| There will (hopefully) come a day when I write a flattering piece about Mariners right fielderIchiro Suzuki. I will discuss his amazing skill set- his laser-like arm, blazing speed, his ability to hit pitches that no one else (besides maybe Vlad Guerrero) would make contact with. Two things though: at 38 years of age, Ichiro no longer fully possesses any of those qualities, so I will be writing almost entirely in the past tense. Second, I will only write this complimentary piece as a farewell, an acknowledgement of what was once so special. If he is signed to a contract extension, no such piece will be written. Not by me anyway.
Back in May, I wrote this about Ichiro:
“Though I reserve the right to change my mind about this, if I were GM Jack Zduriencik, I’d probably let him walk.”
Turns out I have changed my mind: I no longer believe I would “probably” let him walk. I’d need to modify that to read “definitely.”
Though, by any metric, Ichiro is clearly a fraction of what he once was, I wouldn’t go so far as to say he has nothing left in the tank. It’s just that whatever is left is a fuel that’s incompatible with whatever shitty vehicle the Mariners are.
Let’s just say that the Mariners want to bring Ichiro back, and he agrees to an annual salary roughly half of the $18 million or so he’s currently making. Please explain to me how a player at his age, who fits his profile (and occupies what is traditionally a spot for a power bat), is worth that much money to a team that seems to have slipped to the depths of a mid-market franchise that’s in the midst of a deep rebuild? It would be the monetary (and possibly performance) equivalent of signing Chone Figgins all over again. Does that sound like something that, on any level, would be in the best interests of the Seattle Mariners?
It seems to me, the money spent on keeping Ichiro should be put to better use- like by signing a player or players who could potentially make the team better (hardly radical thinking, I know). Does Ichiro make the Mariners better? Since his 2001 arrival, our boys have complied a record of 910 wins versus 959 losses. And that actually sounds better than it is: if you take Ichiro’s first three seasons, in which the Mariners compiled a record of 302-184 out of the equation, the record drops to 608 wins and 775 losses. It should also be pointed out that Ichiro’s best statistical season (his record-breaking 2004 campaign) coincided with a team record 30 games worse than in the season prior. In other words, it’s been a very long time since you could make any kind of convincing argument that Ichiro makes the Mariners better.
Recently, I discussed a few free agents-to-be that I felt could bolster the Mariners lineup. If you could get a hold of a guy like Mike Napoli for Ichiro money, doesn’t that better serve the team? Napoli is having a very down year. He’s batting .228 (See? He’d fit right in!) yet Ichiro, whose average is 33 points higher, has an on base percenage more than 50 points lower.
I’m not saying signing Napoli would cause me to do cartwheels….but I’d consider him a better investment than Ichiro. Why? He fills at least three needs that Ichiro cannot/will not: he hits right handed, he’s considered a pretty good leader and he has power. Moreover, he wouldn’t cost the M’s one (or more) of their top prospects the way trading for a comparable player might.
None of this is being said to malign Ichiro. Not directly anyway. I’m grateful for his contributions to baseball in Seattle. He’s been a joy to watch for many years. I’ve said before that what the Mariners lack in team success, they’ve, in some ways, made up for by boasting some of the greatest players of the past couple decades. How many other teams have had the benefit of watching players the caliber of Ichiro, Ken Griffey, Jr., Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez over such a short span of time? Possibly none. And that’s great, but now I’d like for us to win a little bit. And doing so becomes less likely if Ichiro is on the payroll beyond this season.
You can disagree with my staistical analysis, my projections for potential replacements and so on, and that’s fine. But one argument I will not suffer is that of loyalty- the idea that we somehow owe Ichiro, and it would be a betrayal of sorts to not retain his services. When a player is negotiating a new contract, there is no greater cliche than “This is a business.” Well, what’s good for the goose…..
On December 7, 1995, the Mariners traded first baseman Tino Martinez (along with pitchers Jeff Nelson and Jim Mecir) to the New York Yankees for third baseman Russ Davis and pitcher Sterling Hitchcock. (If this sounds like an unbalanced trade, it was- even in the moment. Tino was moved because the M’s felt they couldn’t afford to sign him to a contract extension. As such, they opted to get what they supposed would provide greater value than any compensatory draft picks acquired from letting him ride out his contract).
Martinez went on to have, to say the least, a memorable career in the Bronx- he spent the next six seasons in pinstripes. These six seasons brought the Yankees six playoff berths, five American League pennants and four World Series championships. In five of those six seasons, Tino drove in more than 100 runs. In 1997, he finished a distant second in AL MVP voting to unanimous winner Griffey. Anyway, following a very good 2001 (he batted .280 with 34 HR and 113 RBI), Tino was allowed to walk. All because the Yankees had an opportunity to upgrade his position.
It didn’t really work out that way, and in Jason Giambi‘s seven (mostly productive) seasons in New York, the Yankees failed to win a World Series. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t, in the moment, right to make the move, “loyalty” be damned. They had an opportunity to replace Tino with a hitter a couple years younger and just a tick more productive, so they did it. They didn’t know there would soon be a major Congress–sponsored crackdown on steroids, and either didn’t know or care that Giambi was riddled with them.
The point I’ve spent way too many words trying to make with this analogy is that the Mariners should in no way hold themselves, or Ichiro, to a higher standard. He’s contributed far less to the Mariners than Tino did to the Yankees after all (perhaps not in individual achievements but certainly as pertains to the team).
So now comes conjecture that Ichiro will be a Mariner as long as he wishes, via comments by Jon Morosi of FoxSports.com. The feeling, if not the consensus, is that Zduriencik won’t be the man deciding Ichiro’s fate- it will be ownership, specifically majority owner Hiroshi Yamauchi (or his appointed yes-man, Howard Lincoln). If these reports are accurate, the repercussions could be disastrous for the already shaky future of the Mariners.
Let’s be clear- ownership calling the shots isn’t unprecedented. Does the name George Steinbrenner ring a bell? The difference is, Steinbrenner knew a little and cared a lot about the game, and how his team fared. Yamauchi literally couldn’t be less interested in baseball games, or how many or few of them the Mariners win. For those unaware, he’s never even attended a Mariners game- and he’s owned the team for twenty years!
(If it seems that I often reference the Yankees when discussing how a baseball team should comport itself, it’s because I do. And for good reason- they do it the right way. True, no one else has their financial resources, but there’s a lot more to it than that. The Phillies have a comparable payroll, and where exactly has that gotten them lately? We love to talk about our hatred for the Yankees, but what often goes unsaid is that we all wish our favorite team did things a lot like they do- putting winning first, yet still demonstrating class in the process. If you’re a fan of one of the other 29 MLB teams and say you wouldn’t want the same from your guys, you’re either being dishonest or foolish- take your pick).
If the Mariners operated with a bottomless checkbook, bringing Ichiro back would be far less of a calamity….but they most certainly do not. Let’s say Ichiro returns for about $10 million next year. That means, between three players (Felix Hernandez, Figgins and Ichiro himself), the team is on the hook for about $37.5 million in payroll. The overall team payroll is roughly $82 million, and doesn’t figure to spike any time in the foreseeable future. So we’re looking at about 45% of the Mariner payroll committed to three guys- one who, great as he is, can only help the team every fifth day, another who has contributed virtually nothing since his arrival and another who has declined dramatically. This is bad.
The great Bill Simmons has opined that a fan is justified in switching his or her allegiance to another team, in the event that ownership has consistently acted in opposition to said team’s best interests. It’s hard to argue with this philosophy. The Mariners, sadly, appear dangerously close to passing this dubious threshold.
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No Balls And Three Strikes 