To say that your opinions are fact because they are supported by empirical evidence is faulty because everybody bases their opinions from factual evidence. As stated by other posters before, people weigh things differently. When you listed all the limitations such as his plate appearances, I immediately thought about his amazing durability. Of all people, fans of Packers quarterbacks should know how valuable durability is. This is routinely, in my opinion, an undervalued trait when looking at athletes. Durability maintains stability in an organization. It doesn't equate to winning, but it helps. I'm not sure if I have Ichiro in my top 50, but all this information has to be valued and that value is somewhat based on opinion. Unfortunately for Ichiro, much of his value came from areas that are more difficult to measure such as durability, leadership, work ethic, and even defense. We can count how many runners he threw out, but it is much more difficult to count the number of runners who didn't try to take an extra base because of his reputation. This preventative value also helped his team win games. It's similar to the difficulty of comparing great cornerbacks because the best ones are never tested. How much does it influence a teams chance of winning when we only throw to one side of the field.