Ichiro's Historic Career Likely to Yield Hall of Fame Induction Next Week

The 10-time MLB All-Star had 3,089 career hits and 10 consecutive 200-hit seasons.

The 2025 Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame includes first-time ballot appearances for stalwarts of the 2000s and 2010s in MLB.

Outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, two of Suzuki’s former teammates pitchers CC Sabathia and Felix Hernandez and second baseman Dustin Pedroia are viewed as potential inductees in their first years of eligibility, and the announcement of the BBWAA vote is set for this coming Tuesday.

Suzuki played in parts of 19 seasons in MLB after debuting with the Seattle Mariners in 2001 at age 27, and with his extremely likely election next week he would become the first Japanese and first Asian player enshrined in Cooperstown. Ichiro already made history this week as the first MLB player inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

The historic nature of his presumed induction (a player needs to receive 75% of the writers’ votes) comes after the Los Angeles Dodgers won a leaguewide pursuit and signed pitcher Roki Sasaki on Friday. The 23-year-old righthander joins his Japanese World Baseball Classic teammates pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto and pitcher/DH Shohei Ohtani in a well-regarded rotation for the 2024 World Series Champions.

Ohtani and Suzuki are the only Asian born players to win an MVP award, and before the two-way star moved stateside, Ichiro’s transition to MLB from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball’s (NPB) Orix Blue Wave was the first such move for a position player.

Born in Nishi Kasugai-gun before playing high school baseball in Nagoya, the now-51-year-old made his professional debut in 1992 at age 18 with Orix, beginning a nine-season tenure for the left-handed hitting right fielder with the Blue Wave.

Suzuki quickly began accumulating accolades in NPB. Each year from 1994-2000 he was selected as an All-Star and as a member of the league’s Best Nine team, he won the Pacific League batting title (highest batting average) and received a Golden Glove for his defensive play.

At the start of that seven-season run, Ichiro won three consecutive Pacific League MVP awards, capturing the honor for the final time in 1996 en route to a Japan Series title with Orix. Suzuki finished his NPB career with a .353 batting average and a .943 OPS, hitting 118 homeruns and stealing 199 bases.

Ichiro was pursued as early as 1999 by Seattle, eventually signing with the AL West club following its winning $13.25 million bid with the Blue Wave for his exclusive negotiating rights.

In his 2001 MLB debut season, Suzuki led the entire major leagues with 242 hits and 56 stolen bases, hitting .350 and becoming the second ever player to win a Rookie of the Year and an MVP award in the same year (Boston Red Sox outfielder Fred Lynn, 1975).

The Mariners won a record 116 regular season games in 2001 as Ichiro began a streak of achievements to continue his seven straight award-laden years in Japan.

In each year from 2001-2010, all in Seattle, Suzuki was an AL All-Star, won the AL Gold Glove Award for the right field position and recorded over 200 hits – he also led the major leagues in hits seven of those seasons and captured three Silver Slugger Awards. In 2004, Ichiro had a single season record 262 hits, led the AL in Baseball Reference WAR (9.2) and posted a .372 batting average.

Traded from Seattle to the New York Yankees in 2012 at 39 years old, Suzuki played for the Yankees until 2014 and was then a member of the Miami Marlins through 2017.

On Aug. 7, 2016, Ichiro hit a triple to right field against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field for his 3,000th MLB hit, and after debuting at age 27 became the 30th player to reach the mark in league history.

Suzuki rejoined Seattle in 2018, playing 15 games that season. In March 2019, as the Mariners faced the Oakland Athletics for a season-opening series in Japan, the 45-year-old played two final MLB games, retiring to a standing ovation at the Tokyo Dome.

The longtime Mariners leadoff hitter finished his MLB career with 3,089 hits, and his combined 4,367 professional hits between the United States and Japan are an all-time baseball record.

The 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame Induction ceremony takes place Sunday, July 27 in Cooperstown, New York.