The Ichiro Question

So I haven’t posted to this particular site in a while because frankly, the Mariners continue to be unwatchable and I have been following the pennant races in the other divisions. In addition, I have been working on my website (www.garyinseattle.com) which has some musings on living in Seattle and the Buffalo Bills.


So to the point, I was listening to sports talk radio on the way to my real job the other day (KJR – 950 AM, Seattle) and the following fan poll/man on the street question was posed: Is Ichiro overrated or underrated? Fans were to call and text in on this question a simple yes or no.

First off, it must be understood that sports talk radio exists for the same reason as any other of the inane media outlets do these days, that is, advertisers will pay the station for air time because there are enough people that will listen to the show. Period. So far as I can tell, the entire industry would be waiting tables for a living (they certainly wouldn’t be playing sports professionally) if they couldn’t do this. What is also fascinating is that most of the hosts are “college educated”, sort of in the same way that Ryan Leaf was a quarterback in the NFL.

In addition to this is the sociological fascination that they have with their “fame” because they talk to professional athletes on the radio. I am not for changing the system, it just strikes me as odd what society considers important and famous. I can think of 478 roles/professions that add more value to society than Sports Talk Radio host.

In the 15 minutes that I listened to this “debate” about Ichiro, the host was sanctimonious, rude and refused to listen to any reason or statistics about the value, or lack thereof, of Ichiro to the Mariners that a couple of the more educated listeners had to offer. The host (s) are either uneducated as to what makes a baseball player valuable to a team or completely ignore it because it is their pulpit and what they preach, theretofore, is.

I feel it is my duty to answer this question, with facts and statistics that are important to the baseball team, to back up my answers, rather than just the ramblings of someone who is given the liberty to voice meaningless opinions and drive emotion in order to secure ratings.

When speaking of a players value to a team, there are multiple factors to consider. What is his value to the team as a corporation, to the team’s wins and losses and of course that value relative to the market for a comparable player.

When speaking of the value of a player, it is important to take into account what he is being paid. Ichiro is being paid $18 M! for his services this year.

Value to the Mariners as a Corporation

Ichiro is being paid $18 M this year as part of a 5yr/$90 M contract signed in 2008. He will be the highest paid Mariner until 2012 when King Felix will earn $19.2 M, which is also the last year of Ichiro’s contract. I have read and have heard on multiple occasions that the Mariners have a Japanese TV contract that pays them to telecast the games in Japan. This is a direct results of Ichiro playing here. While I cannot find the terms of that deal, it certainly changes the economics of signing him because that deal would not exist if he played for another team. In addition, there is a marked effect on attendance because of his presence. Despite the fact that the Mariners have been awful to watch for 10+ years, they still draw fan to the ballpark, certainly not to watch baseball, as I have repeatedly pointed out in this space, but fans do show up. So it is logical to infer, for business reasons and business reasons alone, that Ichiro may be worth the $18 M a year completely independent of his on the field performance.

Value to the Team in Wins and Losses and the Market

This can be looked at simply by asking how many less wins would the Mariners have with an average major league replacement player against having Ichiro in the lineup.

Prior to addressing that, I would like to address the argument that he would add wins if he batted somewhere else in the lineup. Most of the argument has been that Ichiro should bat third and that he could then hit home runs and drive in more runs. This is, um, preposterous. First of all, the argument that he could hit home runs because he hits them in batting practice makes no sense, either qualitatively or quantitatively. If he could hit more home runs, he would have already. There is only ONE time through the lineup that he is guaranteed to bat first, and that is in the first inning. The whole point of the top of the order batting where they are is that they represent the highest probability that the team will score more runs. It is entirely unimportant HOW a team scores, just so long as they cross the plate.

During this 15 minutes of listening to the radio, the hosts quoted Ichiro’s batting average 15 times, which is the least important statistical correlation to scoring runs. One of the hosts brought up on base percentage once, but sounded completely confused as to its importance, which is of course, the MOST important statistic as it relates to scoring runs. OPS (which is OBP and SLG combined) is second. All of this of course, is relative to the other players in the lineup, and given the Mariners have only one professional hitter in their lineup, and that is Ichiro, it wouldn’t matter where he batted. Bat him first, he gets left on base a lot, bat him third, there is no one on base for him to drive in, and given that his career slugging is .430, it is unlikely that he would anyway because it is difficult to score on a series of infield singles, sometimes even from third.

Ichiro’s line this year to date is: .316/.361/.398/.759 (BA/OBP/SLG/OPS)

His career line in the majors is: .331/.376/.430/.806.

The American League average for 2010 is: .260/.328/.407/.735.

What does that mean? Ichiro is well above average as a hitter so far as when he puts the ball in play, he reaches base safely at a very high rate. However, he does not draw walks. He draws at a rate of .062 BB/PA which is good for the bottom 2/3 of the league of players with more than 500 ABs (2010). He is just a smidge above league average in slugging and is almost exactly league average in OPS in 2010. Ichiro is the 16th highest paid player in baseball.

So from this simple analysis that our beloved radio hosts apparently didn’t have the time to complete, Ichiro is certainly overpaid, and could probably be replaced in the lineup by a comparable slightly above average player and it wouldn’t make a difference to the Mariners W/L record. Overrated? Who knows. Since players are generally rated by the media and the media was asking the question, it is hard to say. Overpaid? Most certainly, from the team’s standpoint, but maybe not from the Mariners as a corporation. Untradeable? I wouldn’t take on his contract but stranger things happen all the time.