Jin-Chi Itou's remarkable age-34 season (.330/50/122) continued his crazy-re-writing of the record books and solidified his still-building legacy as the best hitter in Hobbs history (and possibly the best hitter any of us has ever seen in HBD). Among the milestones set or added to last season:
*** Won his 11th MVP (in 16 seasons played). This one has to be totally unassailable. You have to be incredibly good AND incredibly lucky to win more than 3 MVP's...I think Itou has won it every year he should have won it plus a couple that were at least challengeable (Hasegawa's Season 32, 35 and 36 come to mind).
Nor will any pitchers approach 11 Cy Youngs. Jair Gonzalez was the most dominant pitcher imaginable over his career, and he only got to 8 CY's.
And I don't think Sam Stock will maintain his current pace of CY's (5 in 7 seasons played).
*** Finished last season with 816 career home runs, passing up Jimmie Segui (808) on the all-time list. Segui slammed his 800+ over 21 seasons (more hitter-friendly seasons at that), while Itou has done it in 16 and is still cranking. Special credit to Segui: he played his entire career in the immensely hitter-difficult San Diego.
*** At an age when most (even good hitters) are seeing their career qualitative stats drop, Itou actually increased his career-leading numbers in ISO, OPS and Slugging %.
At 1811 runs scored, he's at 5th all-time, and 1st is just a matter of a couple more full seasons (Segui leads at 1949). The RBI record is a little tougher - Segui has a 230-RBI lead on Itou starting this year (2406 to 2176), but is there any doubt Itou has a couple more 100-RBI seasons left, plus 2-3 more of 50-80?
Our ownership group lucked into having him fall in our lap after purchasing the DOS, so credit goes to the 'Goose for his keen scouting eye. Our team has quickly descended to barren 4th division status but we'll throw JC out there as long as he can walk!
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