The Mariners plan to hire Kevin Seitzer as hitting coach, reports Daniel Kramer of MLB.com. Edgar Martinez, who finished last season in that capacity, will remain with the M’s in an overarching role. Kramer writes that Seitzer will report to Martinez, so it seems the franchise icon is still the team’s lead hitting voice. Martinez is not expected to regularly travel with the team on road trips, though he’ll be involved at Spring Training and during the majority of the club’s home games. Adam Jude of the Seattle Times tweets that Martinez’s official title will be senior director of hitting strategy.
Additionally, Kramer reports that the M’s are hiring Bobby Magallanes as assistant hitting coach. The 55-year-old spent the last four seasons working under Seitzer as an assistant hitting coach with the Braves.
Seitzer brings two decades of hitting coach experience to Dan Wilson’s staff. He’d worked in that capacity with the Diamondbacks, Royals and Blue Jays before being hired by the Braves during the 2014-15 offseason. Seitzer spent 10 seasons as Atlanta’s hitting coach. The Braves have been contenders for most of that stretch.
The development of Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II into star players has obviously been an instrumental part of the Braves’ success. Seitzer was fortunate to work with a lot of talented hitters, but he certainly deserves some amount of credit for overseeing a lineup that trails only the Dodgers in scoring over the last five seasons.
Still, the 2024 campaign was a mixed bag. The Braves’ offense floundered for a few months after Acuña’s season-ending knee injury. They finished the year 15th in scoring with a .243/.309/.415 team batting line. They were in the top 10 in slugging but right in the middle in both batting average and on-base percentage. That was below expectation for a team with as much star power as the Braves possess. Atlanta fired Seitzer, Magallanes, and catching coach Sal Fasano shortly after being eliminated from the playoffs.
It’s the latest shakeup to Seattle’s hitting infrastructure. The Mariners have struggled for years to field even a league average offense, which would probably be sufficient to get to the postseason given the strength of their starting pitching. The M’s hired Brant Brown as offensive coordinator last offseason. They fired him two months into the season in an effort to spark the lineup. That didn’t work, and the M’s dismissed hitting coach Jarret DeHart along with skipper Scott Servais three months later. Assistant hitting coach Tommy Joseph left the team at the end of the season to take the same position with the Orioles.
Martinez joined the staff when his longtime teammate Wilson signed on as manager. He had previously been reluctant to assume a full-time coaching position because of family considerations. It seems they’ve settled on an unconventional role that’ll allow Martinez to remain actively involved without spending much time away from Seattle.
Good hire, he will be managing soon.
Edgar staying around will add wins to the column
Not a SEA fan but this is true.
Our offense was the strength with cano and Cruz and seager during Edgar’s days I like to be optimistic
Edgar is not HOF material!
FWIW Edgar Martinez posted 68.4 bWAR and an OPS+ of 147 in 2,055 games while David Ortiz posted 55.3 bWAR and an OPS+ of 141 in 2,408 games.
Of course, it’s a Hall of FAME, not a Hall of Baseball’s Best Players.
Neither is this comment. There I said it!
Here’s the big acquisition. All the money has now been spent.
Where’s the question?
“Seitzer spent 10 seasons as Atlanta’s hitting coach”. That’s got to be some kind of record in light of how often hitting coaches are fired!
And to be honest there has been a ton of discussion about Seitzer and the Braves parting ways since just a year ago the braves set the major league record for best slugging percentage. Certainly all the injuries in 2024 were not Seitzer’s fault. But supposedly a “change had to be made”.
Very good hire by the Mariners.
“The Mariners have struggled for years to field even a league average offense” … well, yes and no. Over the past three seasons the team wRC+ has been 104, 108 and 108, so clearly above average from a true talent standpoint. What those numbers don’t account for, of course, is the effect of playing home games in by far the worst hitter’s park in MLB. (It’s a mini-miracle that the M’s actually were above league average in runs scored in 2023 at #12 overall – not surprisingly, #19 at home, #8 on the road.) Bringing in new coaches and players may help to an extent, but you can’t really expect drastic improvement offensively given the playing conditions during half the games.
This is what I hate about sabermetrics. The team can’t score runs, everybody knows it, but there a stat someone can point to that says, “they were actually pretty good, it was just the ballpark.” No, no it wasn’t. I’ve never seen so many strikeouts in my life, especially with the bases loaded and no outs. The offense was poor to very poor. If any stat says they weren’t, it should tell you something about the validity of the stat.
The Mariners scored 676 runs in a ballpark that reduced runs scored by 10 percent. The league average was 692.
They were a good offensive team.
Chester hitbthe nail on the head …runners in scoring position left stranded….mostly due to sliders down and away or impatience early in the count…
Scored below average runs, but still says they were an above average offense. You just can’t argue with someone who will ignore reality for statistics. Isn’t there a old adage about this… something about lies, damn lies, and statistics?
Are you trolling? Did you miss the part where the park reduced runs scored by ten percent? That means in a normal park the Mariners would have scored something like 720-740 runs, comfortably above average.
I keep forgetting how their offense was above average, their pitching was the best in baseball, and yet they still couldn’t get into the playoffs. I’ll check the stats again, I’m sure the league just keeps forgetting to include the Mariners in the playoffs… year after year.
“If they’re such good hitters. Why don’t they hit good?”
“Man refuses to understand park effects, more at 11”
So your argument is T-Mobile park is keeping an otherwise good team out of the playoffs?
What? How on earth did you get the idea that that’s what I’m saying? The Mariners missed the playoffs primarily because they sucked on the road and got zero production out of three typically offense-first positions (first base, right field, and DH). Scott Servias overstaying his welcome probably didn’t help either.
I agree the Mariners 2023 and 2024 approach at the plate was dog water. I also agree the park factor is a convenient excuse for poor performance that I’m getting tired of hearing.
wRC+ is absolutely a valid stat though. A team can be unwatchable at the plate and still be above average. Leaguewide batting is atrocious… the baseball itself isn’t even the same from year to year. wRC+ provides a baseline for fair comparison within a time period.
Every stat is valid, it’s how you use them that matters. Arguing that an unwatchable offense can still be above average, just lowers what “average” means.
It’s weird, isn’t it? Their approach was poor, but the results were good. Personally I’d prefer a more balanced offense, one less prone to streakiness in theory. They’re also the best base stealing team in the league and drew the second most walks.
Some people are so entrenched in their ill-informed opinions that no well-founded stat will correct that misconception.
Runs scored by year:
2024: 676
2023: 758
2022: 690
2021: 697
2020: 254 (COVID shortened)
2019: 758
2018: 677
2017: 750
2016: 768
This offense scored the least amount of runs of any Mariner offense since Dipoto took over. Lest we forget, runs are the only thing that matter in determining wins and losses. Yet, I’m the ill-informed one because WRC+? Mariner fans are some of the blindest sports fans I’ve ever encountered.
To be precise: Run DIFFERENTIAL is the only thing that matters in determining wins and losses. The hitting environment impacts the run-scoring capabilities of the Seattle Mariners and their opponents.
Show the average runs scored per team in another column right next to that and you’ll see whether the Mariners were above or below average in a given year. The average should be compared within single seasons not over time especially with all the rules changes and issues with the ball lately.
In 2017 the baseball was juiced and leaguewide scoring was up. In 2019 the ball had flatter seams reducing drag coefficient causing all time scoring and home run league total records. In 2021 they used 2 different balls because of covid supply chain issues. Then you have pitch clock and sticky stuff enforcement and extra inning rules etc etc. The league is tinkering trying to get offense up and it’s not exactly working as intended.
The context matters. I’m not arguing the Mariners aren’t a poor team at the plate. They are bad and it’s hard to watch. They can be objectively and subjectively bad and be above average at the same time.
Finally maybe there is some hope for the offense to be more consistent..Now a few smart trades/signings we might have something going..
great hire!!! braves fired the wrong one…. wish nothing but the best for him
@ATLbravos..You got that RIGHT! Should have fired Brian Snitker! He doesn’t know how to manage the pitching staff, especially pitching changes. He would bring in a Lefty with 5 or 6 Right handed batters due up or vice-versa! He has no clue. He cost the Braves 20+ games in ’24 with his stupid moves. He got away with that BS in ’21 because the Bullpen was way much better than the last couple of years. The Braves cannot be serious contenders with Snitker. The hitting coach just did not get the players attention. Way too aggressive approach. Never seen so many strikeouts on ball 4 with runners on base! Pair bad pitching moves and bad hitting decisions..and somebody had to take the blame. So they took the easy way out, but the main problem will still be sitting at the top of the dugout steps!
10000% never seen someone mismanage a BP as bad as him. he could develop players about it which is why he was successful in the minors. I’ll probably catch flack for this but shitker is cox 2.0, braves need to get rid of all the cox cronies and start a new era.
royals missed a huge opportunity here
As others have said, good move by the Mariners. Between Seitzer and Edgar, the hitting should improve in 2025.
i know this is controversial but another option to
improve the offense is to acquire better hitters
That’s crazy talk.
good lord seitzer has let himself go
how so?
haven’t see him since his playing days surprised at how heavy he looks
They need someone who can speak Spanish if Edgar isn’t travelling with the tea on the road.
They should leave the tea at home…it hasn’t helped team hitting.
They have to figure out why good players come here and forget how to hit! Happens way too often, it’s a thing
Seitzer is proven old school which I prefer. But teams want woke go by stats 100% mentality and the Braves will miss him