My longstanding support of the Hall of Fame candidacy of Edgar Martinez hasn’t escaped notice in the Pacific Northwest, but it was nonetheless very cool to get a shoutout from the Mariners’ booth during Wednesday’s M’s-A’s game. In the context of discussing the team’s upcoming Martinez jersey retirement celebration, they plugged The Cooperstown Casebook and cited my work and my discussion with Joe Posnasnski on the 8/3/17 PosCast.

What’s more, the Seattle Times‘ Larry Stone, who noted last December that I was winning over some BBWAA voters, interviewed me for his latest feature setting up Edgar’s big weekend and gave me the last word:

After crunching the numbers, Jaffe concluded that even with the built-in penalty assessed to a designated hitter in statistics such as Wins Above Replacement, Martinez still attained value commensurate with a Hall of Fame player.

“We’re talking about a guy who transcends the limitations of the DH role,” Jaffe said.

Transcending limits has pretty much been the Edgar Martinez life story.