Ichiro may leave after the season

[browntown653]

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Mariners icon Ichiro Suzuki admitted for the first time Tuesday that he might leave Seattle after the 2007 season.

Stopping far short of saying he wanted out, Ichiro said the idea of becoming a free agent after his contract expires this year is at least worth considering. His agent said the Mariners' ability to win this season will figure prominently into Ichiro's decision.

"In 15 years of playing baseball, I've never filed for free agency," Ichiro said as the Mariners gathered for their first full-squad workout of spring training. "I've never had a choice before in the past. If you ask me, 'Is it possible that I might become a free agent,' I would say, yes, it is possible.

"But if you ask me what my feelings are about it, I can't express it.

"I'm not even sure myself what my feelings are."

The possibility of losing Ichiro, an All-Star in each of his six seasons with the club, likely will loom over the Mariners. And there is more. Tony Attanasio, Ichiro's longtime agent, suggested the Mariners may be forced to part with Ichiro this summer -- before his contract expires.

"If it appears to them that they can't sign Ichiro," Attanasio said Tuesday afternoon, "they might have to trade him. If they didn't, they'd risk just getting a draft choice for him."

As recently as this past weekend, Ichiro was quoted as saying he wasn't thinking about free agency. As the Mariners consider his return a top priority, it seemed that a negotiated contract extension probably would come over the course of spring training.

Now that timetable is gone.

Attanasio confirmed he has had preliminary conversations with the Mariners' chief contract negotiator, Bart Waldman. The two were supposed to meet in Seattle on Monday.

Attanasio and Waldman are fighting colds, the agent said, so the face-to-face negotiations have been put off. They may begin this week.

For both sides, the stakes are huge. Ichiro is the Mariners' top marketing tool. As such, and because he has six consecutive 200-hit seasons, he would seem to be a strong candidate for a yearly salary ranging from $17 million to $20 million for whatever extension he signs. He is due to make $11 million this year.

Ichiro has to balance playing in a city he frankly loves against the fact the Mariners have had three consecutive losing seasons.

"In Ichiro's mind, the team's performance is really measured by his first year," Attanasio said, referring to the 2001 season when the Mariners set the American League record with 116 wins. "He saw such tremendous enthusiasm in the city that year.

"He saw great joy in the clubhouse and enjoyed it. He has not seen it since. And he wants that.

"It's not all about money. We had a conversation Sunday night and I asked him if, theoretically, the Mariners offered him a billion-dollar contract, would he take it.

"He said he'd have to think about it."

That reply should be a shot across the bow of the Good Ship Mariner, because the camaraderie and success the Mariners enjoyed in 2001 was a once-in-a-generation thing, maybe a once-in-a-century thing. Repeating it is the most unlikely of scenarios.

Club CEO Howard Lincoln said on Tuesday that "it's extremely important to us" to get Ichiro's name on a contract extension.

"We want Ichiro to stay," Lincoln said. "We want him to play his entire career here and go in the Hall of Fame as a Mariner."

General manager Bill Bavasi added about $15 million to the payroll this year, bumping it to $111 million in an effort to make the club competitive in the AL West.

He added starting pitchers Jeff Weaver, Miguel Batista and Horacio Ramirez, and there are two new faces in the starting lineup, right fielder Jose Guillen and designated hitter Jose Vidro.

Do those additions make the Mariners good enough for Ichiro, who talked as far back as last year about the desire to play for a team that has a chance to win?

"Today's just the first day," he said through an interpreter, "and even when we get to the end of spring training, we still won't know how good we'll be. We'll only know that when we play. The feeling of getting upset (because of losing) is something you cannot get used to. So I am very upset."

Ichiro said he would listen to any offer the Mariners care to make. He just wants more than money.

"I'm not ear-muffing my ears," he said. "I'm looking and I'm listening. I know baseball is a job, but to me it's more like a hobby."

The translation there is that Ichiro has plenty of money and knows he's going to get truckloads more no matter where he plays in 2008. So he can afford to think about the other aspects of the game.

Given that, it seems virtually certain he won't strike a deal with the club between now and the time the Mariners leave Peoria. Opening Day is April 2 against the Oakland Athletics at Safeco Field.

Attanasio said as much, and he said putting a timetable on the negotiations was not plausible.

In a best-case scenario, he suggested, Ichiro would stay with the Mariners. But Seattle will have to win, and win often, in 2007 for that to happen.

To this point, the 2007 season was shaping up to be about the future of Bavasi and manager Mike Hargrove, neither of whom has produced a winner in Seattle.

On Tuesday, the focus changed. It's now about whether or not Ichiro will continue to be the face of Seattle baseball.

One of the best players in baseball easily. They should do everything they can to keep him.

[Porter]

I was listening to KJR today and they said that the M's money wise will be able to keep him unless someone is Tom Hicks in the ARod-Park days stupid and makes an insane offer. But the M's have to win and keep winning this season to have a great chance of keeping him. From what I understand.