Day Nine: Kenji Johjima

Kenji Johjima. Strange to think that Kenji only played with the Mariners for four years. It felt a lot longer than that. Perhaps this is largely due to the fact that the Mariners of that era were both highly entertaining and extremely depressing. There was no middle ground for the 'Ners in the second half of the 00s. I think there are a significant number of rememberers who will say that Kenji was never very good. I am not one of those rememberers. Johjima was never great, but in a world where it is really difficult to find someone to put on the tools of ignorance day in and day out, Kenji Johjima was about as consistent a presence as you could hope for in the first three seasons he was a major leaguer. 

When Johjima arrrived in Seattle before the 2006 season there was an obvious buzz about the signing. Every Japanese player that the Mariners had signed up to this point had been a huge success. There wasn't a dud in the bunch: A once in a generation paradigm shifter, a hard drinking forkballer, and a chilled out middle reliever whose numbers rivaled the all-time great setup guys for a couple years. Needless to say, the expectations for Kenji Johjima were through the roof. Now, as time has gone on, people have learned to temper their expectations regarding Japanese position players but in 2006 there were only guys like Ichiro, defending World Series champ Tad Iguchi, and Godzilla. I just looked at an article that ranks the greatest Japanese born position players and they've got Johjima pretty high on the list. More than a decade after his last major league game this should say something. 2006 was a great rookie campaign for Johjima. He finished fourth in ROY voting. And the Mariners looked poised to return to a competitive level. The ugliness of the Miguel Olivo (first Olivo ugliness) and Ben Davis were quickly forgotten. Then, in 2007, the Mariners had a renaissance. This was my favorite season of my adult life (anything post 2001, the year I graduated from high school...and the last time the Mariners made the playoffs lol) without a doubt. My friend Lossom and I used to go to what we called the VIP lounge (the CF bleachers) pretty much as often as possible. And being young do-nothings (well, I was a do-nothing and Lossom was home from war, so there wasn't much expectation that he do anything but grow his hair until his next deployment.) we were out there in our shirt-sleeves enjoying the breeze off the bay most nights. And Kenji Johjima was in the line-up all the time too. Johjima played in 135 games that year (at age 31) and put up numbers that teams would salivate over in 2020. I don't really understand how JT Realmuto is so highly valued, beyond the framing thing, because his offensive numbers are pretty much the same as Johjima's. But perhaps that is the wrong way of looking at it. Perhaps Johjima was immensely undervalued. And I think that's probably the case. When he left to return to Japan to finish his career after the 2009 season (which was a tremendously fun year to be a Mariners fan as well) and Miguel Olivo returned to anchor one of the worst offensive squads in the history of baseball. The Kenji-haters were pretty goddamn quiet. And as the years have rolled by Johjima's legacy in my hall of fame has been secured. Without question, Kenji Johjima is the second best catcher the Mariners have ever had. Now certainly this is a qualified statement as there have never been a lot of great Mariners catchers, but regardless of that, Johjima is a inner-circle Mariner in my eyes. And his peak years of 2006 and 2007 hold up. 2008 is a year of what-ifs. There are so many things that went dreadfully wrong that year that I hesitate to hold any season from any player on that team as an example of their career (with the exception of Bedard. That was a fine example of his worth.) and was a turning point in the history of the Mariners' struggles. 2008 was a year that could have gone a lot of directions and had it not been historically bad, perhaps Kenji would have decided to finish his career in the states and we would be having a very different conversation about the Mariners trajectory over the past decade. If I wasn't desperately broke from this world wide pandemic I'd buy a Kenji Johjima rookie card. They're basically free, but so are the good memories. Much love, Lossom. Hope to catch a game with you again some day. Still the only person I'll stand for the National Anthem with.