So Ichiro Suzuki won the AL Rookie of the Year award. I don’t deny that he had a great year, but is he really a rookie? Come on. The NHL has rules to prevent this. For Roman Cechmanek came to the Flyers after playing several years in the Czech Republic. Because of this, he wasn’t eligible for the Calder Trophy, since the NHL counts time in other leagues.
MLB doesn’t count time in other leagues. Therefore, Ichiro Suzuki is a rookie.
Are you asking whether there should be a rule against players like Suzuki being rookies?
The NHL has changed their ROY eligibility rules more times than they’ve handed out the award. The hell with the NHL.
Major league baseball has been handing out ROY awards since 1947 and the rule has always been the same; a rookie is someone in his first full year, no matter what. The first man to win the Award, Jackie Robinson, was 28 years old and had years of pro ball experience behind him. Other Negro League players won the award as well, and Ichiro Suzuki is only the third Japanese player to win the Award after Hideo Nomo, only a bit younger than Suzuki, and Kazahiro Sasaki, who had MORE Japanese League experience than Suzuki.
Unlike hockey players, virtually ALL major leaguers are pro ballplayers before they enter the majors - after all, AA and AAA ball is all professional leagues.
You could change the rules, but since you would be changing the rules in a way that would disquality men like the guy who won the first award and after whom the award is now named, a rule change would seem kind of stupid.
Well, since Suzuki played less than 45 games of American major league baseball until the start of this season, and that is the only criterion for a non-pitching rookie, and he undoubtedly led the Mariners to a dream season, from which they woke up by the beloved Yankees, he deserves it. Now a good question is: will he cop an MVP crown too?
What I’d like to know is, who is the moron in Ohio who gave his vote to C.C. Sabathia instead of Ichiro?
Is it possible to have a better first year in the Major Leagues than Suzuki did?
Let’s hijack, shall we? I say there’s a decent chance Ichiro comes away with the MVP award, though it’s not nearly as likely as it was back in June, when every mediot and his dog was proclaiming Suzuki to be the best player in the league.
On balance, I can think of at least two AL players that had much better years and did more for their club than Suzuki. I can even make the argument that he’s no better than the fifth most-valuable position player in the league.
Ichiro hit .350/.381/.457 this year. 34 doubles, 8 triples, 8 homers, 69 RBI, and 127 runs scored. 316 total bases. His batting average, stolen bases, and hits led the AL. He had 692 at-bats. That’s a lot, and can be explained by the fact that he walked about half as often as he struck out–which is to say, not very often at all. (He had 30 walks and 53 strikeouts on the year.) Finally, Suzuki played an excellent right field for a team with more wins than anyone else in AL history.
MVP pros: His hits, his speed, his flash. The fact that he’s one of the few guys in the game that you’d buy a ticket especially to see. An integral part of a winning team.
MVP cons: A singles hitter. Relatively low OPS (slugging plus on-base). It’s hard to make a big impact defensively from right field, especially if you don’t have a cannon for an arm. May not even be the most valuable player on his own team (see Boone, Bret).
Then you’ve got A-Rod. Rodriguez had a phenomenal year with the bat, albeit for a team that finished well off the pace in the AL West. He hit .318/.399/.622. 52 homers, which is a heck of a lot even in the Year of the Bonds. (Some perspective on the recent offensive explosion. Terry Pendleton won the 1991 NL MVP by batting .319 with 22 homers. Rodriguez finishes first in the AL with 52 home runs, but is still 21 behind Barry Bonds. Yup.) 133 runs for A-Rod, 135 RBI. 393 total bases. And all this while playing a more difficult position in the field than Ichiro, and playing it well.
MVP pros: Awesome offensive stats. Fielded a tough position.
MVP cons: The Rangers have no pitching. To the extent that it’s possible, A-Rod’s season kinda got lost in the shuffle this year.
And my pick for MVP: Jason Giambi. Giambi batted .342/.477/.660. Led the AL in walks, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and doubles (47). Threw in 38 homers, 120 RBI, and 109 runs. 343 total bases. Played first base for the second best team in the AL.
MVP pros: Won the award last year, and almost every stat is better this time around. Are you kidding me with that 1.137 OPS?
MVP cons: Won the award last year. Plays first base. Isn’t Ichiro Suzuki or Alex Rodriguez.
I think Giambi will end up winning it, but it’ll be close between him and Suzuki. Hell, I could see it going to any of the three.
Milo: Pujols sure tried. 
.329/.403/.610.
(I forgot to talk about park effects in the MVP post. Oakland’s home stadium is fairly tough on hitters. So is Safeco for Seattle, though I don’t know whether it depresses singles. RickJay? And Texas’s ballpark is a fairly good hitters’ park. So you can take those into account.)
Milossarian asked:
This AP story credits Chris Assenheimer of the Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria, Ohio for that idiosycratic vote. ‘“I just felt that Sabathia better met the criteria of what a rookie is in the truest sense of the word,” said Assenheimer, who was surprised he was the only voter not to have Suzuki No. 1 on his ballot. “That’s nothing against Ichiro.”’
From the same source, details of what Ichiro cost the M’s: 3 years guaranteed totalling $14,088,000, $75,000 for winning ROY, and $13,125,000 to Ichiro’s prior team, the Orix Blue Wave.
I forget, is Seattle a large-market or a small-market team?
As far as MVP goes, I’ll say top 3 will be Giambi, Boone, and Rodriguez with Ichiro in the top 10.
FWIW, I think the lone dissenter was inconsistent, by voting Suzuki in as #2. Either he’s a rookie or he’s not a rookie.
Just my opinion, but when I hear ‘Rookie’ I’m thinking of a fresh faced young kid getting his first shot at the big time. Not a seasoned veteran from another country in the prime of his career that just decided to make the big bucks in the U.S.
Of course, since my opinion means jack squat for the MLB, we can count on more 30 year olds winning the ROY. And frankly, it should be considered an insult to Ichiro that he is considered a rookie. Granted, money is money, and awards are nice on the mantle, but if I spent 8 years playing tough ball in my home country, I’d never accept being called a rookie.
IIRC, Safeco slightly reduces all base hits. However, two years of data isn’t much to establish a stat-specific park effect.
The only really relevant data is how much it reduces offense, and Safeco is a terrible hitters’ park, so Suzuki’s performance was more valuable than it would appear at first glance. I don’t think he’s anywhere near being the MVP, though. I’d vote for Giambi or Rodriguez, with honourable mentions to Bret Boone and Roberto Alomar.
I might add, with respect to the OP, that there isn’t any precedent for only giving the ROY award to young kids. Even out-of-the-minors rookies are often older “Rookies” with lots of pro ball experience. Anyone remember Bob Hamelin?
I think part of the point of the Rookie of the Year award is that your first year in a new league - ANY new league, but especially one as challenging as MLB - is bound to be especially difficult. This year, Suzuki saw Pedro Martinez’s fastball, Mariano Rivera’s cutter, Roger Clemens’ splitter, and Barry Zito’s curveball, all for the first time EVER. So never mind that most established major league hitters can’t hit those pitches; Ichiro had to do it while completely unfamiliar with what to expect.
That’s why he deserves the ROY award, IMO. Because while he has lots of experience, he has no experience with these particular players. So, as regards his ability to hit against them, he is a rookie, in the truest sense of the word.
- Frank
The kind of moron who thinks that going 17-5 your rookie year, with no prior major league experience and only 86.1 innings of professional experience prior to his 200 season, is pretty deserving of a Rookie of the Year award, I’d imagine.
There’s also the added argument that it’s harder to find a good starting pitcher than a good right fielder. Rookie pitchers who can fill a rotation spot are rare.
Unfortunately, 21-year-old rookie pitchers thrust into the rotation always hurt their arms, too. I hope Sabathia’s the rare exception.
Sabathia’s 17-5 record is about as indicative of his pitching skill as Roger Clemens’ 20-3 record is of his…both of these pitchers got a tremendous amount of run support, which allowed them to run up such gaudy won-lost records. Sabathia’s ERA didn’t get under 5 until sometime in June. Which isn’t to see he didn’t have a good season; he’s got wicked stuff but poor control, and has a chance to be a phenomenal pitcher as he learns more about his craft the next several years. (Seconding RickJay’s caveat, of course: if he doesn’t get overworked in the next few years and destroy his arm–perhaps, like Randy Johnson, his poor control will serve as a blessing in disguise and keep him from running up high pitch counts in the near future.) In any other year, though, Sabathia is the runaway Rookie of the Year.
However, give credit to Ichiro. It’s easy to look back now at the phenomenal batting average, speed, defense, and years of Japanese League experience he brought with him and see the potential. But at the beginning of the year, there were serious questions about how well his skills would translate to the American League, and whether pitchers would be knocking the bat out of his hands.
It’s the rules, deal with it.
These are the same rules that keep some “kids” from even being eligible because they got a little too much playing time in the bigs at the end of one season. Chad Curtis comes to mind as an example- he was called up from AAA by California to play out the end of a year, did quite well for himself, but really didn’t have enough games played that year to be considered. The following year, he was ineligible because he had played too many games already! Not that Curtis would have even been in the running (I can’t believe he rode the bench all the way to a ring with the Yankees…) but he never had a chance.
It’s a fine system, I wouldn’t change it. Damn near every player who comes to the majors has been playing pro ball for at least 3 years. Granted, there is a huge jump between AAA and MLB, which is why so many players can’t make the adjustment. Japanese ball could be an even bigger adjustment. Rex Hudler, late of probably a dozen teams, speaks of his years in Japan glowingly. He also says that it’s tough baseball, and different enough from the USA to cause many players problems.
Ichiro was able to make the adjustment almost effortlessly, and he deserves a hell of a lot of credit for that.
Are you sure you mean Chad Curtis? He was never a late season callup. His first appearance in the major leagues was in 1992, and he played the whole year and was California’s regular center fielder; he hit .259 with 10 homers. He got no Rookie of the Year support; the winner was Pat Listach, followed by Kenny Lofton, Dave Fleming, and Cal Eldred.
Perhaps you meant Darin Erstad; he matches your description perfectly.
I think his arm is very strong. I watched games specifically to see if a runner on first would go to third on a base hit to Ichiro.
The White Sox announcers were constantly saying “you can’t go to third on a base hit to Ichiro”. That’s rare. That’s not normal. That’s a strong, accurate arm.
Great Gazoo: You may be right. I haven’t been able to see too many M’s games since I moved to the East Coast. It’s just my impression that, while Suzuki’s arm may be above average, it’s not up to Guerrero or Mondesi-level. I could easily be wrong, though.
Ichiro has the best arm of any rightfielder in the game. The play that confirmed that was in mid April in a game vs. the A’s. Suzuki gunned a guy down at third on a throw from deep right field. The ball never hit the ground, it was just a seed right into the third basemen’s glove and the runner was out by three or four steps. From that point on, nobody ran on Suzuki. He has a better arm than Dye, Mondesi or Guererro.