The Seattle Mariners Are Retiring Edgar Martinez's Jersey This Summer
The Seattle Mariners will be retiring Edgar Martinez’s No. 11 on August 12 this upcoming season, prior to the M’s 6:10pm start against the Angels. Not to nitpick, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to do it the day before on the 11th? You know, like…Edgar’s number and shit? I dunno. Anyway, I’m not crazy about this move. Before Mariners fans get their pitchforks out, it’s not because I don’t think he’s worthy. Of course he’s worthy. Last week, I wrote about how pissed I was that Edgar isn’t already in the Hall of Fame, and nobody knows that feeling better than the Mariners themselves.
Here’s why I’m not crazy about this move — I think it’s pretty obvious that the Mariners are doing this to boost his Hall of Fame candidacy, but I don’t think that’s actually necessary. He should just flat out be a Hall of Famer based on his numbers. However, the reason why I think retiring his number right now isn’t a necessary measure to take is because his voting percentages are trending in a way that he’ll likely get in on year-10, which would be two more tries on the ballot, and also his last.
Here’s what I wrote last week:
Out of all the players on the 2017 ballot, Martinez saw the biggest jump of any player, going from 43.4% in 2016 to 58.6% this year. He has two years to accumulate the remaining 16.4% of the vote needed to get inducted. It can and will be done. In Raines’ eighth year on the ballot, he had 55.0% of the vote, so Martinez is already ahead of where Raines was at this time. Raines went from 55.0% to 69.8% in his ninth year, and then got in this year with 86% on his final try. One can only assume that Martinez will follow a similar path, especially considering the giant leap that he took this year.
Call me old school, but I like the idea of retiring a jersey once that player has made their way to Cooperstown. At the end of the day, will fans 50 years from now remember if a jersey was retired before or after their Hall of Fame induction? Probably not, so it’s not that big of a deal. But I just kinda take this as the Mariners throwing Edgar some brass knuckles in a fight against a dude that he could clearly take on his own.