I think the key thing her is the economies of both powers. The US had an economy about 5 times that of Japan, what's more it was self-sufficient in resources, including oil and had almost the manpower of the Soviet Union. Japan had to rely in it's colonies and imports for resources and had nowhere near the manpower of the US. Because of this things such as America's oil tanker shortage or mostly obsolete battleships would only be an issue for about a year and a half.

I think for Japan's plan to have the US sue for peace they would have to take all allied Island bases, Panama canal and the Falklands Island and keep up constant bombing raids on US shipyards on the west coast. This would effectively deny the US any access to the pacific without Japan having to invade the mainland. However this was way beyond Japan's capabilities, particularly with their war on the mainland with China, UK and the threat of Soviet entry into the pacific war.

Another factor was that the US had far more immediate allies in the Pacific that could help fight the Japanese and provide bases. Australia and New Zealand were important in this regard as they had relatively safe ports and airbases in the south pacific. Japan's only allies in the region were Siam and Manchukuo (both effectively puppets), who were only useful for protecting supply lines in china and some front-line service again china, but were effectively useless against the allies AFAIK.