Ichiro Suzuki’s role with the Mariners has expanded, as the team announced Tuesday that the future Hall of Famer will work as an instructor with the Major League and Triple-A clubs — beginning tonight.
Ichiro will have a particular focus on outfield work and baserunning, and he’ll work in conjunction with hitting coach Tim Laker as well. Per the Mariners’ release, he’ll work the majority of the team’s home games, and he’ll also continue his role as a special assistant — although he’ll now be reporting to GM Jerry Dipoto rather than chairman John Stanton.
Ichiro’s legendary career officially came to an end earlier this season when he announced his retirement as a player following the Mariners’ two-game series against the Athletics in Tokyo. The former AL Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player was a 10-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove winner during his career in the United States. One of the game’s all-time great hitter, Ichiro spent parts of 19 seasons in the Majors — 14 with the Mariners — and finished with a cumulative .311/.355/.402 line (on the heels of a nine-year career with Japan’s Orix Blue Wave, for whom he batted .353/.421/.522 in 4098 plate appearances).
Mariners are not my team but makes me like them even more that they keep this classy guy around. What they did so he could play in the games in Japan this year was just fantastic.
Amazing, all of a sudden he’ll be able to speak to the English and Spanish players…
He speaks English and some Spanish and has for years. He, like many other players, prefers to use a translator for interviews.
Amazing you didn’t know that.
Cat mando, what is amazing is your inability to recognize sarcasm.
If hat was sarcasm he needs to get better at it.
It’s very easy to add this “/s” (sans the quote marks) to indicate such.
If the kids want to learn how to improve plate discipline and hitting for high % controlled contact they will find a way to listen to what he’s telling them. Once they’ve grappled any small communcication barrier you believe exists he will teach them how to play RF like a boss. Brilliant move by the team. And, Ichiro likely isn’t actually tasked with any of that but what a value he brings regardless.
Ichiro = How the game should be played
#oldschool
Ichiro’s only peer is Ty Cobb and maybe Pete Rose. Please don’t act like just anyone can do what he did. He absolutely should not be held up as “How the game should be played” because no one can play at that level. If you think that’s how the game should be played then congrats, you are going to hate 99.999999% of players.
#gotoschool
I don’t think you understand what he’s saying.
He’s talking about his class, and the strict pre game routines when he says how the game should be played. Maybe you should be the one going to school.
He learned English along time ago he just used interpreter cause he didn’t like to do interviews
Polish Hammer….
Here is all of the proof you should need (Especially the video from 2007). You might just qualify to work for ESPN.
Opps….I forgot to add the link…..link to sports.yahoo.com
I guess I could work there too.
Geez why would that anchor care if he learned English anyway? As if American players playing in Japan for years are speaking fluent Japanese. A nation known for its lack of a desire to learn other languages has no room to talk
It’s not that he doesn’t like to do interviews, he’s self conscious about portraying himself as an unintelligent foreigner.
Good to see that bigotry is unfounded.
My father taught English in Japan for over a decade. He told me that many Japanese people speak English but they are often feel they don’t speak it well enough (even though they do) and are too embarrassed to use it.
Also I think Ichiro is smart to use a translator because just ONE wrong word or poorly phrased sentence can have you crucified by the media and those of us on these sites!
Haha! Spot on…
Lol Russell going to triple a
Wrong blog :)
I wondered whether someone would squeeze a Russell comment in somewhere since the site administrator shut down comments on the poorly written Russell article they posted. I’m a little surprised they wouldn’t assign him to do a kind of spring training in Arizona. I’m not at all surprised that they wouldn’t just activate a guy to the ML roster when he was not good at all offensively last year and they are getting decent production from 2b with Baez doing his thing at SS. Maybe he’ll hit enough in AAA that they can bring him up and then try to plug him into a midseason trade. As for the M’s making Ichiro part of their instructional staff – absolutely an obvious move – an antidote for numbers ONLY video game approaches to baseball with someone understanding of the value of situational hitting over homer-walk-strikeout monotony.
It’ll make me a happy man when I get the news that Ichiro owns a chunk of this team.
I quite enjoy the Japanese pipeline of talent into MLB and I believe it’s great for baseball in America. Ichiro and the Mariners ownership (10% now…) have long been lightning rods in this area and hopefully will continue to foster a good relationship between both sides.
This isn’t the best use of “lightning rod.”
This isn’t the Guinness book of world records. Take a step back, Chet.
It’s almost a repeat of last year; Ichiro misses the game too much. He will be their manager in a year or two
He’ll be an owner.
How? He can’t speak English!
link to theplayerstribune.com says otherwise.
English…in your post ‘how’ is rhetorical, therefore proper grammar calls for two punctuation marks. The two being ? And !.
IE: How?!
Unless you actually are asking a legitimate question. Are you?
As many of posts above note, Ichiro does speak English – certainly as well as most baseball players – but had the interpreter for interviews. I would guess he’s probably picked up some Spanish over his time in MLB as well.
He learned Spanish just so he could talk trash
His language won’t have anything to do with his ability as an instructor. I’m assuming he’ll have some kind of hitting instruction and frankly, he’ll be terrible at it. He never had any plate discipline and if he passes that on to the young players he’s going to ruin them. The reason he succeeded in spite of his plate discipline (or lack thereof) is because he had insane and almost superhuman hitting skills. None of the young guys are going to have that kind of ability, and without it, Ichiro teaching them to hack away at anything when they get 3 balls is going to set their development back, not forward. Ichiro should never be a hitting instructor. That goes double for Jim Rice. He’s even worse.
“Ichiro will have a particular focus on outfield work and baserunning, and he’ll work in conjunction with hitting coach Tim Laker as well.”
He’s not the hitting coach. Even a hitter who was lacking in a certain aspect of their game can still offer tips. Especially a hitter who was one of the best at what he did. Do you really think that he has nothing to offer hitters?
What an arm! A cannon!
Ichiro will be the first Japanese Manager in MLB