Mariners’ Dipoto explains change to hitting coach staff

ARLINGTON, Texas – Seattle Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto is acutely aware of where his team is.

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It doesn’t matter that the national commentators have said all season long they were among the favorites in a down year in the American League. It doesn’t matter what the Mariners looked like on paper coming into the season, or what the players to a man believe they can be. The on-paper has not squared with the in-reality, and the reality in the moment is not good.

“To be honest with you, what led us here is our offense has been abysmal for two months,” a somber Dipoto said prior to the Mariners’ fourth straight loss on Saturday. “And we were one of the top offensive teams in the American League last year.”

The “here” is in a position of regrouping after the decision was made to part ways with assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes and replace him with Ed Paparella, who was the organization’s hitting coordinator.

“Roughly since we we were in Washington (June 12-14), we just stopped playing offense,” Dipoto said. “And that’s not Bobby’s fault. Bobby’s a wonderful person. I think he’s a good coach. But we needed to stir up the content, try to offer something different than we’ve been doing, because what we’ve been doing just simply hasn’t been working.”

There are a myriad of offensive numbers that illustrate the shocking slide, with the simplest being that the Mariners – a team that was expected to contend for the World Series – is currently dead-last in the majors in batting average (.229) and second-to-last in slugging percentage (.375), and came into the weekend last in both categories against the fastball.

Despite the advantage of playing in a very forgiving division, instead of grabbing at the opportunity, the Mariners have slid below .500 to 51-54. According to Dipoto, the situation had been under evaluation for almost six weeks, with the eventual decision being that change was needed.

“Obviously, change grabs attention,” Dipoto said. “There are consequences to our results. We all feel the pressure of that. I think in this particular instance, Ed Paparella brings a different skill set than any of our other hitting coaches, and provides a content or access to content that is just different than the other guys. He is more in tune with biomechanics or the way the body works. The communication in and out with the HP (high performance) group.

“And Ed’s not just a hitting coach. He has a lot of different ways it can affect players’ outcomes. And he’s been with us for a handful of years now. He’s developed very nicely in our minor league system. And I think he’s got a skill set that can really help our group. We’ll find out if that’s meaningful.”

The Edgar Martinez/Kevin Seitzer/Bobby Magallanes triad were largely of the same mindset in hitting and hitting philosophies. Paparella can offer something different and brings familiarity, as he worked with the club this spring when Martinez and Magallanes were absent participating in the World Baseball Classic for three weeks.

“I don’t think any of this is Bobby Magallanes,” Dipoto said. “Bobby’s a wonderful human being. He’s a great guy. He’s a source of positivity, but at the end of the day, the only way to instigate some type of change is just by making some type of change. I’m not trying to scapegoat Bobby. We had internal discussions on what could we do that wouldn’t create absolute disarray that can turn some dials with a team that really needs a dial turn.

“To do something that changed our direction was necessary. I can’t say any more than that. And it’s not on Bobby Magallanes. It’s on me. It’s on our organization. It’s on our staff, our roster of players. For all of us, it just has to pick up.”

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