That’s a great observation. Ichiro is either the greatest player in the entire league, whose greatness is overlooked by the plebeian fanbase; or, Ichiro is a completely selfish player who gets hits only for his own personal glory, and never does anything to help his team win.

Ichiro is a terrific player. He’s not as good as people like Dave Cameron make him out to be. There are flaws in his game. (When a batter swings at a 3-1 outside the strike zone and pops-out to third, that’s not a good baseball move, even if Ichiro is the batter.) That said, Ichiro is good enough at what he does at the plate, and contributes both on the bases and in the field to the point where he is definitely an asset, and not a detriment, to his team.

Joe R: That is a pretty horrible comparison. If JD Drew could play a full season every year, as much as we may hate him, I think there would be some serious HOF buzz also. Drew’s problem has not been the quality of his production but the quantity. And the fact that he has a bit of a habit of doing bait and switch on his employers/fanbases. And that he plays best only during contract years. But I assure you, if JD Drew played on year-to-year contracts and stayed healthy- he would be a HOF lock. (Note: This will not happen)

But back to the point, comparing Ichiro to Sisler or a healthy JD Drew is exactly why he will be a HOF lock with a couple more years of production. Likewise, Sisler may be overrated- but at this point I don’t think anyone is going to be putting Ichiro in the top 35 players ever, are we?

On the other hand, in some respects while Ichiro may get too much respect as a hitter (since he does not have extra high power, nor a guady OBP)- he might also get too little. Ichiro has definitely shown that he can get hits reliably off of great pitching. If you want to think about building a championship-ready squad, those are the kind of guys you want. Don’t get me wrong. Walks and extra base hits are great, they’re awesome. But if you’re facing Maddux in his prime, you’re not going to get a walk. If you can have a guy like Ichiro though, who is a lock to get at least one hit in basically every game- regardless of pitcher, and somebody to knock him in though, that could keep you in the game.

So basically, I think that using mean performance for batting is dumb. There, I said it. Median performance is probably a better indicator of across the board talent. And better yet, a system of pitcher-adjusted WAR would be useful. But I digress…

The moral of the story is that while the argument can be made that he’s overrated, I think an equally solid argument exists that he could even be underrated. But somebody with datasets handy would have to check that out..

Given the lack of UZR data for Lofton, can we truly compare their overall value in a fair way? Note that I’m just interested in the theory behind this, not in actually knowing whether Ichiro was “better” or “worse” than Lofton.

Ichiro was more valuable overall? I think so. I don’t think the defense is a mirage. (I also admire the guys who do it pretty consistently year after year – though I know “peak” is ascendant in SABR HOF circles these days)

Do you give Ichiro some props for the fact that he didn’t have the option to play in MLB until he was 27? I do, partially because I don’t think his skillset needed until age 27 to peak. I bet he played his best season at age 23 or 24 when he (and the Major League owners) didn’t have the option to let him test his mettle against the best competition available.

That’s why I feel he should be in the hall. He’ll get 3,000 hits and probably go in in his first year, even though he wasn’t as good as Raines or Larkin or probably Trammell or Whitaker or Santo or Grich.

Life isn’t fair.

And a parting shot, just to express my lack of respect for you, yourself: that Lofton was something in the field, wasn’t he?