Looking Back at Past Seattle Mariners Most Valuable Player Winners
To the shock of a seldom few, New York Yankees star center fielder Aaron Judge was named the American League Most Valuable Player by the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Thursday.
Judge was a unanimous winner, earning all 30 first-place votes.
Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh was among the vote-getters, earning 12 MVP points and finishing 12th overall in MVP voting. But the number of Mariners Most Valuable Player winners remains at two.
Granted, it's a good pair: 2016 Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. and possible 2025 Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki.
Griffey Jr. won the award in 1997 and Suzuki won in 2001.
Here's a break down of the two MVP seasons put together by the pair of Seattle legends:
Ken Griffey Jr., 1997
Griffey Jr. had placed in the top five of MVP voting three times before 1997, including a runner-up finish in 1994.
Griffey Jr. finally was recognized as the best player in the AL in '97. He had a .304 batting average with 56 home runs and 147 RBIs. He had an OPS of 1.028, the second-highest single-season total of his career.
Ken Griffey Jr. went deep twice for the @Mariners on #OpeningDay in 1997. pic.twitter.com/N1tEz7KRyI
— MLB Vault (@MLBVault) April 1, 2021
Ichiro Suzuki, 2001
Suzuki came to America in 2001 at 27 years-old after playing nine years in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball with the Orix Buffaloes (then Blue Wave).
Suzuki instantly became one of the best players in the game. He hit .350 with eight home runs and 69 RBIs and also stole 56 bases. He also won AL Rookie of the Year on top of MVP honors. Suzuki's first season in the majors was the last time the Mariners made the playoffs before breaking the drought in 2022.
Suzuki was just the second player ever to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season and was the first Japanese-born player to win an MVP in MLB history.
OTD in 2001, Ichiro Suzuki became only the second player to win MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season.pic.twitter.com/aZ7qBCL7TB
— MLB Vault (@MLBVault) November 20, 2020
Griffey Jr. is one of two players in franchise history, along with Edgar Martinez, to have his jersey number retired by Seattle.
The general rule in the organization is players need to be inducted in the Hall of Fame to have their jersey retired.
Suzuki is on his first Hall of Fame ballot for the 2025 class. If he gets inducted, his jersey number might join Martinez's and Griffey Jr.'s in the stands past the left-center field corner.
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