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Seattle Mariners: 3 biggest weaknesses going into the 2021 season
Hitting vs Left-handed pitching
What a lot of people thought the Mariners needed this offseason was more left-handed hitting. However, if you take a deeper look into the stats and what the future looks like for the Mariners lineup, it becomes more clear that what Seattle really needs is more right-handed hitting, or lefties who can hit left-handed pitching.
Seattle was the worst hitting team against left-handed pitching last year. In 2020 the Mariners finished last in the MLB in OPS against left-handed pitching at .609. They also ranked last in batting average, last in on-base percentage, and second to last in slugging all against left-handed pitching.
While they did nothing to address this, they do have Mitch Haniger and Tom Murphy returning who both missed all of last season and are both excellent hitters against lefties. However, here is how the Seattle Mariners fared against left-handers last season in terms of OPS, with players whose OPS vs. lefties was worse than vs. righties in bold.
C Tom Murphy: 1.103 (2019)
1B Evan White: .462
2B Dylan Moore: .762
3B Kyle Seager: .649
SS JP Crawford: .661
LF Fraley, Trammell, and Kelenic are all left-handed hitters
CF Kyle Lewis: .805
RF Mitch Haniger: .829 (Career)
DH Ty France: .630, Jose Marmolejos: .551
The moral of the story, the Mariners will most likely struggle again next season against left-handed pitching. Haniger and Murphy will help, but I don’t see them moving Seattle out of the bottom 5 in OPS vs left-handed pitching.