Mariners make 2 massive coaching changes that could save 2025 season

It was just last offseason when the Seattle Mariners were thinking of any way that they could transform their offense. Year after year of repeated struggles offensively left many wondering if it was the “marine layer," if the fences needed to be moved in, or if there was an issue with coaching.

Jerry Dipoto opted to hire Brant Brown in hopes of revamping the hitting philosophy. Brown didn’t make it through May before the team decided to move on. 

Fast forward to mid-August with the offense a bottom tier unit in the game, and changes were needed. At the same time that Dipoto decided to fire the second-most successful manager in Mariners history, he also decided to move on from the teams hitting coach.

Edgar Martinez joined Dan Wilson as the new hitting coach and they brought in a different style of Mariners baseball, one that saw them go 21-13 to end the year. A lot of questions arose about Martinez’s role moving forward, as it seemed liked the Hall of Famer wasn’t a fan of the long road trips. Would he be able to lead the offense again with his former teammate in 2025? Would we get a fresh voice to breathe new life into a putrid offense? Well, luckily for Mariners fans, it looks like we’re getting both. 

Edgar Martinez retains major role in offense while Kevin Seitzer takes over as hitting coach

It was announced late Monday night that the team would be retaining Martinez, just in a different capacity. Daniel Kramer reported Martinez will oversee the Mariners overall hitting program. It seems like this will allow him to impact the offense in many ways fans hoped he would, but give him the flexibility he desires.

With that change, the team needed a hitting coach to take over the so-called, “day-to-day operations." Dipoto absolutely hit it out of the park, snagging Kevin Seitzer, who served as the 2021 World Series champion Atlanta Braves hitting coach since 2015. Seitzer and the Braves continuously possessed one of the best offenses in the league since he joined the organization.

While it may seem fairly simple to do with the likes of Ronald Acuna Jr, Matt Olson, Austin Riley and more, the philosophy does play a large part of their success. In the last three years, the Braves offense has scored the second-most runs in the MLB, trailing only the Dodgers, with the fourth highest wRC+. Now, there are a lot of factors that go into it, but this is a huge get for Dipoto.

After adding Seitzer, it looks like Dipoto and the Mariners want to build upon the successes that changed the view of the Mariners offense over the last 34 games of 2024.