In an unusual move that feels a lot like a retirement, but isn’t technically a retirement, Ichiro is leaving his spot on the Mariners’ roster and moving to a front-office role.
Ichiro retires from playing (for now) and joins the Mariners’ front office
Ichiro was in the midst of his 18th major league season, though he’d been a professional ballplayer a lot longer than that.
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The team announced Thursday its legendary right fielder would transition immediately to a role as “special assistant to the chairman.” His new role will bar him from returning to the team’s active roster in 2018, though the team didn’t shut the door on an eventual return. Ichiro will be 45 by next season, though, and this feels like the end.
“We want to make sure we capture all of the value that Ichiro brings to this team off the field,” Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto said in announcing the move. “This new role is a way to accomplish that. While it will evolve over time, the key is that Ichiro’s presence in our clubhouse and with our players and staff improves our opportunity to win games. That is our number one priority and Ichiro’s number one priority.”
A Japanese professional star who moved to Major League Baseball in 2001 and immediately won American League MVP, Ichiro has spent about 13 seasons with the Mariners. The club traded him to the Yankees in 2012, and after bouncing around for a few years, he returned to Seattle this season. He had a .460 OPS in 47 plate appearances.
Ichiro has had a baseball career unlike any other. He debuted as a professional with Japanese team Orix when he was 18, about 11 years younger than his average competition. That was in 1992. He was a star in Japan by the time he was 20, and he didn’t make his stateside debut until ‘01, when he was 27.
He never hit for tremendous power, despite reports that he could’ve mashed tons more home runs if he’d wanted to. (If he’s done playing for good, he’ll finish with 117 homers in 18 big league seasons.) He has a .311 career average, though, and is a member of the sport’s 3,000-hit club. His 262 hits in 2004 are a single-season record, though he got 70 more plate appearances that year than George Sisler had gotten in a 257-hit 1920 season.
He was a terror on the basepaths earlier in his career, too. Ichiro had 13 seasons with at least 31 steals, with a career-high 56 in his rookie year. He was a wizard in the outfield, though advanced defensive metrics have said mixed things about him over the course of his career.
Above everything else, Ichiro was a blast. If he’s not playing anymore, that’s sad, but it’s been a treat for fans on both sides of the world to watch him for this long.
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