Jay Buhner’s surprising ‘pick to click’ for Seattle Mariners in 2025
Feb 23, 2025, 2:57 PM | Updated: 3:00 pm
The familiar voice of Jay Buhner, the third person to be inducted into the Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame, will be a regular presence on the team’s TV broadcasts this year.
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Naturally, “The Bone” was at M’s spring training on Friday getting a closer look at the team, which presented a good opportunity for him to catch up with his old friends from Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.
Buhner had a chat with Mike Salk on Friday morning about his new gig as part of the Mariners’ rotation of TV analysts, and he also shared his insight on the upcoming season.
That included an interesting answer for which Mariners player has his attention going into 2025.
The 32-year-old Moore is coming off his season in terms of value with a 2.2 bWAR, a lot of which has to do with his speed (32 stolen bases on 38 attempts) and strong defense at multiple positions that earned him the American League Gold Glove as a utility player.
While Moore played a career-high 135 games last season, he’s had better years as a hitter. In 2024, he put up a .201 average, .687 OPS, 10 home runs and 23 doubles. But Buhner believes that with Moore going into this year knowing he’ll see regular starts at second base, he can show there’s more to him at the plate than people have seen.
In fact, Buhner told Moore himself.
“I kind of grabbed him to the side a little bit and said, ‘Hey, this is an opportunity. This is what you’ve been waiting for your whole career. This is what anybody’s ever wanted is to get a chance, an opportunity to go out and play,'” Buhner relayed. “I mean, ‘You’ve been the super utility, you won a Gold Glove… You’ve never been given a chance to go play every day.’ And that communication is huge. He knows that now, so relax, go out and have fun.”
Even if Moore’s hitting numbers have never been huge, he’s always been able to help the team with his versatility, speed, and occasional pop at the plate – especially against left-handed pitching. He’s also had some clutch moments in his six years with the M’s.
Buhner acknowledged that Moore has more pressure on him this year than ever, but said he should “embrace it because this is what you worked so hard for.”
“Kid’s a stud, he’s a specimen,” Buhner continued, “so it’s for not lack of working out. His training and everything he did this offseason and all the quick-foot drills he’s done to speed up his feet. Now it’s just basically get these guys off to a fast start and then let them go play.”
Confidence is contagious
Buhner stayed on his point about a fast start, referring to how the M’s seemed to feed off each other in a strong final month in 2024.
He even brought up how he wouldn’t be surprised if another Mariners hitter who didn’t have the best numbers with the bat last year could see his fortunes turn in 2025.
“You know, (Mitch) Garver – I mean, (if) he starts off hot, you know what confidence breeds,” Buhner said.
“Who’s to tell these guys that they can’t get it done? They’ve got the pitching, now it’s just a matter of does somebody step up and get a timely hit? … And then when one person does it, next thing you know, you saw what happened the last six weeks (of 2024). It got contagious.”
Hear the full Brock and Salk conversation with Seattle Mariners TV analyst Jay Buhner in the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post. Catch Brock and Salk from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.
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