Something nice in modern baseball

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Posted By: Dave Rey

Playing dead-ball era style baseball in today's baseball may be charming but it isn't something that is going to equate into won/loss success.

First of all, during the dead ball era, lets say 1906-08 NL, where the league batting averages where, .244 in '06; .243 in '07; and .239 in '08, only a couple players hit over .300 and only one hit in the .330+ range with any regularity and that was Wagner.

Ichiro's high averages are in a climate where the league batting average is around .270 (like it was the year he hit .372).

Doing some quick contextual adjustments (without doing any park adjustments, which would further make my point):

Honus Wagner hit .354 in 1908, when the rest of the league hit .239 -- in the context of 2004 AL (Ichiro's big .372 season), that translates to .400.

Ichiro's .372 in 2004 translates to .329 in the context of 1908.

Plus, Wagner's slugging (within the context of his time) is quantum leaps above Ichiro.

Ichiro is essentialy playing dead ball baseball and that is one of the reasons the M's are mediocre/bad -- he is supposedly our best player...

I haven't done the math, but my guess is Dunn and an average right fielder (Chris Snelling, for example) in place of Ichiro would predictably increase the Mariners' runs they create and up their overall W/L.

It would be a good trade on the field for the M's -- but the off-the-field and PR ramifications basically ensure the M's would never make that trade.

It's silly though, because, the way he is going, essentially we're a year or two away from Ichiro just being Mickey Rivers...