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Originally Posted by Grandstander
Would anyone argue that if Ichiro had begun his career in MLB rather than in Japan, his numbers would have been mediocre or poor, and then suddenly at age 28 he would have turned into Ichiro!, the .330 hitter he has been while in MLB?
I think that as with the case of Jackie Robinson, you take circumstances into account and back end the stats for him. I think that had Ichiro begun over here, he would be a cinch for 3000 hits and 500 stolen bases, numbers which would get him into the HoF with or without the fact that he was a pioneer.
There is precedent for voters considering circumstances, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax and Kirby Puckett all were inducted because the voters chose to fill in those missing numbers. In the case of Albert Belle, they have elected not to do so. Does Ichiro belong with that first group or with Albert?
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I think one of the interesting things with Ichiro is that we actually do have a reliable record of his playing performance prior to coming over to MLB. There's speculation, of course, in terms of imperfect translations of how Japanese competition compares with MLB competition, but in his case his first full season in Japan was very similar to his last full season - there's year-to-year fluctuation, but it's pretty much a straight line in terms of his playing level from age 20 to 26 in Japan. Then, starting immediately he's played at a consistent level since coming to MLB - again, year-to-year fluctuation, but more or less a straight line in playing level. Based on that, there's really only two plausible possibilities:
1. He was a consistent player from age 20 to 26, then took a dramatic leap forward before his age 27 season, or
2. He's been playing at a more or less consistent level since age 20.
With contact hitting typically being one of the first skills to peak, the second seems far more likely. If this is true, it's really not even a particularly strong speculation to suggest that, had he started his career in MLB from the time he was ready to be an everyday player, he'd have a realistic shot at Rose's hits record.