Griffey Pondering His Future: Rain Or Sun? Disenchanted With Weather, Moves, M’S Star Will Decide If He’ll Return

Ken Griffey Jr., in the final season of four-year, $24 million contract, is pondering whether he wants to remain a Seattle Mariner.

“I’m not sure when I’ll figure it out; probably in a couple of weeks,” he said. “I know what I’m leaning toward. … I’m pretty sure now, but not certain.”

At least one factor in the decision is Seattle’s chilly, wet climate, Griffey told the Seattle Times in a telephone interview from Florida, where he and his family are building an estate in a golf community near Orlando, Fla.

“What’s making the decision tough is being here (in Florida),” Griffey said. “I like Seattle, the fans and all. But being here, where we can go outdoors to hang all the time every day, is great.

“I’ve only been back (to Seattle) one day since we left Dec. 18 … Our house in Issaquah (a Seattle suburb) will go up for sale in about a week and a half.”

The Mariners and Griffey’s agent, Brian Goldberg, have had several discussions about extending the all-star outfielder’s contract.

Griffey indicated he expects to receive $8 million to $9 million a year for a four-year extension, and Goldberg said the Mariners are “very much in the ballpark financially.”

But Goldberg said, “there are factors over which no one has any control that will probably figure in what happens.”

Those factors include the team’s competitiveness. The Mariners reached the American League Championship Series for the first time in their history last season, losing to the Cleveland Indians.

But they’ve made off-season personnel moves that sent some members of that best-ever M’s club packing.

“I hated to see us break up a good team and good bunch of guys,” Griffey said. “I care a lot about who I play with. It hasn’t helped to see Tino (Martinez) and Blow (Mike Blowers) go, or Nellie (Jeff Nelson).

“The guys they’re bringing in may be good players, but we just don’t know how it will all fit together. It’s like we’re starting over. The Mariners are always starting over, and that gets old.”

Griffey said if he decides to stay with the Mariners, he’ll settle on a contract before spring training. If he decides to go, he said, he prefers to be traded.

“I know where I want to go … if I go,” he said.

“And if I decide that, I don’t think the Mariners should try to keep me, hoping I’d sign at some point during the season.”

For the Mariners’ part, the prospect of trading one of the best players in the game is a least-favored scenario.

“I don’t want to be known as the man who traded Ken Griffey Jr.,” general manager Woody Woodward said.