SEATTLE MARINERS

How new M’s hitting coach Seitzer has grown with the game

Jan 28, 2025, 2:00 PM | Updated: 11:11 pm

Much has changed since Kevin Seitzer’s days as a two-time All-Star who oftentimes saw a three at the front of his batting average.

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But the Seattle Mariners’ new hitting coach doesn’t need to go back to 1980s and 90s to illustrate just how much hitting differs in today’s game from the past. He can just point to the rapid changes in the analytics-driven baseball world since he landed his first job as a hitting coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks before the 2007 season.

“A lot (has changed) in 15 years – and when I say a lot, it’s a lot,” Seitzer said when he recently joined The Hot Stove Show on Seattle Sports, which airs each Tuesday night from 7-9 p.m. leading up to Mariners spring training. “I had no assistant (hitting coaches), I was the hitting coach. I was the only guy for probably my first, I don’t know, six years, seven years, something like that. And then I had my first assistant.

“Had no idea how I did it all by myself before that, but that was also when the analytics started to get introduced and people spent more time scouting that way.”

Not all from Seitzer’s generation have got on board with today’s analytics-driven game. He was skeptical about it himself.

“It ended up adding more time,” he said. “They kept telling me it’s going to take away how much time I have to prepare and I said, no, it’s going to add to it because I’m going to still do what I’ve always done, because this is how I know I’m ready and I can get the hitters ready.”

The 62-year-old native of Springfield, Ill., was willing take on the task of looking at hitting in a different way than his generation did coming up. Ultimately, he’s glad that he did.

“As I got smarter about it, more efficient, streamlined more, they were right,” Seitzer said. “It’s helped immensely as far as being able to get an idea of what a pitcher looks like and how (the pitches are) going to move and how his is stuff going to play. And then that’s the part where you translate that to the hitters in the simplest form as to how they like it and how they want it. So really the analytics is taking the job to a whole new place.”

What Seitzer brings to the table

Seitzer brings a lengthy track record of big league experience to a Mariners squad with offensive struggles that are well documented. He was a career .295 hitter with over 1,500 hits in 12 MLB seasons, and he led the league with 207 hits with the Kansas City Royals in 1987.

More recently, Seitzer has made his impact felt from major league benches working as the hitting coach for four different organizations since 2007. His most recent stint was 11 years with the perennially contending Atlanta Braves. Atlanta ranked second in runs scored and third in wRC+ in all of baseball from 2019-23 under Seitzer, including leading MLB in both categories in 2023.

Seitzer, who won a World Series with Atlanta in 2021, said he started taking close looks at the Mariners batters he’ll be working with this season as soon as he was hired, combing through detailed scouting reports from the organization and analyzing videos of swings. But the real work won’t start until he and the ballclub meet in Peoria for spring training.

“Really until you get one-on-one in the cage with guys – and I’ve had phone conversations with all of them too – but until you get in that cage, that’s when you can get down to it,” he said.

The veteran hitting coach said he emphasizes the mental aspect of the game most.

“I am all about what happens between the ears,” Seitzer said. “I’m huge on approach – plan where you hunt. That’s a big part of getting a good pitch to hammer, being able to lay off the chase stuff, have less swing and miss. It helps with timing, helps with recognition and helps you repeat that good path to where you want to stay inside the ball when you’re really locked in on what your approach is, which is for me, it’s middle of the field (and) gap-to-gap.”

M’s new assistant hitting coach

Joining Seitzer on the Mariners’ staff this season is assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes, who spent the past four seasons with the Braves. While Seitzer characterized himself as a coach who focus more on the mental aspect of hitting, he said Magallanes specializes in working on players with their swing mechanics.

“His love and passion is the swing and the mechanics and all of that,” Seitzer said, “and he likes to spend hours (watching) super slo-mo, side-by-side comparison stuff.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio players in this story. Listen to The Hot Stove Show on Tuesday’s from 7-9 p.m. leading up to the start of spring training.

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