Is Ibanez answer to M’s questions in left?

he offseason begins in 15 days for the Seattle Mariners, which means an annual event is just around the corner.

That’s right fans, all the M’s want by Christmas is a great left fielder.

This team needs a left-handed power hitter for 2006, and left field seems the obvious place to put him. While they’re being choosy, the Mariners might as well go for a guy with the speed of a sprinter and the defense of a Gold Glover.

That’s a lot to ask, which is one reason the Mariners have gone forever without such a left fielder.

While they play the free agent market and talk trade with other teams, one question has popped into mind the past six weeks.

What if the player they need is right under their noses?

What if Raul Ibanez, who has never been able to convince the team that he can play left field every day, is the man for the job?

“I would like them to think of me as an everyday left fielder,” Ibanez said. “That’s what I am in my mind.”

He’s handled the job well since becoming the Mariners’ primary left fielder after Randy Winn was traded and Chris Snelling was hurt.

Ibanez won’t win a track meet and he isn’t a Gold Glove defender, and his power won’t keep Carlos Delgado fans from thinking he’s the answer to the Mariners’ left-handed home-run needs.

But look at what Ibanez has produced this year. He will hit at least 20 home runs, drive in 85, play defense like he can be an everyday left fielder and run like … well, not like Ichiro Suzuki, but a lot better than he ever has.

It’s the legs that have made a big difference in the rest of his game.

Ibanez, whose hamstring problems last year rendered him painfully slow, worked last winter in Miami with a trainer who taught him the proper way to run.

“I had to learn how to run correctly after years of running with poor form,” he said. “At times it was frustrating, it was tedious, it was plain hard. But it was worth it.”

Ibanez doesn’t look like the same lumbering ballplayer who was a station-to-station runner on the bases last year. He has a career-high nine stolen bases this season, including a steal of home last week.

“He doesn’t scare me when he runs now,” trainer Rick Griffin said. “He used to run real heavy-legged and his stride was irregular. It would be long for two steps and then short. He was constantly changing his stride. He’s off his heels and running on the balls of his feet now, and he’s doing things more like a sprinter. It has taken the stress off his legs.”

The improvement may be easier to see on the basepaths, but it has made a bigger difference in Ibanez’s defense.

“My weakness was going back on balls and I would have to play deeper to cover the ground going back,” he said. “Now, I can play more shallow, yet I can still run balls down going back.”

Even to those who didn’t see Ibanez slog through last season have noticed his good wheels. Manager Mike Hargrove says he can be an everyday left fielder.

Hargrove didn’t give Ibanez much of a chance this season in left field, a position stocked well with Winn. The Mariners’ greatest need was for Ibanez to be the DH, replacing the retired Edgar Martinez.

He was the opening-day DH, and hoped it would become a permanent label.

“I always considered myself a left fielder,” Ibanez said. “But at the beginning I was doing (the DH role) out of necessity for the club. We had Randy here, and I understood that.”

He played where Hargrove put him and didn’t say a foul word about it.

“I never heard him bitch about it once,” Hargrove said. “Not once.”

Ibanez maintained his patience and embraced the rare opportunities to play the field. Hargrove used him four times at first base, where he never seemed comfortable.

Back at DH, Ibanez waited for the rare opportunity to play the outfield.

It came when the Mariners dealt Winn to the Giants at the trade deadline and his replacement, Snelling, suffered a season-ending knee injury a short time later.

Ibanez, who has played every game this season, has made 45 starts in left field and shown he can handle it.

What that gets him next year, nobody knows, including himself.

“I would like to have a conversation about it at some point,” he said.

Kirby Arnold, Herald baseball writer