Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Edgar and Ichiro: the Mariners' Swing Men

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

Jon Miller joins D.C. Lundberg to talk about the careers of both Edgar Martinez and Ichiro Suzuki. Both had very different careers, skill sets & paths to Major League Baseball; both were among the best hitters of their eras and both had nearly identical career batting averages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Oh, yes indeed. Thank you very much, J.M. I am D.C. Lundberg, your somewhat sleep-deprived host. It has been an interesting few days around here. Hopefully I can get back on track here shortly. Anyways, this is Locked-on Mariners, which is part of the Locked-on podcast network, or T-L-O-P-N-Lop-N-Lop-N. Please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to this program on Google Podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariners podcast or any of the other programs here on Tloppin. Follow the show on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-Sor-Mariners and follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg, L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G, if you are scoring at home.

I apologize for the delay on this episode. This was supposed to be Friday's episode. This is technically part of last week's package of shows. A little bit of a medical issue disallowed me from recording. I'm better now, except for the lack of sleep part. But anyways, we're finally going to wrap up the best moments from last season. The celebration of each hero's career at the beginning of this season at when he retired. And the celebration of Edgar's career when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in late July.

Here to talk about Ichero and Edgar is Locked-on Mariners contributor, John Miller. John, welcome back to the show. Thank you very much for having me, D.C. Always a pleasure to have you on. I appreciate your insights and your memories and your stories. When I was writing the scripts for last week's shows about Ichero and Edgar, each year on Wednesday,

and then Edgar on Thursday, what struck me is that while they are both great, great hitters, they're both Mariners' legends, they both had very different career paths to get to the major leagues. And then once they were there, they had very different careers, different skill sets,

and while they were both great hitters, their career batting averages are within one point of each other. Their swings were very, very different. And I'm wondering what sticks out in your mind as I say that. What sticks out in my mind is the fact that, and you'll find this for anybody who eventually makes the Hall of Fame, because as you said about Itiro, is not a first ballot hall of famer, your left shoe is being digested.

Yep. Absolutely. That they were very consistent. They had ups, they had downs. There were years that Edgar probably should have won the MVP. There was a year that each year old did win the MVP. Yep. But with the exception of those short years that tend to be at the beginning of a player's career,

and then towards the end of this, because each year's last two years are all of 17 games, you can't count those as two years. Correct. I toss those out. So it's basically a 17-year career. But with the exception of stuff like that, you will find in the middle of their careers when they're said to be at their prime

that they're consistent. There's the ups, the downs, but they always manage to come through. Absolutely. One similarity is that they both had their first full season in Major League Baseball at age 27. Edgar had played three partial seasons before that, kind of up and down between AAA and the major leagues. While Ichiro, of course, came over from Japan and jumped right into it.

His first season period was age 27 and won the MVP, won the rookie of the year. Fred Lynn's the only other player to do that. And Edgar's first full season, it was a very good season. 302, 11 home runs for, pardon me, 397 on base percentage, almost a 400 on base percentage. that's really the only similarity that I can see between the two of them. Both of their first seasons were very, very good and indicative of the things to come. You're exactly right. And some players, you'll see massive home run numbers or double numbers or something,

an aberration, if you will. I think of Adrian Beltray, who had his career year with the Los Angeles Dodgers hit 48, 49 home runs, and then never once reached those numbers again. get. Correct. But after he joined the Texas Rangers, he became a much better contact hitter than he ever was in Seattle or really in Los Angeles except that one year. Yeah, he really did. And what I noticed looking at and remembering the seasons and careers of both Edgar and Ichiro is they didn't really have too many of those. They didn't have a career year, if you will. They just, like, And I hate to keep bringing the same bell, but they were just consistent throughout.

I think that's a very good bell to ring, however. I mean, look at Edgar's two batting championship seasons. 1992, he hit 343, although the walk total was down. So for him, that's an aberration. But my goodness, a 343 batting average. His on-base president was still 404. He still led the league in doubles. His next batting championship was three years later, 1995.

but the two years in between were both injury riddled. Who knows what would have happened if he was healthy. Yeah, exactly. And going back to 1995, I think he, I don't know if he was the only player to play all 145 games that season. It was the strike shortened season, 144 games, plus the extra game against California to decide the division. He led the league and runs scored, 121 runs,

and he couldn't run at that point at all. No, and 52 doubles, that led the league. He also led the league in on-base percentage, 479. That is an insane number. OPS of 1.107, OPS plus of 185, which is also just tremendously out of this world. And he was third in MVP voting. I know Mo Von won.

I'm wondering he was second. Was it Albert Bell? It was Albert Bell. Yes. And looking at it, they both had, fantastic seasons. And the similarities between those three players, Movon was a first baseman.

Not a great one, but he certainly could hit. And by all accounts, Albert Bell would have won the MVP that season if he wasn't such a jerk. Let's face it. I think that's what held him back. Something interesting to note here, just for Mariners' trivia,

that fifth and sixth in the MVP voting that year were Jay Buhner and Randy Johnson respectively. Wow, I didn't get that far down the list. You're absolutely right. Jay Buehner placed fifth. My gosh, Jose Mesa placed fourth. So both the Cleveland Indians and the Seattle Mariners had two players in the top six. And John Valentin is number 10. So the Red Sox also had two within the top 10 because Valentin was nine.

Pardon me. Wow. I had no idea. I had no idea John Valentin ever placed that high in the MVP voting. I like John Valentine. We're not here to talk about John Valentin, though. Back to Ichiro and Edgar. They also had a bunch of league leader type seasons.

I mean, Edgar led the league in just about everything imaginable in 1995, with the exception of RBI in home run. I don't think he even led his own team in those categories that season. Maybe in home runs. Let me check on that. But RBI's he didn't. Jay Buehner led the team with 121 that season. No, Buneer hit 40 home runs.

So he's the clear Mariners' home run leader in 1995. Tino hit 31. But Edgar, 52 doubles in 145 games. That's an enormous number. And then moving over to each yearo, led the league in batting average twice, led the league in stolen bases once his rookie season. Hits one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times. At bats, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times.

played appearances four times, led the league in games played or tied for it four times, and he was intentionally walked the most in his league three times, including 27 intentional walks in 2002. Nobody was pitching to him, and he still hit 321 that season. With 208 hits. I mean, I think it's fascinating, John, how they can both get the job done with the bat and have such very different swings. Edgar was very technically sound, compact, fluid, level. That's the kind of swing you would want to teach to a right-handed hitter.

As I said on the show last Thursday, if the pitch is inside, he can make a last-minute adjustment, which would allow him to either shoot the ball into the left, or pardon me, into the right-center field gap or down the right-field line, or pull the ball with power down the left field, line. He was a very versatile hitter. ECHero was also a very versatile

hitter, but you would not want to teach that swing to anybody, would you? No. To give an example and maybe a story that relates to Edgar, when my sister was playing, yes, she was playing softball because naturally sister's a girl,

but her coach recommended that we watch Edgar swing. So we watched that there and videotaped every game, and then would watch every at bat and watch his swing every time, probably a hundred times a game, just to watch every time. She'd stand there in the living room with, I think we had a pillow or something. I don't know, something she could swing without causing too much damage.

Yeah. And practice that swing and try to get it down. And she was a little bit older by the time Ichiro came around, but no, you wouldn't want a kid to imitate that swing. It was kind of a funky swing. It was a long kind of sweeping type swing. But for him, it worked because it was almost like he was serving the ball out to the outfield with a tennis racket.

He could kind of place it wherever he wanted to just over the infielers' heads, you know, right into the outfield grass. And it was very, very interesting to watch. It certainly got the job done as, you know, how many 200 hit seasons did he have? one, two, three, four, ten of them all in his first ten years in 184 in 2011, where he still, 272 that year, he was 37, kind of started to slow down a little bit at that point. That speed probably started to go a little bit. The other part of it is they both kept themselves in great shape, and they were both very,

very hard workers and worked at their craft. We will get to that in just a minute, but right now it's time for the Mariners trivia question, which today is the following. Which total is greater? Ichero's career outfield assists? Or Edgar's best single-season RBI total? Answer in a minute. Hey gang, D.C. Lundberg here for Postmates.

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Thank you very much again, J.M. Answer to the trivia question, which number is greater? each hero's career outfield assists or Edgar's best single season RBI total. John, do you know the answer without looking at it? Because I know you got the stats in front of you. You got a 50-50 shot. Well, just going from memory, I know that Edgar had 145 RBIs in 2001. Ichiro had a lot of assists, had a long career.

I don't think he had enough to beat 145. You are correct. Edgar's single season best in RBI is correct, 145, actually came in 2000. Instead of 2001, I would have assumed 2001 also just because everybody was on base that season. 145 RBI came in 2000. Each year's career outfield assist total was still very, very high. It's close. 123.

Wow. That's a lot. I mean, he was averaging about eight or nine, his first, you know, few seasons in the big leagues. When we left off, we were getting into their work ethic. and just how great they kept themselves in shape. And what really impressed me about Edgar was the drill that he had that would work on his eyes. Because in reality, his vision was not very good

in one particular eye. I forget which one it was. He had something of a lazy eye. So he really worked at trying to recognize Pitch's location right out of a Pitch's hand. And it really worked. Yeah, from what I recall from his book, he actually had a doctor

that he would work with who would give him exercises on how to train that eye and it was special because that doctor had not worked with an athlete who needed something like that before. So it was a learning experience for them both. Absolutely. And it obviously worked. He had one of the best eyes of his day,

just evidenced by the fact that he drew so many walks and did not swing and miss very much. I mean, I keep going back to it, but that 479 on base percentage in 1995, that's just enormous. His career on base percentage is over 100 points more than his batting average. 418 is his career on base percentage versus a 312 batting average. And yeah, you mentioned swinging and missing. He only struck out over 100 once. His last season.

Yeah, and he was 41 at the time. Yeah. And he had more career. walks than strikeouts. 1,283 walks versus 1,2002 strikeouts. And there were only a couple seasons where he struck

out more than he walked. 1992, it won his first batting title, being one of them, surprisingly enough, and the others came towards the end of his career. Well, and I think we would be a little amiss to just leave it at 1992.

Right. To give the numbers, he struck out 61 times and walked 54. 61 is still a pretty low strikeout total. He struck out 72 the year before that. Very, very impressive what this man could do. Itiro also, but he didn't take the walks, although he also did not swing and miss very much, may have swung and miss less than Edgar, and that's saying something. He did swing and miss less than Edgar. Oh, that doesn't surprise me, in the slightest, especially when he first came to the big leagues, when he was first a major league baseball player. It was almost news when he would swing and miss.

It was about the same news if he would swing and miss as when he would walk. And I, just being a fan, it seemed like I don't have the stats that he got more in-field signals than he did strikeouts or walks. He probably did. I don't have those numbers in front of me either. It seemed like he did. But the bunt hits, too. I mean, he could really handle the bat. you wouldn't want to sacrifice with him because he was such a good hitter,

although he could do that. But he could bunt for a base hit when you were least expecting it, which you probably should have been expecting it every time, let's be honest. But he was such a skilled handler of the bat. It was amazing to watch. I know Dave Nehouse used to describe his handling of the bat as akin to a magician with a magic wand, and that's certainly apropos. Oh, geez, yes.

watching some of the film clips, and I'm glad you brought that up, because Ichiro's hitting style, although still different, reminds me of another Hall of Famer of Vladimir Guerrera. That's correct. He could hit just about anything in or out of the strike zone, too. Obviously had more game, home run power than Ichero did,

different skill set, but the contact ability was, you know, in a way very similar. You're right. I'm not sure if Ichiro ever hit a ball that had bounced prior to getting to him. I'm sure he definitely could have. But when Glad was inducted, they kept showing that at least once, probably twice or more in his career, where the pitcher would just a horrible pitch and it bounces and Vlad takes it for a hit. There's one video clip of Ichero doing this.

It was in his days in Japan. I don't think he ever did it as a major league player. I wouldn't have been surprised if he did. You're absolutely right. Neither of them would take a walk. Vlad Guerrero really took a healthy rip at the ball, which Icho really didn't do. Ichiro really didn't do that.

His stream was much more controlled, you know, as we've said, a couple of times already. You could hit anything out of the strike zone. I was going to say that, because you had mentioned Vlad's power, that, whereas, and I think you had already said that Ichiro was just kind of more of a slap here. He would just kind of, he could slap it over the infield. Yeah, he could. And another thing that I remember about the national commentator speaking about Ichero,

it seems like every single year at the beginning of the season, they were predicting 20, 25, 30 home run seasons because they kept saying, I've seen this guy in batting practice. he's got a lot more power than he lets on, so he's going to hit 25 home runs this season. That just wasn't his game. He preferred just to get on base as the lead-off hitter, via a hit and not a walk, which, you know,

if your lead-off hitter has a 381 on base percentage, 388, 414, which is some of his totals earlier in his career, you would take that from your lead-off hitter, certainly. You'd even take a 372 on-base percentage from your lead-off hitter, which was his batting average in 2004. but he wasn't that type just to hit a lot of home runs. And he never had one season where he hit a lot of home runs just to prove it like Wade Boggs did in 1987,

who also had way more power than he led on, but it just was not his modus operandi. Another difference between the two players is each hero was traded to the Yankees midway through the 2012 season while the Mariners were struggling. And Edgar Martinez was a correct. Career Mariner. Each year also played for the Marlins. I don't know if you remember this. I think it was 1999 when at the trading deadline there were some rumors that Edgar Martinez was going to be traded to the Boston Red Sox as a rent-a-player and then re-sign as a free agent after that season because his

contract was up because the Mariners were out of playoff contention and the Red Sox needed some offensive help. I'm glad that trade didn't happen so we can call Edgar a career mariner. I'm very glad about that. Yes, because it would have been weird to see him in a Red Sox uniform, A, and it's always nice when you can begin and end your career with the same team. And he never played in any other organization, period. He was signed as a minor league free agent by the Mariners, worked his way up through the system after a very bad initial campaign in Bellingham in 1983.

The scouts, the person who scouted him convinced the upper management move this guy up to the single A level. You know, he's better than what his numbers led on, and he went to town in single A. And the rest, as they say, is history and had a Hall of Fame Major League career, as Ichiro certainly did. And I will reiterate, if he's not a first ballot,

if I Tiro's not a first ballot Hall of Famer, there is something very, very wrong. And the other part about Edgar being in Career Mariner and Ichero not being a career mariner, The mariners have different stipulations for criteria that need to be met for having one's number retired. If a player is a career mariner, then they need to come close to being elected to the Hall of Fame. Edgar met that criteria before he was actually elected. Well, each year was not a career mariner.

So he needs to be elected to the Hall of Fame to be eligible. He does meet the criteria of having spent a good portion of his career with the mariner. So when he is elected to the Hall of Fame, John, you got to think that his number is going to be retired along with the others. Oh, definitely. And I believe it was an early mailbag segment where a listener had asked you when they were going to retire each row's number and why they hadn't done it. And I believe the answer that you gave, it concurred with what I think is going to happen. I think it would be a very classy move along on the Seattle Mariners part that when Ichiro is inducted to the Hall of Fame in 2025, that they will retire his number in a joint ceremony with someone else who wore number 51 for the Seattle Mariners for a good portion of his career, Hall of Famer Randy Johnson.

Yes, it's not Louis Kinonez. Yeah, absolutely. I sincerely hope that is what happens. But it seems kind of, that seems kind of like the obvious thing to do. And I, in my personal opinion, and obviously you shared this opinion, that the Mariners would be remiss not to do that. Randy Johnson certainly meets the criteria for number retirement. He spent a good portion of his career with the Mariners and he is a Hall of Famer.

That has to be the reason they're waiting on Randy Johnson, doesn't it, John? That's the only conclusion I can come to. again, it seems so obvious that if that doesn't happen, I'm not going to say I'm going to eat my left shoe on that one, because I think there's a better chance that that won't happen than each hero being a first ballot Hall of Famer. But I would be very shocked if that was not the case. And with that, we are going to wrap up today's program. John, where can the people find you on Twitter? You can find me on the Twitter sphere at Seattle Pilot 69.

Thank you very much. And thank you again for joining us. Always a pleasure having you on the show, sir. Thank you very much. You are welcome. This week's theme across the locked-on family of podcasts, ladies and gentlemen, is greatest moments in franchise history. And while last week's theme, greatest moments of last season may have been a little tough to put together,

and frankly, I had to punt on content, greatest moments in franchise history, there's a lot to choose from. We're going to be back at you on Wednesday talking about at least one of those best moments in Mariner's history. In the meantime, please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to this program on Google Podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that you prefer. Follow the show on Twitter, LO underscore Mariners. Follow me on Twitter at DC underscore Lundberg. Special thanks once again to contributor John Miller for joining us here on today's program. Greatest Moment in Franchise History begins on Wednesday.

Until then, have a good day. This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on MLB upon the conclusion of this program.