Ichiro’s Return To Yankees In Question, But Desire To Play Is Not

Yankees’ right fielder Ichiro Suzuki is set to become a free agent after the season. He doesn’t know if he’ll be with New York next season, but he does want to play somewhere in 2015. Suzuki will turn 41 next month. 

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After bouncing back to a .284 batting average this season, after a platry .262 mark in 2013, Ichiro can still be a useful contributor, but a Yankee squad with limited power in the outfield may elect to go in a different direction.

Ichiro racked up close to 400 plate appearances this season, which probably wouldn’t have happened if Carlos Beltran hadn’t missed significant time with a variety of injuries.

Suzuki finished 2014 with 2844 U.S. major league hits, leaving him 156 short of the magical 3000 milestone. One season as a starter somewhere should get him there, but Ichiro doesn’t particularly care about getting to that level.

All he’s interested in is playing somewhere, preferably every day. He feels like he can continue playing at a productive level for the foreseeable future, and a team in need of veteran leadership and baseball intelligence could do worse than to bring him on.