YOU CAN ALWAYS DEPEND ON ICHIRO TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE

“You can always depend on your son to get on base. He’s like Ichiro.”  
--My son's Little League coach

You’ve heard my stories a lot.  My baseball career consisted of my youth and nothing more.  I was taught by my old little league coach a long long tim ago how to get on base, using the bunt, and then I ran my ass off stealing around the diamond until I scored a run or waited for someone to hit me in.  Scrappy is what my game was and it’s ironic to me that I played that way and I appreciate it, yet I am still a gigantic fan of the Bronx Bombers, guys who have historically hit home runs… the game of small ball appears to have left their game a long, long time ago, yet, I love to watch a team operate like that on the field.

My son played in a game the Sunday before Hurricane Sandy and had the game of his life.  5 for 5 with 5 runs and 4 stolen bases.  He was on fire and every time he got on base, he scored. His coach looked at me after the game and said “you can always depend on your son to get on base. He’s like Ichiro.”  I smiled. I was flattered actually.  

I have always appreciated the game Ichiro plays and when he came to the Yankees at the trade deadline this past season, I knew it would rejuvenate him in the Bronx rather than him fade away as a stale hitter in Seattle.  It worked out wonderfully and even though we didn’t win the whole damn thing, he opened the Yankee fans eyes, as well as the team itself.  Ichiro is the guy we need back on the Yankees in 2013, it just makes sense.

Sure, there are guys like Nick Swisher and Torii Hunter still out there on the free agent market, but let’s put it simply; the Yankees have a ton of power hitters already on their club.  Why not utilize a guy like Ichiro who you can “always depend on” to get on base? If there are ducks on the pond, a chance has a better shot of scoring a run. That's plain and simple.

You have read arguments for Nick Swisher and even Torii Hunter here at BYB. We believe in giving you every pro and con about every player we can. But if I needed to put my money on 1 player I want roaming right field next season, It’s Ichiro.  Think about this… you have Brett Gardner, Curtis Granderson and Ichiro Suzuki roaming the Yankee outfield. That's a lot of speed and a lot of fielding talent.  The good news is guys like Brett Gardner and Ichiro can perform as lead off guys and number 9 hitters, in essence, a second lead off guy, and if they get on, the Bombers can knock him home. That on paper at least makes perfect sense to me. You can make an argument that the Yankees are not a small ball team. I'll tell you that small ball is baseball. You move away from small ball, you don't have much of a shot.  The point is, get these speedsters on the base paths and your chances of scoring runs increases.  There's nothing technical about it...it's common sense.

Look, it’s simple, if you don’t have runners on, you have none to get home.  Sure, we can club our way to victory with a bunch of solo shots, but having guys on base always give a team a chance.  Ichiro is dependable, Ichiro is the smart choice and I’m not quite sure why the Yankees would be dragging their feet on this one, I really don’t...lock him in.

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