Like Edgar Martinez, Ichiro Suzuki received some consideration as the top Seattle Mariner of all time, but instead, he will have to labeled the best hitter for average in team history.

A case can be made that Ichiro was one of the greatest hitters of the game period.  The Japanese native did not debut in the Majors until he was 27, and he was still able to collect 3,089 Hits, 2,542 of them with Seattle.  If you add his hits in the Japanese League, he has more combined than Pete Rose.

We almost put him number one, and would there not be a lot of logic for us to do so?

We can go to our grave jumping up and down that Ken Griffey Jr. is the better baseball player, and since his prime (which was a long one) was exclusively in Seattle, placing “Junior” at the top makes sense.

The son of Ken Griffey Sr., Ken Griffey Jr., was bred for baseball greatness.

Drafted first overall in the 1987 Amateur Draft, Griffey would debut as a teenager in 1989, where he had a sweet rookie year, with 120 Hits and 16 Home Runs.  That was a good start, but that was just the beginning of what would be one of the most exceptional baseball careers of all time.

Miguel Tejada signed with Oakland as an Amateur Free Agent from the Dominican Republic in 1993, and he would crack the main roster in 1997.  Tejada would be the starting Shortstop in 1999, where he would establish himself as one of the best power-hitting infielders in the game.  From 2000 to 2002, he would have 30 Home Runs, and from 2000 to 2003, he was able to secure at least 100 RBIs.  Tejada was an All-Star in 2002, the year he had 24 Home Runs, 131 RBIs, and a .308 Batting Average.  For his efforts, he would win the American League MVP.