Ichiro one vote shy of unanimous...and he wasn't even as good as Bobby Abreu..
1948_Swell_Robinson
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Abreu had a lifetime .870 OPS and Ichiro never had a single season as good as Abreu's career average OPS!
First, lets get this out of the way..."Oh, but Ichiro missed years from playing in Japan." If you are going to count that, then you have to count Abreu's 3,143 lifetime PROFESSIONAL plate appearances in the United States before he played in MLB. Fair is fair.
Lets get to the upper cut knockout right off the bat. Run Expectancy. Includes all their offensive contributions(iincluding baserunning), and yes hit totals. It includes hit totals. Again, it includes hit totals. It just gives every other offensive event their just due as well.
Abreu 570 runs above average
Ichiro 146 runs above average.
Abreu 10,081 plate appearances
Ichiro 10,734 plate appearances
There is no universe where each of their outfield defense(of which the played same position) makes up that vast difference. Zero.
Oh, but Ichiro played in Japan and missed those years.
Ichiro averaged 22.4 Run Expectancy his first three years in MLB. So even if you give him that production for six years in Japan that is 134 more runs.
134 + 146 = 280.
280 is not 570.
Then don't forget to add Abreu's prior professional experience to his totals. Abreu had a ..293/.375/.452 slash line in the Minor Leagues...well above league average. So there is that. Add that to his 570. Fair is fair.
If you are still stuck on hit totals and want to ignore the more accurate measurement, ok great. We will ignore that and look at the old school measurements per your wish...
Runs Scored
Abreu 1,453
Ichiro 1,420
RBI
Abreu 1,363
Ichiro 780
Yes, Abreu trounced him...and Abreu did it in one less full season worth of plate appearances. One season less. Yes. A full season less worth of times stepping up to the plate. And he still beat him.
Oh, but, but the lineups. Introducing that is not old school...recognizing that factor starts your path toward Run Expectancy....
Abreu 570
Ichiro 146
Comments
I think he will get in via committee. This year was rough for him. Outside shot at the ballot I guess.
Maybe, but crazy to see an inferior player be one vote shy from unanimous...and on top of that to have people moan that he wasn't unanimous, lol.
The monumental difference between their Run Expectancy is too vast to chip away at Abreu's lead over Ichiro.
A quick look to one component of that is included in Run Expectancy is the players hitting with men on base and helps shed a little light on Abreu's vast lead.
Here are their hitting splits with men on base for their career:
Abreu .315/.423/.510
Ichiro .311/.395/.395
To add more context to that, keep in mind that Ichiro had 713 career infield singles to Abreu's 239. Infield singles have less run producing value than outfield singles.
The most ironic thing is that Ichiro's entire offensive value is mostly from being viewed as some great table setter yet Abreu got on base safely much more often than Ichiro did. That component is already measured in the run expectancy as well.
Those advanced measurements are in line with the most basic old school results and the leads mirror each other:
Runs Scored
Abreu 1,453
Ichiro 1,420
RBI
Abreu 1,363
Ichiro 780
Abreu is definitely underrated. I think Ichiro was fun to watch, had that great arm, was fast and harkened back to a day when batters held AVE. in higher esteem than OBP. He seems more like a player from the 70s-80s. He also had ZERO power. at all. and he made a ton of outs.
If I was a GM, I would take Abreu the player.
If I were an owner, I would take Ichiro. I am sure he brought far more revenue into the team coffers.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
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I wouldn't call Ichiro "inferior". However, I too laugh at the people who think he should have been a unanimous selection, I think he should have gotten in, but not with an almost unanimous vote.
Offensively overrated, yes, like a lot of singles hitters, most of which I don't care for.
Ichiro was a great defensive player with a tremendous arm. Abreau was not.
Ichiro played extremely well his first 10 years. He averaged over 100 runs scored, over 35 bases stolen and over .300 batting average and won the GG every year, up to the age 36.
His power numbers were poor.
Abreau had a fantastic 7 year run from 1998-2004! 100+ runs scored, 40 doubles 24 HR, .525 SLG, 100 RBI, 30 SB. MUCH better hitter.
In the end, Abreau better hitter, but a sub par fielder. Ichiro, good hitter with below average power, but superior defensive player. Would have been nice to see what he could have done if he got here earlier, but he didn't.
I wouldn't be too bothered either way about Abreau getting in. He's borderline to me, but if he gets in, I'm not going to complain.
I don't actually know if I think Ichiro should have been unanimous or if I thought he was going to be unanimous. I read a story about how Ted Williams counseled Tony Gwynn on his swing to add more power and in his late 30s he had great results with it. I think the story went on to discuss Ichiro and how it had been suggested that he, with a similar stature to Gwynn, could have unlocked more pop/power by changing his swing a bit. The run he had in MLB for those first 9-10 seasons, starting with RoY and MVP was pretty damn impressive whether it was mostly singles or not.
I don't disagree with the assessment on Abreu or think the comparison is incorrectly rationalized. Abreu is getting screwed by the current situation. Guys like ARod and Ramirez are going to hog up these ballots even though they're unlikely to get anywhere via the ballot. There are still lots of wrongs to right. It would be easy to find 25 position players in the HoF who pale in comparison to Abreu.
I never really cared for Ichiro's style of hitting, a running start out of the box and slapping at the ball. Surely he was a prolific singles hitter but to that end he was very one dimensional as an offensive player. As the OP stated, his defense didn't really make up for what he lacked at the plate.
Maybe a better hitter to compare Ichiro to would be Rod Carew.
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It would be easy to find 25 position players in the HoF who pale in comparison to Abreu.
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Don't be too sure about "pale in comparison".
Not going to spend a whole lot of time, but in just looking at OPS+, he's tied with Jim Rice and (surprisingly) Kent Hrbek (among others).
I guess I should be pushing for Hrbek to get in. He was a SUPERB fielder!
Abreau is above a few HOFers, but most of them were great fielders or catchers.
Abreau seems really borderline. Seven great years and poor fielder?
Perhaps it's a bit hyperbolic, but there are around 60 position players (maybe more) in the HoF with less than 60 WAR.
Lazzeri, Klein, Fox, Cuyler, Hopper, Evers, Kiner, Chance, Rice (Sam), Kelley, Bancroft... These are the border guys maybe.
Guys like Utley, Jones, Abreu... all out-class them. I'm also not trying to say WAR is the only thing to look at. I really don't have any problem with the HoF.
Carew was superior by a good margin. Ichiro is far from Carew.
Bret Butler and Ichiro are the guys who live on the same street in the same neighborhood.
Carew's lifetime Run Expectancy is 520 runs above average
Carew's slash line is .328/.393/.429....131 OPS+
Ichiro slash line is .311/.355/.402...107 OPS+. Run Expectancy 146 runs above average.
B. Butler slash line is .290/.377/.376...110 OPS+. Run Expectancy 187 runs above average.
WAR is a bad, probably the WORST stat to use if you use only one number.
Chuck Klein and Ralph Kiner were better than their WAR indicates. Kiner led the league in HR 7 straight years! A back injury shortened his career.
WAR isn't actually a bad statistic, any more than say... guns are dangerous. It's misunderstood, misused, and, quite coarse at the extremes. I think it's a great tool to focus your review when considering a player's career and how they stack up across the eras in baseball. I wouldn't every say... So and so had 50WAR and this other guy had 60WAR so the guy with 60WAR is obviously better. It's not obvious... it might be likely, and that's good enough.
If we're going to talk about Kiner at his peak that's one conversation, but as his career was pretty short because of injury I think he does sit on the edge of HoF consideration. It's difficult to partition a discussion between how I would approach who's in the hall and what I think is right and meritorious vs. how things have played out and how they seem to work in reality.
I also have no issue being wrong in the eyes of many here. I might have a different approach. It's all good.
Chuck Klein is possibly the most overrated player in history. There are high schools with bigger parks and farther fences than the Baker Bowl, and Klein (and all of his teammates, and every player in the league when they played there) feasted on it. Klein hit 300 HR and batted .320 in his career. But he hit 190 of those HR at home (110 on the road) and batted .353 at home (.286 on the road). Klein won the Triple Crown in 1933 with 28/120/.368. Double his road numbers and his line was 16/80/.280.
Most similar players to Chuck Klein include Harold Baines, Johnny Callison, and Ray Lankford.
Ichiro making the HOF doesn't bother me that much, although the near-unanimous vote was just silly. As a player, of course, Ichiro wasn't close to being a Hall of Famer, but he was a groundbreaking player. Had Jackie Robinson been a mediocrity like Ichiro, he would still belong in the HOF. I think there's an element of that in the Ichiro vote.
Never really got the Ichiro hype other than his marketing ability in Japan. He never had any power, and the second his speed declined he spent almost a decade being a state accumulator.
Him being in whatever, but if hes in then Andrew Jones needs to be in as well
The thing that I dislike the most is the lack of consistency in the voting.
Wisconsin 2-6 against the SEC since 2007
How about this for a couple of leadoff slap hitting outfielders:
In addition to Butler's lead over Ichiro in Run Expectancey(Butler 187 to Ichiro 146):
Ichiro .757 OPS....107 OPS+
Bret Butler .753 OPS.....110 OPS+
Ichiro Runs scored 1,420
Butler Runs scored 1,359
It took Ichiro 1,189 more plate appearances than Butler to score just 61 more runs.
Bret Butler played over 16,000 innings in CF.
Like Ichiro, Butler didn't get a real chance in MLB at a young Age. Butler hit .338/.461/.452 in his minor league career spanning 1,668 plate appearances, including a lifetime .342 BA in AAA ball. Butler also played in college before Minor League baseball.
Ichiro was one vote from unanaimous and Butler got a grand total of TWO votes in his first year of eligibility and then was off the ballot. Two votes.
A few things which stand out to me.
Accolades, meaningful or not, are tilted in Ichiro's favor. The consistency in those first 10 years were unmatched. Cobb didn't do it, Rose couldn't get to 4 in a row.
I think that's why he should have been unanimous.
Those seasons were eclipsed by many many players. It is simply high singles totals and Ichiro had a lot of plate appearances to do that.
None of those seasons are special. Unique maybe, but not special or great.
In the end, Ichiro was about as good as Bret Butler.
@bgr Another outfielder superior to Ichiro is Kenny Lofton. Lofton didn't start to play full time in MLB until age 25. He started his career playing College Basketball. If we are giving credit to Ichiro for getting a late start, then Lofton gets even more credit since he missed out on honing his skills by playing basketball and getting a late start in MLB
In the end, Lofton scored 1,528 runs in 9,235 career plate appearances.
For ALL those infield singles Ichiro was accumulating at record pace it amounted to 1,420 runs scored in 10,734 PA.
So it took Ichiro 1,500 more plate appearances to scored 108 LESS runs than Lofton.
Ichiro was great at accumulating empty singles(while leading the league in at bats almost every year), but that doesn't equate to being better than other hitters who were responsible for creating more runs(despite them having less singles totals).
You are giving too much value to his singles totals, ignoring the values of a base on balls, and ignoring the values of HR, 3B, 2B, and making outs.
I'm an Ichrio and high-average hitter enthusiast.
For him to have SEVEN full seasons in Japan and accumulate 4,367 hits between Japan and MLB is amazing to me.
Butler & Abreu are great players and deserve more HOF votes. The Butler comparison is a better one. Kenny Lofton is another slap-hitting OF that deserves more HOF attention.
Erik
I think these players need more attention, especially Lofton. I dont think Butler deserves HOF but it is silly that Ichirio is near unanimous and Butler got two votes. If giving Ichiro Japan credit then you have to give Butler US pro credit too.
Ichiro could have tried for MLB at age 18. Nobody would have taken him. His MLB path would have been similar to someone like Butler and Ichiro would have most likely had to wait until age 25 to be a full time player in the US. So to just give him all those hits in Japan as if that is the same as starting and playing in the US is not accurate.
I disagree.
LOL...nice attempt.
The king of Empty singles is one vote shy of unanimous while superior players don't even get elected.
Dwight Evans is another player at the same position that is also superior to Ichiro. Evans may not have led his league in empty singles, but he did rank much higher in run contribution than Ichiro did. The defense between the two is a toss up.
Ichiro, Tony Phillips, and Bret Butler...are like triplets. One may have a mole where another might not, but they are all about as good of baseball players as each other. Triplets.
We’ll. I disagree. I’m not trying to argue anything else. You’re mostly talking past me. Your perspective is fine.
Is there a total bases stat?
Yes its in his slugging percentage and OPS
I was wanting to know if there is just a total bases stat listed so I wouldn't have to figure it out for myself, that OPS and slugging just gives a percentage.
Never mind, I found it.
For his career Ichiro slugged .402. A league average hitter during all of his years slugged .412. Given the same amount of at bats a league average hitter would have more total bases than Ichiro.
It seems from a quick look that a high percentage of his bases were from singles which means he had to play a long time and get a lot of them to raise his OBP. Short of having watched all his games it'd be hard to know how many of those singles really benefitted his team.
Singles are singles.
To put Ichiro's totals into perspective, look at the season he set the all time hits record. That year Ichiro had 320 total bases which is certainly above average.
Jim Edmonds also had 320 Total Bases that year. On the surface they look the same via Total Bases. But when you consider that Ichiro had 206 more at bats than Edmonds to achieve the same amount of Total Bases, it really shines the light on how those totals are very misleading.
Jim Edmonds with 393 Career home runs and a lifetime 132 OPS+ is another guy that simply gets overlooked. Edmonds played over 14,000 innings in center field. The faulty defensive measures cut him down for some reason.
Emonds lost time due to injuries so his OPS+ at 132 does not hold the same value as others with similar OPS+ in much more at bats, but dang that just makes Edmonds 393 HR be even more impressive considering it only took him 6,800 at bats to do it in.
hide the women and children, i'm about to attempt a salient baseball post.
my all-time fav baseball player: Vlad the Impaler, for more reasons than i care to get into at the moment. famer? i thought so, absolutely. but i'm of the notion that if he's in, Abreu should be in as well. i've told that to a few people over the years and i was scoffed at. and i think that's because in part those two are absolute polar opposites when it comes to Cooperstown vibes. when you watched Guerrero play, it felt like you were watching a HoF career. did anyone ever elicit that type of feeling from Abreu? i watched the guy play a lot and i never sensed it.
then you tack on all of the accolades, which are definitely shifted in Vlad's favor: MVP, 3 top-3 MVP finishes, 9X all-star, 8X silver slugger to 2X all-star, 1 gold glove, 1 silver slugger
but when you start performing a deep dive into the stats, the disparity shrinks:
Bobby Abreu: 59.8 fWAR, 129 career WRC+/ 60.2 bWAR, 41.6 7 year peak bWAR, 128 career ops+
Vlad Guerrero: 54.5 fWAR, 136 career WRC+/ 59.5 bWAR, 41.2 7 year peak bWAR, 140 career ops+
comparable. certainly not a one-guy-goes-in-year-2-and-the-other-guy-never-gets-in-at-all type of gap.
i just think that presence & hardware paints an extremely nebulous picture when it comes to the baseball hall
if that made no sense i blame Luka to the Lakers. there's still a clean up on aisle 4 taking place
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
Brian Giles.
Ichiro got more at bats than everyone by the simple virtue that he lead off almost every at bat. Brian Giles should have lead off his entire career and accumulated more totals just by virtue of batting more times by hitting leadoff.
Giles has a lifetime slash line of .291/.400/.502. He is a contemporary of Ichiro and same positions. Giles had the misfortune of breaking into MLB on a stacked cleveland team so he couldn't break in. As a result, he too got a late start and limited early at bats.
Ichiro gets extra credit for a late start from everyone while Giles gets penalized.
Giles should have started his career in Japan like Ichiro and Giles with a couple Japan triple crowns(or 50 HR seasons like Tuffy Rhodes), would then came to MLB at age 27 and Giles would be an easy HOFer.
Nearly all of Vlad's value comes from his bat and as such it is the most visible aspect and also the most valid.
Vlad retired pretty young compared to most superstars. That hurts some of his totals, but in their primes I think Vlad opened more eyes and his top hitting years were better than Abreu's top(Vlad had six years with a 150+ OPS+. Abreu had one), so I would imagine that is what you rightfully remember.
What do you think of the Luka trade? I was puzzled when I heard it. I don't follow the NBA as much as I used too but Luka is young and good. NBA superstars are hard to get. Unless he eats himself out of the elite the Lakers must be happy today.
per what i said in the NBA thread, i can't make sense of it. i don't think anyone can. move a generational offensive talent not yet in his prime and you should -- at the very least -- have draft capital coming out of your ears. yet the Mavs turned him into a stud, yet often hurt, big man who is 6 years older, a throw-in rotational player, and a 2029 1st rounder than will probably be severely diluted by the time it rolls around
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
It's a little misleading to use runs to compare Lofton & Ichiro. Lofton compiled a big portion of his runs in the 90s with a roster full of roid guys hitting behind him. Ichiro played at Safeco with not the same level of hitters behind him.
And Butler? Butler never reached the peaks that Ichiro did. And he got caught stealing roughly a billion times - nearly a third of his attempts, which is just incredible.
I'm an Ichiro fan and was happy when he was elected to the Hall of Fame.
That said, I think dallasactuary said it best when he said the below the below in November 2017:
= = = = = = = = = =
I don't really disagree with this, except for the word "accomplishments". He has 3,000 hits; he's from Japan; he's led his league in stuff a bunch of times and he has an MVP. As a result, he's extraordinarily famous and is an absolute lock for the HOF. What bothers me is when people don't make this argument, but instead argue that he deserves to be in the HOF because he was a great player.
He got 3,000 hits by hanging around as a putrid player for the better part of a decade.
Being from Japan is not an accomplishment, it's just interesting to people.
He led the league in stuff mostly because he was on a great team in a hitter's park and got to come to the plate 5 times a game.
He didn't deserve the MVP he won.
What Ichiro has accomplished - what he has earned through his own talent - is plenty. He was a very good player for a decade or so, and was even great for a season or two. But what he accomplished wasn't close to the level that he "deserves" to be in the HOF; he'll get there for being famous, not for being great.
= = = = = = = = = =
...extraordinarily famous indeed.
That was my thought as well. The one thing I wasn't sure on is if he will be unrestricted free agent for LA...or does LA hold any power over him.
I'm well aware of that in regard to runs...hence why I said in regard to Abreu, "Oh, but, but the lineups. Introducing that is not old school...recognizing that factor starts your path toward Run Expectancy....
Abreu 570
Ichiro 146"
If you recognize those factors such as era or lineups then all you need to know offensively is their OPS+ and Run Expectancy. Like it or not, Butler is in the same neighborhood as Ichiro. His peak may be lower, but in the end, they still reside on the same block...and both had late starts. Same for Lofton.
If you ignore or disregard the better measurements, then why stop there and just use old school runs scored
....either way, the conclusions come out the same.
@Tabe Butler and Ichiro's top OPS+ years...
Butler....Ichiro
133.....130
130.....129
130......126
123......122
121......120
120.......113
114.......113
Like I said, if you use old school runs then Butler edges Ichiro. If you used advanced measurements then Butler still edges Ichiro.
I underestimated Butler's peak.
Ichiro is in the Hall partly as a pioneer, but most fans view him as some sort of all time great hitter due to his hit totals...and he isn't as great as they say. He is on par with Bret Butler hitting wise.
Run Expectancy accounts for baserunning Tabe....Butler 187 to Ichiro 146 for their careers.
@Tabe
Butler scored almost all of his runs from 1982-1992 on some bad teams and in pre roid era. In the end, he and Ichro are neck and neck.
Ichiro played a few prime seasons in steroid era.
@Tabe said: Lofton compiled a big portion of his runs in the 90s with a roster full of roid guys hitting behind him
And just who were all those "roid" guys you mentioned?? as a lifetime Cleveland Indians fan I'm not aware of any players from the mid-1990's who were ever found to have used steroids during that time. Maybe I missed something you can point out to me. The roster was just stacked, at times during the 1995/1996 seasons they boasted a starting line-up that was batting over .300.
On most nights, Mike Hargrove’s starting lineup looked something like this.
Kenny Lofton (.815 OPS, 109 wRC+)
Omar Vizquel (.684 OPS, 80 wRC+)
Carlos Baerga (.807 OPS, 107 wRC+)
Albert Belle (1.091 OPS, 173 wRC+)
Eddie Murray (.891 OPS, 128 wRC+)
Jim Thome (.996 OPS, 158 wRC+)
Manny Ramirez (.960 OPS, 145 wRC+)
Paul Sorrento (.847 OPS, 112 wRC+)
Tony Peña/Sandy Alomar (.679, 74/.810 OPS, 108 wRC+)
@Tabe why wouldn't Lofton score more runs than Ichiro on a neutral team anyway? Lofton had a lifetime .377 OB% to Ichiro's .355. Lofton had more steals and ran the bases better. Given the same hitters behind them, what would warrant you to suggest that Ichiro would score as many runs as Lofton?
Ichiro took the extra base on the bases 40.7% of the time compared to league average of 40.1
Lofton took the extra base on the bases 55.2% of the time compared to league average of 41.8
Lofton also had more doubles and more triples and more home runs than Ichiro and in less at bats to get himself into scoring position more often and quicker.
Lofton had 382 doubles in 8,120 at bats
Ichiro had 362 doubles in 9,934 at bats
Lofton had 116 triples in 8,120 at bats
Ichiro had 96 triples in 9,934 at bats
Lofton had 130 home runs in 8,120 at bats
Ichiro had 117 home runs in 9.934 at bats.
It is amazing how people call Ichiro one of the greatest hitters ever, yet Lofton did it better.
Aren't those advantages Lofton has over Ichiro easy to see above? Isn't that crystal clear?
Run Expectancy is saying the same thing:
Run Expectancy for Lofton is 215 runs above league average
Run Expectancy for Ichiro is 147 runs above league average
So it took Ichiro 1,500 MORE plate apperances than Lofton to still be behind 68 runs, and Ichiro is supposed to a unanimous selction or inaccurately viewed as an all time great hitter as many tend to say?
Or it took Ichiro 1,500 MORE plate appearances to score 108 LESS 'real' runs than Lofton. Yes, that statement still holds true as everything else agrees with it too.
Lofton was better.
To compare those two more equally you also need to consider that Lofton did better than Ichiro as mentioned above in two less seasons. If you were to take away two average seasons for Ichiro the difference would be even more stark.
I think he got in because everyone was mesmerized by his fielding and prolific singles numbers. Compared to other players he just isn't dominant at all.
The thing that always surprised me about Ichiro is that he didn’t even hit many doubles. Most players with a high batting avg. but not a ton of power like Pete Rose, Wade Boggs, Derek Jeter hit a lot of singles and doubles. Not Ichiro, his doubles total was actually pretty anemic for as many hits as he got.
I think he got in because he set mark for hits in a season. While the outcome of total bases may be more important to the core aspect of baseball -- winning, that is a significant record. But Maris wasn't elected just because he hit 61 HRs either so that might not be enough.
So he rattled off another 9 consecutive seasons after that. This isn't something that's never been done in MLB history. This is something which has never been approached. No one has seen around the corner to this record. This isn't some contrived milestone either that no one has been interested in - like wearing the highest socks for the most games in a row (I see you t-plush!)... this is a record players, fans, and front-offices have placed special significance on and players have chased. If it's so meaningless, easy, or otherwise unimportant, why hasn't this been done frequently?
I think you guys have shown that you can successfully distract from the point with really good arguments, but raise your hand if you didn't think Ichiro was going to be a first-ballot inductee. Outside of this career distinction it's pretty obvious that Ichiro, even with 3000+ hits in MLB, is a borderline HoF candidate. You can extrapolate based on his time in Japan, and you can talk about how he ushered in a generation of Japanese players, or point to the old (and only somewhat dismantled) 3000 hit threshold... there's lots of fair ways to argue it if you want to force him in. But what he did in MLB made it a lock as far as I'm concerned, and until the HoF voting starts to change I wouldn't predict anything else. If you disagree that Ichiro should be in, the most you'll get out of me is raised eyebrows.... because that's adorable.
Even if all that is true. Lofton was still better.
As I've said in the past, I don't care for "slap" hitters, but ichiro was a far superior ballplayer than Abreau.
Lofton is a little better comparison, but Kenny had 5 good FULL years where he played in almost every game. He missed a lot of games. About 300 in his first 10 seasons.
His first 12 seasons Ichiro missed 3 games a year and led the league in hits 7 times. You don't lead he league in hits because you have the most at bats, it's because you make the most out of those at bats AND you show up every day.
I think it's also safe to say that with winning the batting title, hits total and stolen base title in his rookie year at the age of 27, he would have probably been pretty good for a few(?) years before he got here.
Only 24 guys in MLB history have more hits than ichiro and only 2 have more hits in less at bats. That STILL means something to me.
I like Lofton a lot, but he didn't do it as long as Ichiro or as often, but he is a pretty good comparison.
Lofton's best OPS year was a short season 112 games. His second best year he played in 148 games, his next best 4 years he averaged 115 games a year. He's missing almost 30% of the games in 4 of his 6 best years!
Both slap hitters, Lofton with a little more power. Ichiro 2 batting titles and a MVP.
Lofton is underrated and really should be strongly considered for HoF.
Ichiro had NO BUSINESS getting as close to being unanimous as he was, but he certainly belongs.
I didn't mention Abreu.
Don't care about the late starts for Butler, Ichiro, or Lofton. And the fact is that Ichiro's peak was higher than the other two guys which DOES matter (see: Koufax, Sandy). Ichiro's top 2 WAR seasons were higher than either Lofton or Butler's best, for example. To be fair, that's because Lofton's best season was shortened by strike. His top almost certainly would have topped Ichiro's in that case. But his second best would still trail Ichiro's 2nd-best. Butler's top would be Ichiro's 3rd best and his 2nd would be Ichiro's 7th.
Yeah, Manny started using roids when he got to Boston, LOL.