Ichiro is a Yankee!

From the Twitter of Jack Curry...

The Yankees have acquired Ichiro Suzuki for RHPs DJ Mitchell and Danny Fahrquar, a source said. Yanks also get undisclosed cash in deal.

Ichiro only hit .272/.310/.335 last season, and is at .261/.288/.353 so far in 2012, but this is still a nice pick-up. His defense and arm are as good as ever. And he already has 15 stolen bases this season, after having swiped 40 in 2011, so if he can get on base more often he'll be a big addition this season.

I took a quick look at Suzuki's Baseball-Reference page, and I see that he's striking out 9.5% of the time, which is right around his career average SO% of 9.3. And he's hitting the ball as hard as ever, as his Line Drive percentage is at 22%, which is a tick higher than his career mark of 21%. The thing that's causing the big downturn in his numbers is a low walk rate (4.0% against a career percentage of 6.1%), and a low Batting Average on Balls in Play (.279 as opposed to .348 for his career). So if Ichiro can take a few more walks, and is no longer the victim of some bad luck on balls hit into play, then this could turn out to be a steal for New York.

For the record, Danny Fahrquar has been DFA'd twice this season, so he's no loss what-so-ever. DJ Mitchell did little to nothing in MLB this season, but that's an incredibly small sample size. But I'm not about to get teary-eyed for the loss of a guy that had a 1.322 WHIP and 7.0 K/9 in the minors.