Ichiro Suzuki joining Mariners’ front office
The Seattle Mariners released Ichiro Suzuki on Thursday so that he can shift to a front office position with the team.
Suzuki will immediately become a special assistant to the chairman, focusing on helping the team with outfield play, base running and hitting.
“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 a release. “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.”
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/MarinersPR/status/992101900794388487″,”author_name”:”MarinersPR”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/MarinersPR”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;&#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Mariners?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#Mariners&#lt;/a&#gt; outfielder Ichiro Suzuki is transitioning to the role of Special Assistant to the Chairman, effective today.&#lt;br&#gt;&#lt;br&#gt;Read: &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/HlZyrGdcVz”&#gt;https://t.co/HlZyrGdcVz&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/Gn4O2UB1Ee”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/Gn4O2UB1Ee&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— MarinersPR (@MarinersPR) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/MarinersPR/status/992101900794388487?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;May 3, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
While the 44-year-old cannot return to the active roster this season, nowhere in the team’s announcement did it say he is retiring.
“While this agreement only covers the 2018 season, it is our goal that Ichiro be a member of the Seattle organization long-term,” Dipoto said. “As his role evolves over the 2018 season, it will inform the team and Ichiro on his best fit with us in 2019 and beyond.”
His agent, John Boggs, told USA Today Sports that Suzuki is definitely not retiring.
“He in no way has decided to retire,” Boggs said, according to the report.
Suzuki, who has also played for the Miami Marlins and New York Yankees, has spent most of his 18 major-league seasons playing for the Mariners.
He has appeared in 15 games this season for Seattle after rejoining the team he originally played with from 2001 through 2012. He has hit .205 this season, with all nine of his coming on singles, and went 0-for-3 with a walk and a run scored in his start for the Mariners on Wednesday night..
The 10-time All-Star has a career batting average of .311 to go along with 3,089 major-league hits. He also has another 1,278 hits from the start of his career in Japan.
