SEATTLE MARINERS

Petriello: How Mariners can address hitting in T-Mobile Park

Jan 29, 2025, 10:30 AM | Updated: 12:13 pm

It’s no secret that T-Mobile Park isn’t a friendly site for MLB hitters, but now we have a greater view on just how drastic the effects of the ballpark are and why they happen.

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In a story published Monday on MLB.com, writer Mike Petriello took a deep dive into the stadium that had greatest impact on offense this past season. While many baseball fans across the country would probably be quick to point at the notoriously hitter-friendly Coors Field in Denver, it was the Seattle Mariners’ home ballpark that topped the list – for the opposite reason. Seattle’s T-Mobile Park carried a park factor of 89 this past season, which means offenses performed 11% below league average when playing in the Emerald City.

Petriello pointed out a few key factors in his article, including the ballpark’s greatly inflated strikeout numbers, the effects of the crooked batter’s eye beyond the center field fence, and even the way wind changes not only the trajectory of flyballs but the movement of pitches on their way to home plate. His analysis also included some very telling stats from the home and road splits for Mariners hitters and pitchers.

“You go ahead and look at these numbers and it’s undeniable what’s going on in the Pacific Northwest,” Bump and Stacy co-host Michael Bumpus said.

Is there a way for the Mariners’ to combat the issues T-Mobile Park presents? Petriello discussed that and more with Bump and Stacy on Tuesday.

“There might be an argument to say, well, if the ballpark inflates strikeouts, then maybe we really should go get like a Luis Arráez or someone who’s a very good contact hitter. That would be an interesting thing to do about it,” Petriello said, referring to San Diego’s batting champion.

Petriello noted that the Mariners did start to use a different approach while seeing improved results down the stretch last season, but that also came with different players contributing.

“I know (president of baseball operations Jerry) Dipoto pointed that out and said they tried a different approach, because he basically said you can’t pull and elevate and lift the ball here like you can everywhere else, we shouldn’t try to build a team that does that,” Petriello said. “I think that’s really interesting. The only caveat to it is, I’m not sure I buy into it yet because the lineup changed a lot too. You had guys acquired midseason like Justin Turner and (Victor) Robles, Randy Arozarena, and some other guys departed.

“So I’m not going to say that because they were good in September, that this new approach is going to change everything. But you can color me intrigued, because it’s hard to do that even for a month, and they at least did that.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player in this story. Tune in to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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Petriello: How Mariners can address hitting in T-Mobile Park