Saturday, September 30, 2006
By GARY WASHBURN
P-I REPORTER

ITS OFFICIAL: Mariners manager Mike Hargrove confirmed what the P-I
reported Friday: Ichiro has expressed interest in playing center field
full-time next season.

"He said he wants to play there and that's good," Hargrove said. "It's
certainly easier to add a (new player) at a corner outfield position.
Good center fielders are hard to come by and we're very fortunate that
Ichiro wants to stay there."

"Ed Varner" <Ed.Varner@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1159608345.042008.185520@e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...

The real question is: Why on earth did it take so long to move the best
all-around outfielder in the game to the position where he can help us the
most? Mike is so low-key it sounds like he needs Ichiro's permission to
manage him.

Unc

"uncle k" <no_spam@all.com> wrote in message news:9cSTg.1462

[snip]


You see...he sort of does. This is one of your most important players and
if Ichiro isn't going to be happy in CF, then it'd going to affect his
attitude, his game, and the team. The hardest positions in baseball are
catcher, shortstop, and centerfield. Your CF has to be many times better
defensively than what you need to have in the corner OF positions. Because
of this, if you look at CF batting statistics, they're way lower than what
you typically get from a corner OF position.

The Mariners don't have a CF, so Ichiro is really perfect there but I think
everyone should keep in mind that since CF is so much more grueling, we
should anticipate that we may see a drop in Ichiro's offensive statistics.
This offensive decline/improvement typically happens when a player moves to
a more/less taxing defensive assignment.


Michael