Quote:
Originally Posted by D. Bergin
Mariners were horrible that year to. Bunch of guys on that team who used to be good. If he had a better lineup behind him, he might have gotten more at bats and maybe 10-15 more hits that year then he already compiled, and probably more MVP votes.
Never helped him that he didn't exactly pile up the extra base hits or walks. Reason why I always ranked Boggs and Gwynn well ahead of him, offensively at least. Ichiro was probably superior defensively for the first half of his career anyways, even though Boggs was always better defensively, then he got credit for.
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I know Dave, but he broke an all-time record and the best he could get was 7th for the MVP!?!?!? How often does someone break an all-time record like that? Just goes to show how everyone was so enamored with the PED users and the long ball back then.
And as for Boggs and Gwynn being better offensively, how often did either of them bat leadoff? Wasn't that where Ichiro usually was in the order back then? As you mentioned, the Mariners were not very great then so he's not getting up a lot with people on base and chances to drive in runs. He's just trying to get on base, which he succeeded in doing a lot. As for walks, since he wasn't such a huge home run threat, and the rest of the team not that great as you say, I can see opposing pitchers pitching to him so he has to put the ball in play to get on, rather than letting him just walk a lot. Even so, he still lead the AL in intentional walks that year, but of course Bonds lead the majors with some ridiculously higher number.