New Mariners manager Jason Kanzler was a walking web gem in CF

A clear area where the Seattle Mariners need improvement next season is on defense. Their new manager, Jason Kanzler, seems like he should be able to help there, at least when it comes to Seattle’s outfielders.

Shannon Drayer: Inside Mariners’ choice of Kanzler as manager

While not much is known about the managing style of the 36-year-old Kanzler, who joins Seattle after a stint as Chicago Cubs director of player development, one thing that is apparent is that he was quite the defender in center field during his playing days.

During his college career with the Buffalo Bulls, the New York native and 2013 Mid-American Conference Player of the Year won a Rawlings Gold Glove Award in both 2012 and 2013. Here’s how impressive that is: he was the first player in NCAA history to win multiple Gold Gloves.

It’s not easy to find proof of Kanzler’s defensive abilities online, but there are a couple videos out there.

There is one (link here) of a diving catch he made for Buffalo on April 18, 2012 against Canisius that has made its way to YouTube.

But the most impressive actually occurred after his playing career, and in fact it was the No. 1 play on a SportsCenter Top 10 list back in August 2020.

During a time when he was hitting coach for the Double-A Corpus Christi Hooks, Kanzler manned center field during an Houston Astros intrasquad game and made an absolutely ridiculous web gem, covering some serious ground before laying out to rob a Hooks hitter of extra bases in deep right-center.

You can see that catch here:

Hooks hitting coach @KanzlerThinks went full SUPERMAN 🦸🏻‍♂️ during yesterday's intrasquad game and woke up as @SportsCenter's No. 1 play!

ARE YOU KIDDING US, KANZLER?! pic.twitter.com/1dtTfSl4ZU

— Corpus Christi Hooks (@cchooks) August 10, 2020

At the time, Kanzler was five years removed from his playing career. He was a 20th-round MLB Draft pick by the Minnesota Twins in 2013 and played 255 career minor league games in the Twins system from 2013-15.

Kanzler started his pro coaching career in 2019 as hitting coach for High-A Fayetteville, had his stop in Corpus Christi in 2020, and spent 2021 as the Astros’ minor league hitting coordinator. He then was on the Astros’ major league staff in 2022 and 2023 before taking the role of Cubs director of player development in 2024.

The Mariners need help on the defensive end. They finished last in MLB in 2026 with a fielding run value of minus-59 (MLB average is 0), 15 points lower than the second-worst team and well behind the Cubs’ plus-72 that led baseball. Seattle was also last in the range metric at minus-46.

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