How Mariners' Brendan Donovan can break drought that dates back to Ichiro

As Opening Day nears for the Seattle Mariners, a wave of hope and optimism are in the air in the Pacific Northwest. One of the biggest reasons is the Mariners new leadoff hitter, Brendan Donovan.

He came over in a late offseason trade from the St. Louis Cardinals and is slated to play third base and hit from the leadoff spot. His approach, skillset, and production are exactly what the lineup needs and he has the potential to do something not done since Ichiro.

The Mariners have not had a player since Ichiro Suzuki back in 2004 lead the league in batting average. That was one of the best parts of Ichiro's game, and it is something that is dwindling as a whole in baseball today. The Mariners have not had a true prototypical leadoff hitter in a long time. J.P. Crawford has performed well out of the leadoff spot at times in his career, but the pedigree that Donovan brings to the top of the lineup is the best the M's have had in a long time.

Brendan Donovan is the leadoff hitter the Mariners have been looking for

In his career Donovan is a .282 hitter and has been in the .280s three out of his four big league seasons. Even his one year hitting below .280, he hit .278. For most of his time doing that in St. Louis he was not on very competitive teams. They missed the playoffs in three of his four years, but in the one year they went to the playoffs he had his best OPS+ at 124. Sometimes playing on a good team can bring out the best in players and that could help Donovan.

Looking at the Mariners' deep and strong lineup going into 2026, Donovan should get a lot of pitches to hit because Cal Raleigh will likely be hitting behind him with Julio Rodríguez to follow. After hitting 60 home runs last season, pitchers likely will want to avoid facing Raleigh with the bases occupied, so Donovan should get plenty of strikes to hit. For his career, he's a .305 hitter in the strike zone.

He also just had an incredible spring training, where he had a .413 batting average and hopefully brings that north to Seattle.

After that elite performance, fans should be hopeful that Donovan can be the missing piece to the Mariners roster to help get them to a World Series for the first time. If he can take an extra step offensively hitting in a much better lineup that he ever played in while with the Cardinals then he could challenge to hit over .300 which would put him in contention for the batting title.