David, I have nothing to base this on but my gut, but I think Ichiro might be the exception to that rule. He seems to thrrive when acting as the flipper in a big pinball machine. I can't imagine a guy who is running away from the baseball as he swings, ever really creaming the ball.

Makes me wonder about the BB totals for people who've hit .400

I love that exhibit too...

...To me, selectivity means knowing what pitches you can hit and which ones you can't, and then being patient enough to only swing at the ones you can hit well. In my mind, even though Ichiro's walk total is low, he IS being selective, because he knows what he can it.

Bonds and Ted Williams are selective in the more traditional sense, Ichiro and Vlad are selective in their own way. I think the best model for most batters is the Bonds/Williams approach, but if you have the eye-hand coordination that Ichiro and Vlad have, more power to you.

Year Player Avg. Hits Walks
1920 Sisler .407 257 46
1922 Sisler .420 246 49
1922 Cobb .401 211 55
1941 Williams .406 185 145
2004 Ichiro .374 247 46

I think it's fair to say that Ichiro resembles Cobb and Sisler a bit more than the Splendid Splintsicle, even though both Cobb and Sisler showed more power than Ichiro does. [What's even more incredible about the 1941 Williams is that he had only 27 strikeouts. Crazy!]

The thing about pitch selectivity is that it is difficult, and rare, for a player to learn it later in their career. Sosa is unusual in this regard, and probably should be held up as the exception rather than an example of how a player might improve himself. Ichiro's poor start this year may be reflective of this difficulty.

I think with Ichiro, he may simply see a larger strike zone, and have the skill set to hit the ball according to it (imagine William's color-zone comprised of softballs, rather than baseballs). But when he tries to discern balls and strikes according to the actual zone, he may not have the right eye for it; perhaps he can hit it outside the zone, but can't tell whether or not it's a strike.

bottom line is that Ichiro is a great hitter. Our ability to parse his success is a luxury.

And although Ichiro has 162 games to break the record - noone has done it yet and that is impressive.

As Nate Silver's article shows, Ichiro is a statistical anomaly in that he has both a high percentage of PA resulting in Ball in play as well as a high batting average on those balls in play. He is already near the top of the list of high BA in BIP, so it is hard to imagine that his being more selective would help his BA.

The argument, of course, is that if he were more selective, he would be able to hit for more power. There is some myth that Ichiro can hit for power if he wants to, but this has never really been shown. However, it has also been observed that Ichiro seems to employ a variety of different swings. I have watched many mariners games, and when Ichiro does hit a home run (rarely), he employs a snap uppercut swing that is different from his usual swings. However, he doesn't always hit a home run when he uses that swing. And it's pretty rare that he uses that swing in the first place. As has been pointed out before, Ichiro has a certain mindset (get a hit even if it's only a single) and is very good at that. If you take that mindset away from him and ask him to be more selective and hit for more power, you are assuming he has the ability to do that, which has not been demonstrated. (but then I haven't really researched it in depth.) I don't think Sammy Sosa is a fair comparison for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, as someone in the comments has pointed out, he is the exception rather than the rule. He is statistically insignificant. You can probably find a player whose game got better when he had a decrease in walks. Really, Dave, when you say Ichiro would be better than he is if he were more selective, you are trying to fit Ichiro onto that general curve in that graph Nate Silver has in his article. However, Ichiro is already the bizarre spot on that curve. Secondly, Sosa is a high power high strkeout player, which Ichiro does not seem to be. Even when Ichiro swings for the fences, he has a less chance of missing, and probably can't hit a home run as consistently as Sosa could. If you want to know if Ichiro can really be a better player if he were more patient, then a study needs to be done considering all the times he has gone up to the plate with the mentality to swing for the fences (perhaps finding all the instances he uses that swing), calculate the amount of times he swings and misses, the amount of times he hits a homerun/XBH, and the amount of times he hits a lazy fly ball -- and then graph these statastics in comparison to other players and see where he fits.. Is he more like Barry Bonds or Shane Spencer?

Anyway, looking at Ichiro's Japanese stats, there are a couple of years where he hit significantly more home runs than usual. One of those years being the year right after he set the Japanese hits record. With his overconfident, competitive, and oddly arrogant demeaner, it is quite possible Ichiro will want to prove that he can hit home runs next season if he breaks the hits record this season. I would be very interested in how he hits next season if he does indeed break the hits record this one.