Sunday Notes: Did Bobby Abreu Have a Better MLB Career Than Ichiro Suzuki?
A few days ago, I ran a Twitter poll asking which of Bobby Abreu and Ichiro Suzuki had the better MLB career. The latter won in a landslide. Of the 1,183 votes cast, 86.8% went to Ichiro, while Abreu garnered just 13.2%.
The poll results don’t reflect their respective numbers:
Ichiro: .311/.355/.402, .328 wOBA, 104 wRC+, 57.8 WAR.
Abreu: .291/.395/.475, .378 wOBA, 129 wRC+, 59.8 WAR.
If you favor counting stats, here are a few of those:
Ichiro: 3.089 hits, 362 2Bs, 96 3Bs, 117 HRs, 3,994 total bases, 509 SB.
Abreu: 2,470 hits, 574 2Bs, 59 3Bs, 288 HRs, 4.026 total bases, 400 SB.
Unless you place an especially-high value on hit totals and batting averages, Abreu clearly has a career-wise statistical edge on the undoubtedly Hall-of-Fame-worthy Ichiro.
As for their respective primes, the multiple commenters claiming that Ichiro has the edge here are, at best, only partially correct. Ichiro accumulated the vast share of his 53.3 WAR from 2001-2010, a 10-season stretch in which he logged a 115 wRC+. In Abreu’s best 10-season stretch (1998-2007), he accumulated 52.3 WAR, with a 137 wRC+. Defining “prime” in narrower increments — say, five or seven years — yields similar results.
Ichiro was by far the better defender, which is why their WAR totals are nearly identical (only Robinson Canó sits between them on our 1990-2021 position-player leaderboard). In terms of offense, Abreu’s edge might be best explained as follows:
Ichiro’s highest wRC+ in any individual season was 131. Abreu’s highest wRC+ was 151, and he finished 131 or better nine times. Ichiro’s highest wOBA in any individual season was .375. Abreu’s highest wOBA was .429, and he finished .375 or better eight times.
I’ll put a checkmark next to Ichiro Suzuki’s name when he first becomes Hall of Fame eligible in 2025. The vast majority of voters will do the same. In all likelihood, Ichiro will sail into Cooperstown as a first-ballot selection. Conversely, Abreu’s chances of one day being elected appear slim. While Jay Jaffe and I have voted for this vastly-underrated outfielder in each of his two years on the ballot, he’s otherwise been an afterthought for most of our BBWAA colleagues.
With the the aforementioned poll results in mind, Ichiro probably does have the stronger Hall of Fame credentials. But not when you discount his NPB career and only consider what he did in MLB. Despite his greatness, and despite him having received far more accolades and notoriety, Ichiro doesn’t compare favorably to Abreu. At least not statistically.
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Ty Cobb went 18 for 53 against Babe Ruth.
Lou Gehrig went 10 for 21 against Walter Johnson.
Hank Aaron went 42 for 116 against Sandy Koufax.
Dick Allen went 3 for 46 against Don Drysdale.
Casey Stengel went 24 for 75 against Burleigh Grimes.
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The DH rule was introduced in 1973, which means the upcoming season will be the 50th season in which the position has existed in the American League. That’s fifty, as in 5-0. In other words, more years than many of you reading this have been alive. Not only that — thanks to San Diego Padres broadcaster Jesse Agler for bringing this to my attention — there have been more American League games played with the DH than without. (While there have been more non-DH seasons, expansion, and going from a 154-game to a 162-game schedule beginning in 1961, have more than made up the difference).
Why then are some Hall of Fame voters reluctant, if not unwilling, to put check marks next to the names of players who were primarily designated hitters? No defensive value is a valid argument, but at the same time, it’s not as though a David Ortiz wouldn’t have been an every-day first baseman had he played in the National League, or in the AL prior to 1973. Moreover, had Ortiz — or Edgar Martinez for that matter — regularly played a defensive position, they likely would have put up even better offensive numbers. The DH penalty isn’t a myth.
Accomplished hitters being penalized for playing a position that has existed for five decades is likewise not a myth. It should be. Fifty years is a long time.
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A quiz:
A total of 107 Venezuelan-born players have 1,000 or more MLB plate appearances. Which of them has the highest career OBP?
The answer can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
Tyler Chatwood has reportedly agreed to sign with NPB’s SoftBank Hawks. A veteran of 10 big-league seasons, the 32-year-old right-hander is coming off a season where he made 32 appearances, and threw 32 innings, with the Toronto Blue Jays and the San Francisco Giants.
The annual Scout of the Year Awards will be presented later this month in Las Vegas. The honorees are Jeff Brookens (Cincinnati Reds, East Coast), Ralph Garr (Atlanta Braves, Midwest), Jess Flores (Pittsburgh Pirates, West Coast), and Louie Eljaua (Chicago Cubs, International).
Fred Andrews, who played for the Philadelphia Phillies for parts of the 1976 and 1977 seasons, died on December 20 at age 69. An infielder whose big-league career comprised 16 games and 34 plate appearances, Andrews went walk, HBP, infield single, infield single, F-9, walk, single, F-3, single, 1-3, single in his first 11 times up. Thereafter, he reached base three times.
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The answer to the quiz is Bobby Abreu, with a .395 career OBP. Miguel Cabrera ranks second, at .387.
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Jumping back to comps, Willie Wilson was better than Juan Pierre. That said, these numbers are interesting:
Wilson: 8,317 PA, 2,207 hits, .285 BA, .702 OPS, 668 SB.
Pierre: 8,280 PA, 2,217 hits, .295 BA, .704 OPS, 614 SB.
Again, Wilson was better. Superior on the defensive side of the ball, he was also a far-more efficient thief, getting nabbed just 134 times, while Pierre was caught stealing 203 times. Wilson’s definitive edge in WAR — 37.8 to Pierre’s 24.0 — is therefore not surprising. That said, the striking similarity of some of their other numbers is. At least it was to me.
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Manny Acta shared some great anecdotes when he appeared as a guest on this past Friday’s episode of FanGraphs Audio. One of them came from 1993, his first year as a minor league manager. Just months past his 24th birthday, his playing days barely behind him, Acta was at the helm of the short-season Auburn Astros.
“I didn’t want to take the job,” recalled Acta, who went on to manage in the big leagues with Washington and Cleveland, and is currently the third base coach in Seattle. “I believe I was 23, and I told my boss, Fred Nelson, the farm director in Houston, ‘Fred, how can you want me to go manage in the New York-Penn League? I’ll be managing guys that are seniors out of college who are 21-22. I mean, that’s hard.’ He goes, ‘Hey, you don’t have to tell him how old you are. Don’t worry about it.’”
As Acta went on to explain, not worrying was initially easier said than done. One of the first players under his tutelage was a 21-year-old left-hander whom the Astros had just drafted 12th-overall.
“My first year, I get our first-round pick, Billy Wagner,” said on the podcast. “I’m a Dominican guy who was just barely speaking English well enough. Billy is from West Virginia. a first-round pick, and I was intimidated. I was like, ‘Oh, gosh. How is this guy going to take me managing him?’
“Billy showed up later than most of the guys on the team, and we only had one locker left,” continued Acta. “He was in a corner, which was very uncomfortable. I was like, ‘This guy is going to throw a fit when he comes in.’ Well, Billy is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever been around. He came in and was just so happy that he had a locker. Billy played Division III, at Ferrum College, and he used to tell me stories [about] how he didn’t even have someone to play catch with at times. He used to throw the ball as far as he could, then jog over, pick it up, and throw it back. So Billy was outstanding. He was very happy. I took a deep breath.”
A few short years later, Acta was managing the High-A Kissimmee Cobras, a club whose pitching staff included Brad Lidge, Roy Oswalt, and Tim Redding. Friday’s podcast episode includes a fun story about that threesome, and much more. If you missed it amid your busy holiday week, it’s well worth the listen.
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
Longtime Hall of Fame voter John Perrotto explained his ballot at Forbes.
The Baltimore Sun’s’s always excellent Jon Meoli wrote about new Orioles co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller.
Alex Hall presented us with memories of Mark Kotsay as an Oakland A’s player at Athletics Nation.
Jamey Newberg hopes that 2022 will be a year of prosperity for all, including a Texas Rangers team that is finally trending in the right direction. He expounded on his thoughts at D Magazine.
Our Esquina named its Latino Player of the Year. Manuel Gómez has the story.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
Jose Abreu hit 30 home runs and grounded into 28 double plays in 2021. Cedric Mullins hit 30 home runs and grounded into two double plays.
J.D. Martinez had 90 singles, 42 doubles, three triples, and 28 home runs.
Jeimer Candelario had 90 singles, 42 doubles, three triples, and 16 home runs.
Randy Arozarena and Shohei Ohtani combined to steal 46 bases and get thrown out 20 times. Starling Marte stole 47 bases and was caught five times.
A total of 147 batters struck out 100 or more times. In 1968 (aka “The Year of the Pitcher”) a total of 18 batters struck out 100 or more times.
Chicago Cubs batters struck out 1,596 times in 5,972 plate appearances this past year. Wee Willie Keeler struck out 136 times in 9,616 career plate appearances.
The seven pitchers with the most career losses are all in the Hall of Fame: Cy Young (315), Pud Galvin (310), Nolan Ryan (292), Walter Johnson (279), Phil Niekro (274), Gaylord Perry (265), and Don Sutton (256). The non-Hall of Famer with the most losses is Jack Powell, who went 245-255 from 1897-1912. Powell had five 19-loss seasons, and four seasons with 20 or more wins.
Mark Kotsay went 21 for 36 against Jamie Moyer. The latter signed a free agent contract with the Boston Red Sox on today’s date in 1996.
The Oakland A’s signed Scott Hatteberg to a free agent contract on today’s date in 2002.
Players born on today’s date include Red Kress. An infielder for the St. Louis Browns, Kress had the following back-to-back seasons:
1930: .313 BA, 43 2B, eight 3B, 16 HR, 299 TB, 112 RBIs, three SB.
1931, .311 BA, 46 2B, eight 3B, 16 HR, 298 TB, 114 RBIs, three SB.
David Laurila grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and now writes about baseball from his home in Cambridge, Mass. He authored the Prospectus Q&A series at Baseball Prospectus from December 2006-May 2011 before being claimed off waivers by FanGraphs. He can be followed on Twitter @DavidLaurilaQA.
Always a fun read — the consistency of this column is amazing. On the Abreu/Ichiro question, one can’t really “discount his NPB career,” given how spectacular it was. It’s just not in any way an argument that detracts from his HoF case. But it did get me thinking: Should we consider the totality of a player’s career at all levels? If Bobby Abreu was an extraordinary minor leaguer, maybe that should be counted in his favor, too. Seems like players who leave MLB for Korea or Japan and then come back to MLB later are now getting a little credit for playing overseas, in terms of overall career assessments. Does that continue in the future, at least in terms of HoF considerations?
The minor leagues are not really on the same level as the NPB, and furthermore, anyone who was that good in the minor leagues would be called up within a year so they wouldn’t amass the same track record. So I don’t get where you are going with this.
Ichiro is an unusual case because he played something like 60% of his prime in Japan, was an absolute megastar with roughly identical stats from something like ages 20-26, and then he came over and was immediately a star in MLB. It’s hard to think of a case where this would happen in the reverse, with someone putting up huge numbers in MLB, going to Japan afterwards, and then dominating there. Ohtani is likely not passing up $300M+ to go back to Japan, for example. Xander Boegarts is probably not going to play in Japan after opting out of his contract.
I don’t know… we all know that the only reason Rickey Henderson is in the HoF is that year he played in the Golden Baseball League 🙂
I’m musing rather aimlessly, not putting forth anything like a proposal we do this. It’s just an idea I found interesting to ponder. Take a breath! But thank you for thinking through it so thoroughly!
“Take a breath” seems a bit harsh. You chose to muse aimlessly publicly, people are allowed to muse back. If you’re assigning some level of breathlessness to the response, maybe it’s you who needs to pause and take a breath. Unfortunate, because this seems like otherwise good discourse – interesting musings on both parts.
It’s alright, Josh is just musing aimlessly. He’s not hurting anyone.
Agreed. Even in the best case comparison scenario, maybe our AAA leagues are roughly comparable (if not better, in quality) than NPB… but nobody in any HOF discussion is spending more than a year at AAA anyway.
Wade Boggs wants a word…😁
Edgar’s already in line…
Abreu himself put in 3 years at AAA.
Wade Boggs (488 games combined at AA and AAA), Bobby Abreu (324 games at AAA), Chase Utley (273 games at AAA), Nelson Cruz (326 games at AAA), Brian Giles (347 games at AAA), Fred McGriff (261 games at AAA), Edgar Martinez (523 games at AA and AAA), etc.
We have a system that results in some teams keeping players in the minors past when they could have been contributing positively to their team. The above Hall cases would certainly look much better with another 3-5 WAR. For some players, it may tip the scales. For Abreu, Utley, and Cruz, they would have benefited from another decent season on their resume. Fred McGriff would have 510+ HRs and maybe gets in. It’s a fun question to consider.
Tom Selleck did this exact thing
Yes, but he did return for Blue Bloods.
I think even when you tell people to only consider his time in MLB, they still subconsciously give him some credit for being great in NPB before he got here BECAUSE he continued to be great in the same way. People think “what if he had broken into MLB five or six years earlier….” He might have caught Pete Rose and Ty Cobb.
I think the other reason people think so highly of him is that he led MLB in hits 7 of his first ten years. It may not be as important as leading in a more modern stat, but if you are clearly the best of your generation and one of the best ever in a major skill in your sport, you get a lot of credit for that. This isn’t some quirk like leading the league in pickoffs, HBP, or outfield assists and it doesn’t require advanced math like DRS or wOBA. Getting hits has been a carrying tool in baseball since the beginning and if you are the very best at it, you get noticed more. Abreu led his league once each in doubles and triples. That’s not nearly as impressive.
Pete Rose has done this about a dozen times. Any time someone has said Ichiro’s NPB stats should be used and he’s the all time hit kind, Rose has said his AAA stats should be used, and HE is the all time hit King. Rose aside, I have no issue with saying NPB = AAA.
not sure if there is a more recent article…but BP’s 2001 study , using decades of data, gives AAA an 0.86 equivalency to MLB and NPB a 0.95
MLB=1
So slightly closer to MLB than AAA.
“Every case from the 1990s shows
that players do worse as a CPA-weighted-average group in Japan than they do
in Triple-A, and by a considerable margin.”
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/1330/japanese-baseball-how-good-is-it/
(delete link if not ok)
That’s not necessarily evidence for or against anything. There have also been NPB stars who struggle in Triple A, and there’s no metric to quantify one’s ability to adapt to a different country and a different playing environment.
It’s evidence that NPB is a bit better than AAA and worse than MLB.
And, if you expand the discussion, should we consider College performance since college ball – while still an amateur sport – delays MLB arrivals in a way that depresses counting stats and WAR accumulation and makes it much harder for a player to make it to Cooperstown? Mark Teixeira is a Hall Of Famer if he signs with the Red Sox out of High School, makes it to the majors 2-3 years earlier, tacks those years onto his stats and has the same ML career. And he was one of the best College players in the country, by a long-shot. So why do we ding players for going to college?
If you “discount his NPB career” then you’re not really comparing Ichiro to Abreu, you’re comparing Ichiro’s career on this continent to Abreu. Under the narrow parameters of the question, then yes, they had comparable careers. But I don’t buy the premise of the question.
Ok, but even if you aren’t looking at Ichiro’s NPB career, it’s still gotta factor in that his career started at 27. If Ichiro had been an astronaut before that, then his post-age-27 career would still rank 20th since integration (between Bagwell and Jackie Robinson).
I also think there is a high likelihood that WAR is missing more from Ichiro than perhaps any other player. Ichiro hits above his weight class when in comes to drawing IBB, but doesn’t get extra credit. Ichiro reaches on way more errors which to me are inexplicably excluded from WAR. Ichiro is a giant PITA for pitchers the entire game.
And past all this, he is one of the most famous players, blazed the trail for Asian hitters, and owns a few MLB records.
I’d vote for Abreu, too, but arguing that they have similar cases seems to giving credit to the critics who say statistically-inclined writers want a “Hall of WAR.”
If anyone is an astronaut and then starts playing MLB at age 27 and then puts up nearly 60WAR, we should be considering other awards and honors than just the HOF…
Or wonder what planet put him into space.
Took me a second, but this is a solid joke.
I may be wrong, but I sort of read the premise as, “Who was the better player on US soil, and is that the only thing we should count in our American Hall of Fame”? Just taking it to a more extreme extent, imagine a two-time NPB MVP coming to the states at age 28. He’s already an international star and a big-ticket FA. He plays ten years here, winning one MVP, making four All-Star teams and accruing about 28 WAR. Like Ichiro, this player is also very popular and charismatic, liked by pretty much everyone throughout the sport. Normally those numbers don’t put anyone close to the Hall argument, but if this player gets on the ballot, does he deserve a look given that we know he spent most of his prime overseas?
Ichiro is such an unusual case. Starting at age 20, he put up essentially the same batting line every year until he showed up in MLB. Then he showed up in MLB and had a very similar batting line his first two seasons. It’s not hard to draw a straight line in this case, and it really gives you a clear idea of how his performance in the US is related to his dominance in Japan.
By my back of the envelope calculations, Ichiro had probably performed at a level that would translate to at least 25 wins. So if he had 35 wins in MLB instead of 57-some, then I think he starts getting serious consideration. If he has 45 wins in MLB instead of 57-some, then I think he’s definitely a Hall of Famer.
So, you’re asking whether Jose Abreu belongs in the Hall of Fame. Emphatic yes. It’s as close a case as I can think of to your hypothetical.
I came here to say just about the same thing. Ichiro would simply have put up more WAR if he’d played his entire prime in MLB. Their careers are not equivalent, even though I think Abreu was a great player.
I loved watching Abreu at-bats, mostly with the Yankees 06-08, post his personal peak. I remember him as having a high placidity to outcomes ratio at the plate. Like his buddy Matsui but even more chill.
Meaningless stat, but Abreu is 6th in WPA from 1998-2006 (and top ten over six other ranges i checked). Clutch guys like Jeter and Suzuki were 15 and 47 in that span.
And WOW did Giambi impact a lot of games outcomes, second only to Bonds over a long period!
The hardest part to me about considering a DH is when comparing them to someone like Gary Sheffield. I.e. should those players’ defensive negatives be held against them? I think the answer is probably that a DH should need an incrementally higher offensive WAR than someone who played in the field. Almost like there is an implication assumption that they added negative defensive value.
The way that fWAR currently penalizes DHs is they are given a Positional Adjustment of -17.5 runs, compared to -12.5 runs for 1B. Thus, a full-time DH is given the fielding outcome of a 1B who is -5 Fielding Runs Above Average based on UZR. That’s worse than 78.9% of all 1B seasons in the DH era.
When DHs have played in the field, their Fielding Runs Above Average tend to be, well, above average. Out of the 460 Qualified DH seasons, 51 were entirely DH so had no fielding runs, 78 were at -5 or below, 171 were between -5 and 0, and 160 were at 0 or above. Many of those -5 or below seasons were due to players playing in the outfield, not at 1B. Overall, that means that 19% justified the DH positional adjustment, while 81% did not.
The positional adjustment is set far too high for DHs. The positional adjustment places them in the bottom 20% of all fielders when we know that is not as bad as they would perform on aggregate. When the majority of the knock against a player’s value is the positional adjustment from DH, we should reconsider whether that is warranted.
The positional adjustment is set too high for DH… and for 1B as well. If the premise about the 1B positional adjustment were even close to correct, then teams would respond accordingly. But they haven’t, not even with all of the analytic minds that have joined front offices. There should be an adjustment but the current one is too large.
Ichiro definitely had a better career. Nobody knows or cares about when player A passes player B in WAR, but most know the moments when someone reaches a big milestone. Everyone knows the hit that put Ichiro all alone at the top of the all time single season hits record. Everyone knows about that throw to third base. We know Ichiro’s batting stance and how he always took off his elbow guard in the same exact way. The vast majority of baseball fans don’t have that same magnetic attraction to Abreu, who was a marvelous ballplayer in his own right.
What I’m trying to say is there’s a lot more than just the numbers when looking back on a career. There’s the aura around a player, the energy some have that made em memorable and unforgettable. Ichiro, like many of the greats, had it; he’s one of the most iconic baseball players who has ever lived despite making the postseason just once during his prime MLB years. Abreu may have been more productive on an objective level (if you disregard Ichiro’s NPB years, which I wouldn’t do), but nobody will argue that Ichiro will go down in history with far more ease.
Everything you said about Ichiro is correct, but it doesn’t address the question of who was better. There’s no question that Ichiro was cooler, more iconic, and more exciting than Abreu. But was he better? That’s the question, and that’s where numbers come in
compare them from 27 on and I think you’ll have your answer…
That also isn’t the question here. It’s who had the better MLB career, not who was better after age 27.
I was answering Dmjn5s’s question, “was [Ichiro] better?”
Since the larger question is “Should Abreu be in the Hall of Fame?”, I think it matters that Ichiro was the better player.
Well you seem to have misunderstood Dmjn53’s question of “was Ichiro better?” , since that question is also in regards to his time strictly spent in the MLB and not his entire career. Which is what this post is whole about, comparing Ichiro’s MLB career to Abreu’s MLB career.
And the answer to that is not made by comparing them from their age 27 seasons onward, where Ichiro is clearly the answer. Was Ichiro the better player over his entire career? Obviously, but that’s a different question than anyone is even asking.
Was Ichiro the better player during his MLB career vs. Abreu? David Laurila and the stats don’t agree: “Ichiro doesn’t compare favorably to Abreu. At least not statistically.”
Two of the three hypotheses for the DH penalty in the article you linked to suggest that your conclusion is false. Injured or declining players could easily be more likely in the sample for DH players and perform worse for those reasons. And if they perform worse for those reasons, they’d perform the same even if plodding at first base.
No that’s not it. Everyone who DHs for any reason typically hits worse as a DH, and players who sometimes DH usually complain it’s much harder to do than when they are more involved in the game.
I’ve heard the complaints, and I don’t discount that, but that is not analytically relevant.
The question is how much chicken and egg is going on? How often are players DHing because something is wrong with them? Either temporarily or permanently? It makes sense that guys might DH more nursing some ailment and that ailment—not DHing itself—hurts their production.
To get a real sense, you’d need to have a rule where players were randomly selected to DH.
I don’t have a good theory as to why but there are some weird things connecting hitting to fielding spots. Yelich exploded when he started playing right field; Ramirez after being shifted to third. I don’t think it’s causal, exactly. I don’t understand why playing a new position would help someone hit better. But I suspect that hitting is so hard that even small switches, like moving from one position to the next, might affect their whole game. I imagine something is similar with the DH. It’s not exactly causal but it’s not not causal either.
Seems like noise is the most likely thing. It’s not like MLB teams are even paying guys some premium for their ability to play DH. It’s honestly weird to me how willing so many analytically inclined people are to buy into this theory so hard.
The reason people buy into it is because it’s true. As a whole, players hit worse when they DH even just a game here and there, than they do the same seasons where they play the field.
There are exceptions, and one anecdote obviously isn’t data, but Stanton is an illustrative example.
This year, he hit .267/.351/.491 as a DH, .279/.313/.656 as a RF, and .343/.465/.600 when he played LF. It’s not like he DHed on days he had some soreness and bruisng and only played the field when he was 100% perfectly healthy.
And lest you say it’s a small sample size (it is), his career is the same way: .271/.358/.522 as a DH, .267/.356/.551 in RF and .311/.411/.551 in LF.
Frank Thomas is the poster child for this: even early in his career and when he wasn’t hurt, he hit far better when he played first base than when he DHed.
After seeing him come alive this year after finally being put back into the outfield, the Yankees would be insane if they keep Stanton full time in the DH role.
Or maybe that’s the same thing as starting pitchers being asked to pitch in relief?
>Ichiro *probably* does have the stronger Hall of Fame credentials.
Really?
One way to see how utterly silly
‘let’s compare Abreu and Ichiro’s career number in MLB only’ is.
Ichiro made his MLB debut in 2001 as a 27 year old.
Abreu was 27 in 2001 as well.
Since then, Ichiro has 58 fwar and Abreu has 39 fwar.
If this kind of meaningless comparison is needed to make the case for Abreu,
then maybe the argument for Abreu isn’t that strong.
Not very many players were as amazing as Ichiro during his first 10 seasons in the MLB. The fact that Ichiro played 7-8 years as a declining role player only helped him fall back to the Bobby Abreu tier in terms of WAR. Abreu was seriously underrated in his prime, but he also had to compete with known/alleged juicers like Bonds and Sosa for all-star consideration in the late 90s-early 2000s. Plus there were other great outfielders such as Berkman, Sheffield, Edmonds, Green, Giles, and Guerrero Sr. all playing in the NL at the same time Abreu was during his peak. Chopper Jones also played lots of corner outfield as he aged. Ichiro didn’t have quite as much competition as an outfielder in the AL during the first few prime years. At a glance Damon, Hunter, Williams, and Manny come to mind, as well as Guerrero Sr. in the mid-late 2000s when he signed with LAA. Aside from Guerrero, and maybe Manny, none of those other names stood out like Ichiro did. As great of a player Abreu was, he got lost in the shuffle though that isn’t a knock against him. NL was stacked with a ton of great outfielders at the time.
Chipper Jones played LF when he was 30 and 31 while Vinny Castilla played 3B, and he played 29 games in LF the next year (96 at 3B), but he didn’t play at all in the outfield in his last 8 seasons.
I always thought Abreu was a great player and a future HOF guy. When the Astros kept Hidalgo over Abreu in the expansion draft, I was very surprised. As a youngster Abreu had a command of the strike zone that Hidalgo never learned.
The question should not be who had the “better” career, but was Abreu’s career as good as/HoF worthy as Ichiro. The answer is yes! What WAR or OPS+/wOBA tells us is how big of a contribution to winning games (runs!) a player made. Abreu had SEVEN seasons of 5+ bWAR, which puts him in elite status. Also, neither player did much after age 35 – as is the case with most players! Abreu is criminally underrated and likely joining the likes of Dick Allen, Bobby Grich, Ken Boyer, and Reggie Smith.
Another difference between Ichiro and Abreu is the baserunning and double play avoidance. According to Baseball Reference, Ichiro added 117 baserunning and double play avoidance runs combined, good for 5th place among players who played in the expansion era, while Abreu added just 32 runs combined.
So I would say yes, Abreu had superior on base skills and power but Ichiro was the better fielder, baserunner and contact hitter. He also lost years of his prime playing in Japan.
I get the point you’re making here though – Abreu is underrated and his WAR is comparable. I agree which is why he made my virtual ballot this year. I think he’s a borderline HOFer worthy of more consideration by the voters.
First time I’ve read this (lapsed reader admittedly), won’t be the last. Fun with numbers
The Ichiro question was purely subjective so I found it unsurprising 86% thought his a better career. Abreu’s lengthy stay was solid, Ichiro’s was fairly iconic no?
Ichiro’s career numbers are a bit misleading. He hung around way too long playing mostly awful baseball for the better part of a decade into his 40s. Had he retired at age 36 his numbers look much, much better. At that point, he had a 115 wRC+. In those final 8 years, it was 80.
I’m of the mind that you should never penalize someone’s legacy for hanging around like Ichiro or Pujols did. At the moment they stopped being a useful player, then I think that’s where you stop.
If I wanted a HOF voting stat, I’d use Wins over Average, and throw away any years when they were below average.
That throws out years when the player was still very good (league average is very good), but only gives credit for years that are hall-worthy and doesn’t subtract for bad years.
It’s a bit odd that WAA hasn’t caught on more. It’s a great way of separating the true greats from the compliers.
That’s a fairly low wRC+ if we are limiting a player’s rate stats to their peak seasons. Furthermore, his long tail of counting stats (3k hits in MLB!) were only achieved because he hung around past when he was valuable. That was 1k games of being barely above replacement level that enabled him to get 3k hits.
I think if Bobby Abreu was known simply as “Bobby” throughout his career, and had “Bobby” on the back of his jersey, then he’d be in the Hall of Fame.
Really interesting article and I think it really highlights how underrated Abreu was.
Now…comparing Ichiro and Abreu. What we are really comparing here, whether we admit it or not, is players, not numbers. We are using numbers to show us who these players were. How good were they? So I think it’s completely understandable that 86% rank Ichiro higher. We all know his numbers would be better than Abreu’s if it weren’t for other circumstances.
Abreu’s top seasons were ALL before he turned 27.
Ichiro hit .385 in NP at 20.
I don’t think we can just turn those facts off in our minds even when we try.
DH is not a position. It is a slot in the batting order.
Abreu is criminally underrated.
Nice piece. I’m interested in the suggestion that Martinez and Ortiz would have been full-time position players in the NL, and hit better. I wonder if they would have held up physically if they had to field, or just found themselves with fewer at bats. Some really superior hitters–Molitor, Frank Thomas, and Thome found themselves unable to play the field later in their career.
Have voters taken non-MLB contributions into consideration for previous candidates? Have any of them previously awarded them for time spent in NPB/non-North America play? If they never have before, then comparing Ichiro vs Abreu is a great thought exercise, one where I would lean Abreu the more valuable player.
They almost certainly have given partial credit for years missed for military service and players who died young have been admitted without the normal 10 year minimum MLB service.
Time playing for the NPB play isn’t the same thing as either death or US military service, but it is missing MLB time for reasons that aren’t really the player’s fault, some level of credit is probably justified, and in Ichero’s case we have a pretty good idea how well he’d have done in those missing seasons.
I was surprised to see Abreu was only in 2 all star games. Seems strange.
Bobby Abreu is probably exhibit A for why we shouldn’t hand HoF voting over to algorithms. I recall that he was good but never spectacular, that he had a questionable rep for effort, and can’t distinctly remember a single moment of his career. Haha if I came across his plaque in Cooperstown I would probably think “Huh, Abreu is in here, he was pretty good and walked a lot, and I seem to remember Yankees fans hating him. That’s all I’ve got”
This comparison with Ichiro is also questionable because I thought the consensus was that he is borderline HoF based on his mlb career and that he is only a ‘shoo in’ when taking Japanese stats and his particular role as an ambassador for the game from that country into account. Bootstrapping Abreu based on Ichiro’s stats is apples and oranges.
So Abreu had 1/2 of Ichiro’s career? I guess that’s sort of impressive.
“Why then are some Hall of Fame voters reluctant, if not unwilling, to put check marks next to the names of players who were primarily designated hitters?”
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Are they? Not sure many BBWAA voters are reluctant. It did take a while for them to warm to Martinez as he was sort of a first-of-his-kind player, but once they did, it cleared the way for Ortiz, who right now is polling with over 80%. I suspect those who aren’t voting for him are trying to remain consistent to their anti-PED stance.
Beyond Martinez and Ortiz, whom have they missed? Some people claim Frank Thomas was the first DH elected to the HOF, but that’s misguided. Thomas was a brilliant hitter with an incredible eye. He established his HOF credentials over the first decade of his career when he was mostly a 1B’man. It was that first decade that made him a HOFer. Paul Molitor appeared at DH more than any other position. I’m being loose with the term position here. Regardless, he appeared collectively at more games in the field than he did at DH. Harold Baines was elected by the Era Committee, even if he was an overreach. A fine hitter, but it was more than fair that the BBWAA ignored him when he was on the ballot. So who have they missed? No one. Hal McRae is probably the most accomplished DH not in the HOF, and with an approximate 29 WAR, he falls well short of even Baines.
I suspect the original hesitancy with electing Martinez was similar to the hesitancy voters had with relief pitchers. Once they got over that concern, they’ve been more welcoming. I think that’s the case with DH’s too, but there are simply no other DH candidates to even consider.
I really love the references to very old-time players that I would otherwise not know about. Reading about Jack Powell led me to check the pre-WWI pitching leaders in WAR, and Powell is 15th. 12 of the 14 players above him are in the Hall of Fame:
Cy Young
Christy Mathewson
Kid Nichols
Tim Keefe
John Clarkson
Pud Galvin
Rube Waddell
Eddie Planck
Walter Johnson (he would add 66 more WAR after 1914)
Charley Radbourn
Vic Willis
The exceptions above Powell are Bobby Mathews and Gus Weyhing.
Mathews probably should be in. 297 wins, 54.2 WAR despite playing 2 years in his prime (ages 26 and 28) in independent leagues that aren’t considered major leagues. Every pitcher with more wins or innings is in the Hall of Fame, except Clemens. He’s 6th best in WAR pre-1900.
Wehying probably shouldn’t be in, though he had a decent career.
Thanks for the references.
One of my favorite memories was getting my first Baseball Encyclopedia as a kid. I used to sit and flip from page to page discovering “new” players, marveling at stats, wondering why players today no longer hit .400 or pitched 500 innings, although even at 10, I kind of knew why.
Today, while I have a pretty decent encyclopedic knowledge of old-time baseball, I will still run across a good player I had never heard of before, or had simply forgotten about. Discovering those past players remains enjoyable. No other sport connects its fans to the past than baseball.
You could write Ichiro’s HOF plaque right now, off the top of your head. Could you do that for Abreu?
I think hardware and black ink make a big difference when you’re talking about a concept like “better career.” And look, I say this as a guy who thinks Abreu was a lot better than people remember; that his HOF credentials will only become clearer over time; and that because he was a complete offensive player, you may well be right that he created more value for his teams.
And, yes, I’m basing all this on Ichiro’s MLB career. His Japanese career certainly adds to his legend, but it’s not 100% relevant here.
Looking at Abreu’s card, he didn’t play fewer than 151 games/year for 13 straight seasons!
Wilson’s WAR is higher than Pierre both because of defense and the eras in which they played with a little bit of home ballpark thrown in. They put up nearly identical OPS and perfectly identical .315 wOBAs yet Wilson’s wRC+ was 8 pts higher (94 to 86) because he played in the low offense 80’s and Pierre played in tail end of the Steroid Era . Pierre also gets dinged for a little over 2 seasons in Planet Coors while Wilson played at Kauffman
I always hoped Pierre would find a way to hang on and get to 3,000 hits just to see what kind of chaos that would have caused (same thing with Damon).
The answer is no.
I was saying boo-urns
re: Ichiro vs Abreu
It’s called the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of STATS.
Stats are usually why someone becomes famous, but not always
The difference defensively was night and day. Bobby was afraid of the warning track.