Raul Ibanez

Going into the 2009 season, teams are looking to make it back into the post-season. Fans are anxious to get another season underway, players are anxious, umpires are anxious. Another season of good, hardcore baseball.

Each season, you have those players who come out of nowhere, teams who shock the world. Who will be the league leader in home runs? What about the best pitcher of the year?

We are ¼ of the season done already. And we have players who have come out of nowhere as well. My awards so far:

Noted sabermetrics guru Bill James popularized the concept a while back that a player often peaks at age 27, hits his prime when he's 27-30, and then gradually declines.

Nobody told Raul Ibanez of the Philadelphia Phillies though.

Ibanez is hitting .353 through 42 games with 17 homers and 43 RBI.

These are eye-opening numbers for any major leaguer. They're phenomenal for a guy who will turn 37 on June 2. It seems to be part and parcel of the contrarian career of the former Seattle Mariner.

Here are Ibanez's numbers during his "peak" years.

When Pat Burrell left the Phillies for the Rays, I thought we were in trouble. Get rid of the right batting Burrell to had the left batting Ibanez? I didn't understand considering Burrell was an above average fielder and his bat was always a great addition—when he wanted to hit.

Raul Ibanez continues to show everyone in baseball that he is fitting in quite well in Philadelphia.

So much so that Ibanez was just named the National League's Player of the Week.

In the last week, Ibanez totaled 12 RBI, along with nine runs, which topped the NL. His four homers were also second in the entire league.

Ibanez ended the week with an amazing .481 average and a .963 slugging percentage. This award was the fifth of Ibanez's career, and obviously his first in red and white pinstripes.

I was wrong.  I was so very wrong.  I want to apologize for my mistake.

When word started to spread that the Phillies had acquired Raul Ibanez I read all the on-line debates that started on message boards everywhere. Many fans were not happy with the signing of Ibanez, and the subsequent departure of fan-favorite Pat Burrell that the signing signaled.  Some said that the lineup was too lefty heavy now. 

When the Phillies signed outfielder Raul Ibanez in December, Phillies fans questioned the decision.

Ibanez never received much publicity playing for a bad Seattle Mariners team on the West Coast, so to the common fan he was an unfamiliar face and name. He was 36, turning 37 in June.

He was a left-handed hitter, even though the Phillies already had lefties Ryan Howard and Chase Utley in the middle of their lineup. An even bigger reason the Philly faithful were skeptical of the signing was because it meant the team wouldn’t be resigning fan favorite Pat Burrell.

With Erik Bedard and Jarrod Washburn’s successes in the past week, a 5-2 record going into the Mariners home-opener, and both Endy Chavez and Yuniesky Betancourt hitting over .350, there is a ton of reason to be optimistic as an M’s fan.

In 2001 the Mariners came into the season with a lot of questions.