Few Americans knew what to expect from Ichiro Suzuki when he first arrived in the United States in 2001. He was an otherworldly hitter in Japan, tearing up the NPB with a triple slash of .353/.421/.522 over nine seasons and winning the championship. Won the batting title for seven consecutive years and Pacific League MVP three times. He was truly a Lucian celebrity in his home country. However, people like Hideo Nomo (and long agoMasanori Murakami) paved the way for Japanese pitchers to play in the major leagues, but no average player had yet crossed that path.
So despite his impressive resume, the Mariners weren't exactly in love with Ichiro at the time of his debut in spring training. Manager Lou Piniella and the coaching staff wanted to see if he could “turn the ball on.” As Jake Kling-Schreifels said, ringer In 2021, the 27-year-old released a statement saying:
Later that day, in a 7-4 loss to the Athletics, Ichiro accepted his coach's hint. After hitting two doubles into the left-field seats, he stepped up to bat in the seventh inning, placed his right arm perpendicular to the ground, stared at the diamond, and punched a low fastball with both hands, hitting a home run over the right field into the bullpen. field wall. “He went back to the dugout and as he was getting ready to go down the stairs to take off his helmet, he said, 'Is that a turn-on ball, Lou?' [bench coach John] McLaren says. “He's interesting in that sense.”
Ichiro is off to a surprisingly strong start to his MLB career, winning the American League Rookie of the Year and the Mariners MVP with a league-record tying 116 wins, and he's likely more than in shape. He led the majors in stolen bases and hits, batting .350 and winning the first of two batting titles. amazing In his first month as a defensive back, he won his 10th consecutive Gold Glove Award (tied for 10 consecutive All-Star selections and a 200-hit season).
When the dust settles and the icon takes off his hat to his fans for the last time in 2019, Ichiro has 3,089 hits, or 4,367 hits when combined with NPB numbers, surpassing even Pete Rose. He recorded 262 knocks in the 2004 season alone, breaking Hall of Famer George Sisler's 84-year-old record.
As the hits continued throughout the 2000s, it soon became clear that Ichiro was destined to become the first Japanese player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
That day is today. Tuesday night, Hall of Fame announced the results About their recent elections. The Baseball Writers Association of America voted Ichiro, standout southpaw CC Sabathia and fiery closer Billy Wagner into the Hall of Fame. The trio received 75% of the votes needed to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, with Ichiro one vote short of the unanimous 99.7%, Sabathia with 86.6% and Wagner with 82.5%.
Sabathia will be Ichiro's first-ballot Hall of Famer. The 2007 AL Cy Young Award winner marched into Cooperstown because he was one of modern baseball's last true mainstays. During his 19-year career, he started 560 games, pitched 3,577.1 innings, and had 3,093 strikeouts, which ranks third among left-handed pitchers in MLB history behind Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton. It is a record. He burst onto the scene in 2001 as Rookie of the Year behind Ichiro and established himself as Cleveland's ace, before helping Milwaukee end a 26-year playoff drought and winning the championship in 2008. I accomplished it. He gave the ball short breaks multiple times in September. brewer I got a wild card.
The Yankees acquired Sabathia as part of a big spending spree during the 2008-09 season, and he joined fellow rookies Mark Teixeira, AJ Barnett, and Nick Swisher to win ALCS MVP honors and join Derek Jeter's “Core Four” in 2009. He contributed to the final victory. Sabathia has been named to six All-Star teams. Strive on and off the field This led to his demotion midway through his career. CC recovered, reinvented himself as a pitcher, and eventually became a capable member of the rotation again in time for the rise of Aaron Judge in the Bronx in the late 2010s. Don't be fooled by his career 3.74 ERA. He pitched in a high-offense environment, and his mark was 16 percent better than league average in ERA+. Add in his strikeout numbers, durability, and friendly personality, and you have a clear Hall of Famer.
Ichiro and Sabathia were elected on the first ballot, but Wagner had to wait until his 10th and final year to be eligible to join Cooperstown's elite roster. He debuted on a crowded ballot at the time 2016which has already produced 12 Hall of Famers. BBWAA members are limited to a maximum of 10 voting spots, and the former closer easily got lost in the voting. In fact, it took until our fourth year of voting to get 12% of the vote. However, since then, Wagner has gradually moved up the ranks, missing out on being inducted into the Hall of Fame by just five votes in 2024, and was elected this time.
The Hall of Fame relief pitcher will definitely raise some eyebrows. Only a handful of closers have earned the Cooperstown Medal of Honor, and Wagner had less than 1,000 career innings. If some fans think that's not enough, that's a fine position.
That being said, Wagner was no ordinary closer. Despite his somewhat diminutive frame, he was a true fireballer and strikeout artist who roused batters to speeds well above league average. Wagner's K/9 is actually weighted by era 2nd place Nolan Ryan is the only player in post-merger MLB history. They pitched in completely different roles, but that was the extent of Wagner's dominance at the end of the ballgame. astros, metsetc. fangraphs Jay Jaffe There's more:
At the 900 innings level, Wagner's opponent batting average of .187 is the lowest ever, 17 points better than the next 20th or 21st century pitcher, Nolan Ryan, but lower the bar to 800 innings and Kimbrel (.169) becomes. ) and Janssen (.183) sneaked past him. Again applying the 900 innings cutoff, Rivera is the only pitcher since 1920 to have a lower ERA (2.21) or higher ERA+ (205) than Wagner's 2.31 and 187. His 2.73 FIP is the third-lowest runner-up in that span. [Jacob] deGrom (2.59) and Sandy Koufax (2.69). Meanwhile, his 0.998 WHIP is the third-lowest of all-time behind dead-ball era hurlers Addi Joss (0.968) and deGrom (0.994).
Wagner made 422 total saves, and to his credit, he walked away from the game with an excellent record. He made his seventh and final All-Star team with Atlanta in 2010, posting a modest 1.43 ERA and 0.865 WHIP while recording 104 strikeouts and 37 saves in 69.1 innings. Nevertheless, he chose to retire at age 38, leaving room for traditional statistics to be on the table.
In addition to Ichiro, Sabathia and Wagner, Dick Allen and Dave Parker will also be part of the 2025 Hall of Fame class. The two '70s sluggers were voted on by the Classic Baseball Era Committee in December. Although Allen passed away in 2020, his family will attend the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in July along with the other four inductees. Guardians announcer Tom Hamilton and his retirement washington post Scribe Thomas Boswell will be awarded the Ford C. Frick Award and the BBWAA Career Excellence Award.
The “wait until next year” crowd will be highlighted by Carlos Beltran surpassing Ryan Thibodeau's 75 percent standard. Public vote tracking tool Before including the public vote total. He finished with 70.3 percent. Andrew Jones was not far behind at 66.2%, and Chase Utley was at 39.8%, a significant increase from last year's first-time voter turnout of 28.8%. Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez remain in sub-40 percent purgatory as their stellar careers were marred by PED suspensions.
First-year candidates Felix Hernandez and Dustin Pedroia, along with Beltran, Jones, Utley, A-Rod, Ramirez, Bobby Abreu, Omar Vizquel, Jimmy Rollins, Andy Pettitte, Mark Buhl and Francisco , received the 5 percent needed to remain on next year's ballot. Rodriguez, Torii Hunter, David Wright. Catchers Russell Martin and Brian McCann are among the players earning less than 5% and will not be included on the 2026 ballot.
Complete vote totals can be found below. Congratulations to all the new Hall of Fame inductees!
