Mariners 40th Anniversary All-Time Roster: The Left Fielder

The other Mariners all-time outfielders are some of the best players in baseball history. Our choice for left field wasn’t as incredible, but he was very good and the M’s were able to get the best of him during his prime years.

There were early signs in Ibanez’s Mariners minor league career that gave Seattle fans a sense that he could be a fairly special player.

After he was drafted in 1992 by the M’s, Ibanez worked as hard as he could, eventually becoming an incredible (albeit for a few years) minor league player.

In 1995, Ibanez smacked 20 home runs, 108 RBIS, 23 doubles, nine triples, and batted .332 with the Mariners Single-A-plus team at the time, the Riverside Pilots.

He would spend the next four years between the major and minor leagues with scattered success, but nothing like his 1995 season with the Pilots. It was looking as though he was going to have a career as mediocre as his M’s left field predecessors Phil Bradley, Tom Paciorek, and Greg Briley.

After he left the Mariners in free agency during the 2000 campaign, he made a name for himself with the Kansas City Royals. He played in the majors more consistently and with the same level of success as that 1995 season.

Yet, after a few years in the Midwest, Ibanez return to Seattle via free agency. And thanks to his great play with the Royals, he was given the starting role in left with the Mariners from 2004-2008.

It was these primes years -his 4th through 8th full seasons of his career- in which he made himself an M’s great. His 33 home runs, 33 doubles, 123 RBIs, and .289 batting average earned him enough votes to finish 21st in the 2006 MVP tally.

Over that span, Ibanez was hit nearly 200 doubles, blast more than 100 home runs, and would almost drive in 500 men. These numbers would cover the bulk of his entire M’s career.

Despite his success, Ibanez would leave the M’s again after the 08′ campaign, this time to play for the Philadelphia Phillies.

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Following some very good years with the Phillies, Ibanez joined the Mariners for the third time. It would be his final stint with the Pacific Northwest club.

This time around he brought some significant pop. He would smack 29 home runs which was the third most he hit in one year, the second most he’d hit with the M’s behind his 2006 MVP-caliber season.

After parting ways with the Mariners one more time, Ibanez would retire after the 2014 season. He would finish his career in left field with 156 home runs, 612 RBIs, and 216 doubles in an M’s uniform.

Those numbers are best in franchise history, and by a wide margin. He has three times as many homers and RBIs and twice as many doubles as the next closest Mariners left fielder, Phil Bradley, for those categories.

Next: Key Series For The Mariners in 2017

He may not have finished his Mariners career with stats that would wow anyone, but he served as an often reliable batter and decent fielder. What makes him the best, though, is that he was far better than any other man to cover left field in an M’s uniform in the team’s 40-year history.

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