the eighth inning en route to his official retirement. If not, beware the coming dust storm:

That the 45-year-old Suzuki — who was nudged off the Mariners’ roster and into an unofficial retirement and special assistant role last May 3, at a point when he was hitting .205/.255/.205 through 47 plate appearances — went 0-for-5 with a walk and a strikeout in his two-game cameo matters not a whit as far as his legacy is concerned. His awe-inspiring total of 4,367 career hits (1,278 in Nippon Professional Baseball, 3,089 in Major League Baseball) still stands as the signature accomplishment for a player who has spent more than a quarter-century serving as a wonderful ambassador for the sport on two continents. His stateside resumé, which includes not only his membership in the 3,000 Hit Club (despite not debuting in the majors until he was about half past his 27th birthday) but also his 10 All-Star appearances, 10 Gold Gloves, AL MVP and Rookie of the Year awards, and so on, is ample enough to guarantee him first-ballot election to the Hall of Fame. In the wake of Mariano Rivera’s groundbreaking unanimous election to the Hall in January, it’s even possible that Ichiro could replicate the feat.

The question is when. Hall of Fame election rules require a player to be retired for five seasons before appearing on the BBWAA ballot, which means that had he been content to hang up his spikes last May, he would have been eligible for the 2024 ballot (the date refers to the year of induction, not the year of the ballot’s release, which is typically in late November or early December of the previous year). Barring what would be an unprecedented ruling by the Hall, his two-game cameo resets his eligibility clock, pushing him to the 2025 ballot, a small price to pay for his being able to check off the bucket-list item of retiring on his own terms, in his native country. Not only will he become the first Japanese player to be elected to the Hall, but according to the Baseball-Reference Play Index, he will be the owner of the shortest final season of any elected position player. Read the rest of this entry »