Earlier this month, Ichiro Suzuki recorded the 2,979th hit in his major league career, giving him 4,257 hits combined between Major League Baseball ( MLB ) and the Japanese equivalent of major league baseball ( where he recorded 1,278 hits from 1992 to 2000). The number 4,257 was considered significant by some because the MLB record for hits in a career is 4,256. This record is held by Pete Rose, and after Ichiro recorded his 4,257th hit, Rose and his supporters started to make noise that Ichiro's 1278 Japanese hits shouldn't count towards his total because the Japanese major leagues are inferior to the American major leagues.
Well, my first impression here is that the Rose crowd is being a bit too defensive, because nobody's been trying to say that Rose no longer holds the MLB record for career hits. When it comes to the MLB record, of course Ichiro's 1278 hits in the Japanese league don't count. Clearly only MLB hits can count towards the MLB records. That fact is true by definition, regardless of whether Japanese major league baseball is as good as major league baseball in America.
The larger point that I think Rose and his fans are trying to make is that Ichiro's 4,257 professional hits do not make him a more prolific hitter than Pete Rose. They want to make it clear to anyone who will listen to them that Pete Rose is the "Hit King" and always will be. They want to make it clear that Ichiro would not have had anywhere near 1278 hits from 1992 to 2000 if he had been playing those years in America instead of in Japan.
I actually agree that Ichiro wouldn't have gotten close to 1278 in MLB from 1992 to 2000.
He would have gotten more than 1278 hits, probably a lot more.
There are a lot a complex mathematical and sabermetrical ways to justify this belief, but the easiest argument is the following.
Prior to playing in MLB starting with the 2001 season, Ichiro played 7 full seasons in the Japanese Pacific League from 1994 to 2000. In those 7 season he amassed 1,242 hits ( He amassed 36 combined hits in 1992 and 1993 as a teen-age part-time player. ). In his first 7 years in MLB from 2001 to 2007, he collected 1,592 hits.
Let's take a moment to let this sink in. After getting 1,242 in 7 full seasons in Japanese baseball, he got 1,592 hits in first 7 seasons in Major Leauge Baseball. So, if the Rose supporters are correct that it is harder to get hits in MLB than in Japanese baseball, why did Ichiro get 350 more hits in his first 7 years in Major League Baseball than his his last 7 years of Japanese baseball? Well, while it is easier to get a a hit in a given at bat in the Japanese Leagues ( Ichiro hit .351 in Japan but only .333 in his first 7 years in MLB ) it's harder to get a large number of hits in a Japanese baseball season, because there are less games in a Japanese baseball season than an MLB season. In the MLB, they play 162 games, but in Japan the season was only 130 games long from 1994 to 1996 and only 135 games long from 1997 to 2000. So even though the easier level of play in Japan helped Ichiro hit for a higher average in Japan than in MLB, the much shorter Japanese season kept his season hit totals below what they probably would have been in MLB. The most hits Ichiro ever got in a Japanese baseball season was 210 ( in 1994 ). Ichiro's had more than 210 hits in a season 8 times in MLB, including an all-time MLB single season record of 262 hits in 2004.
All of this doesn't prove that Ichiro could have gotten more than 1,278 MLB hits prior to 2001 if given the chance, but I think it makes it highly likely. If Ichiro has come to America at the age of 18, his biggest impediment to collecting at least 1278 MLB hits before 2001 would have have Major League GMs. Ichiro wasn't an effective player in the Japanese leagues in 1992 and 1993 ( he hit .253 as an 18-year old in 1992 and .188 as an 19-year old in 1993 ). It's unlikely that any MLB team would have promoted him to majors in 1994 based on his 1992 and 1993 numbers. However in 1994, he hit .385 in Japan. That .385 average in Japan probably the translates to over .400 in AAA minor league ball. If Ichiro had hit over .400 in AAA ball in 1994, it seems unlikely that he would not have started 1995 in the major leauges. In fact, he probably would have been promoted to MLB at some point during his 1994 season. In any case, if we assume Ichiro would have only played 6 full season in MLB prior to 2001 and he would have collected hits at the same pace as he did from 2001 to 2007 ( 1592 hits in 7 years is a 227.42857 hits per year pace ), we would estimate that Ichiro would have gotten 1364 MLB hits from 1995 to 200 ( 1364.57, but I'll round down to be more conservative about his potential hit total ). 1364 is still plenty more than 1278. If Ichiro had collected 1364 MLB hits from 1995 to 2000, he would have broken Rose's MLB record of 4256 last season.
However, Ichiro didn't get those 1364 extra MLB hits. He didn't get those 1364 extra MLB hits, just like Ted William didn't get close to 200 extra MLB home runs during the years he missed while serving his country as a Navy pilot in World War II and the Korean War, Satchel Paige didn't get hundreds of extra MLB wins when he was kept out of MLB because of the color of his skin. The history Major League Baseball is full of "What if?"s, but "What if?"s don't count, so Rose is going be the MLB "Hit King" until somebody manages to get 4257 hits in an MLB career. Rose's career hit record is one of the great records in sports, but those who want to prop Rose up should not try to push Ichiro down. Fans of Rose may not want admit it, but I think history will judge Ichiro to be a greater player than Rose. The numbers actually say Rose was little bit better as a pure hitter ( Ichiro has a better lifetime average, but Rose has a better OPS+ due to a higher walk rate and the fact that he played in played in an era of low scoring while Ichiro played much of his career in a high scoring era. However, I think Ichiro career OPS+ ( 108 vs. Rose's 118 ) could have closer to Rose's if he could have added 6 or 7 MLB seasons in his prime from 1994 to 2000. ), but Ichiro's contributions on the base-paths and his spectacular fielding put Ichiro just ahead of Rose in my opinion. *
* For what it is worth, according to baseball-reference.com, Rose accumulated a career WAR of 79.1 and Ichiro has a career WAR of only 59.6. However, as we've noted before, Ichiro played 7 full seasons in Japan before he played in America. Ichiro had a total WAR of 40.9 is his first 7 years in the USA. I we assume Ichiro could have accumulated 6/7 of that total if he had played in MLB from 1995 to 2000, he could have gotten 35 more WAR before 2001 and would now have a total of 94.6 WAR for his career. Of course, there is no way to be sure he's be as good from 1995 to 2000 in MLB as he was from 2001 to 2007, but I believe he would have accumulated enough extra WAR in those years to surpass Rose's 79.1. In any case, they were both incredible players. It worth noting that while Ichiro's total of 40.9 WAR from his age-27 season to his age-33 season ( 2001 - 2007 ) is very impressive, Rose had 42.2 WAR from his age-27 season to his age-33 season ( 1968 - 1974 ).
I hope people will view this post as being more pro-Ichiro than anti-Rose. I admittedly think that Rose should not forgiven by MLB for gambling on baseball games, but I also think was one of the greatest players I ever had the privilege to watch. I still fondly remember his 44-game hitting streak, and I rooted for him during his entire chase of Ty Cobb's career hit record. He broke a record that most people thought could ever be broken, and no one can ever take that away from him.
So, who's the real "Hit King"? It's still Rose, because "what if?"s don't count, but nobody will every convince me that Ichiro wasn't a better player than Rose. In the end, I'll be telling my grandkids about both of these guys.
Rich
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