Former Mariners tracker

[D-train]

[D-train]

TT just had not chance to make it in Seattle with a half dozen All Star corner OFers ahead of him

[Muri]

Maybe the hitting coaches here are terrible?

Please call them the title(s) they have EARNED.

Bench Coach & Offensive Coordinator & Diversification Strength with Bandwidth Conditioning Coach.

[D-train]

Maybe the hitting coaches here are terrible?

Please call them the title(s) they have EARNED.

Bench Coach & Offensive Coordinator & Diversification Strength with Bandwidth Conditioning Coach.

Yes hitting coach is so passe and 2022....

[D-train]

By Mike Vorel
Seattle Times columnist
As Jarred Kelenic collects compliments in Atlanta, Eugenio Suarez dispenses good vibes in Arizona, and Teoscar Hernandez launches homers into the LA night, the same maxim’s been on my mind:

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Because, while runs have been frustratingly scarce in Seattle, former Mariners have unanimously mashed.

Consider the list of players that graced the Mariners’ lineup for long stints last season.

Kelenic — who was traded with Marco Gonzales and Evan White for pitchers Jackson Kowar and Cole Phillips, an unceremonious salary dump — has delivered six hits with two RBI and one walk in his first 11 at-bats (a .545 average) for the Braves.

Suarez — who was dealt to the Diamondbacks for erratic reliever Carlos Vargas and backup catcher Seby Zavala, another money-saving move — is 6 for 18 (.333 average) with a homer, three runs scored and four RBI.

“There it goes!” Diamondbacks play-by-play broadcaster Steve Berthiaume said Saturday, as Suarez yanked a 90-mph fastball over the left-field fence for a solo shot. “Welcome to Arizona, Geno Suarez! He’s off to a terrific start.”


Hernandez — who signed with the Dodgers as a free agent this offseason — is tied for the major-league lead with four home runs, to go along with two doubles and nine RBI (plus an MLB-leading 13 strikeouts).

Jose Caballero — who was shipped to Tampa Bay for outfielder and first baseman Luke Raley — is settling in as the Rays’ starting shortstop, hitting .385 (5 for 13) with a double, a stolen base and three RBI.

Meanwhile, the Mariners (3-2) entered Tuesday night’s game against the Guardians ranking 18th in the majors in homers (4, as many as Hernandez), 23rd in runs (15), 23rd in hits (30), 27th in batting average (.189), 28th in on-base percentage (.254) and dead last in slugging (.283).

Of course, five games into a six-month marathon, concrete conclusions can’t be reached. For now, the sample size is insignificant, the opening note of an orchestra. It’s far too early to unfurl red flags or begin forming educated opinions.

And yet … we compare.

Because baseball fandom is built on this — on over-analysis; on mornings spent sifting box scores, comparing and irrationally concluding.

To compare is human.

It’s also cruel.

Because, while Kelenic and Suarez and Hernandez and Caballero have produced sizzling starts, their replacements have simultaneously struggled. Dominic Canzone, the Mariners’ opening day left fielder sans Kelenic, is 1 for 12 (.083) with six strikeouts … though the lone hit was a three-run homer that keyed Monday’s 5-4 win. Raley is also 2 for 11 with five Ks of his own.

Jorge Polanco, who was acquired to lock down second base, is off to a similarly plodding start — with two hits and eight strikeouts in 18 at-bats (.111), as well as a few near-homers that curled foul or fell cruelly at the warning track.

(Polanco, of course, is tasked with snapping a streak of snakebit Seattle second basemen — after Kolten Wong went 2 for 33 to kick off the 2023 campaign, Adam Frazier went 4 for 31 in his first seven games in 2022, and opening-day starter Dylan Moore went 9 for 82 in the entire month of April in 2021.)

At third base, Suarez’s departure has provided the Mariners’ most significant positional question mark. While Josh Rojas is off to an encouraging start, with four hits in his first eight at-bats, the same cannot be said for Luis Urias — whom the Mariners acquired from the Red Sox in an offseason swap for reliever Isaiah Campbell. The 26-year-old — who clubbed 23 homers for the Brewers in 2021 — has struck out five times without finding a hit in 10 plate appearances, while showcasing an erratic arm.

Which, by the way, underscores another element. Seattle said goodbye to two of MLB’s top-50 players in Baseball Savant’s outs-above-average metric, an accurate indicator of defensive value: Suarez (No. 19) and Caballero (No. 36). Urias, Polanco and Canzone are each perceived as defensive downgrades.

But the moves were made, in part, to put more balls in play. Last season, the Mariners’ 1,603 strikeouts were second most in the majors, behind only the Minnesota Twins (1,654). Suarez (214 strikeouts) and Hernandez (211 Ks) finished second and third in MLB, respectively.

The Mariners’ first five games, however, have not provided the intended improvement — with their 54 strikeouts sitting 27th in MLB.

This is the part where we emphasize, and reemphasize, that it’s early — that five games in a baseball season is a pint in Puget Sound; that Polanco, in particular, has proved he can hit, with a .268 average and 112 homers in 837 major-league games; that not every acquisition has suffered a slow start, with Mitch Haniger collecting five hits with three RBI and a homer in 17 at-bats; that the Mariners are still 3-2, with ample reason for optimism.

That hot and cold starts can equally deceive.

Take Kelenic’s 2023 campaign, in which he hit .308 with seven homers and 14 RBI in March and April … before managing a .234 average with four dingers the rest of the way.

After a sluggish spring, Kelenic has exploded out of the gates while hitting in the nine-hole in Atlanta.

But can he sustain that start?

“It’s huge [for Kelenic to get early results],” Braves manager Brian Snitker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last weekend. “It’s really good, obviously. When you do well, the game is really, really fun. Now that it’s counting, the at-bats, using his speed, the defense, everything has been really, really good. I think it’s big for a kid on a new team and all.

“Again, he’s brought a pretty good finish to the spring into the season, which is really good. And you see what this kid is capable of.”

Mariners fans saw what Kelenic was capable of, which makes the comparisons more maddening — the inevitable speculation surrounding whether he could have succeeded in Seattle. Likewise, if Urias, Canzone, Raley or Haniger struggle, the comparisons will only be amplified.

This, truly, is baseball’s unrelenting siren song — the temptation to wonder what could have been, one box score at a time.

[rockycola]

Hitting coaches - bah - aren't they overrated?

I'm sure the trade opened Kelenic's eyes, finally, but why couldn't the Mariners reach him. It was doomed from the start.
Interesting to see how the whole season goes for him.

Braves hitting coach deserves tons of credit for Jarred Kelenic's hot start
“We quieted down all the hand movement,” Seitzer said of their progress at spring training, per The Athletic. “Then the last adjustment was him saying, ‘I just want to bang the leg kick.’ He goes, ‘I’m trying to do too much, swinging too hard, my timing is not good.’ He goes, ‘I’ve done this before where I’ve just kind of spread out and gone just a little no-stride.’ Well, his spread-out, no-stride has equated into a real small leg kick, and it’s helped his position on his takes.”
I mean, the difference is night and day here, and the results are showing. Kelenic has recorded six hits in the first 11 at-bats of his Braves career and has walked the same amount of times as he's struck out (twice each). It's only a five-game sample, but we can see how real these adjustments are. There's every reason to believe that this hot start is sustainable.
There's a reason Kelenic was an early first-round pick and considered one of the best prospects in the game. The Mariners couldn't unlock that, but the Braves and Seitzer might have done so already.

Link to the whole article:

https://fansided.com/posts/braves-hitti ... -hot-start

[GL_Storm]

Hitting coaches - bah - aren't they overrated?

I'm sure the trade opened Kelenic's eyes, finally, but why couldn't the Mariners reach him. It was doomed from the start.
Interesting to see how the whole season goes for him.

Braves hitting coach deserves tons of credit for Jarred Kelenic's hot start
“We quieted down all the hand movement,” Seitzer said of their progress at spring training, per The Athletic. “Then the last adjustment was him saying, ‘I just want to bang the leg kick.’ He goes, ‘I’m trying to do too much, swinging too hard, my timing is not good.’ He goes, ‘I’ve done this before where I’ve just kind of spread out and gone just a little no-stride.’ Well, his spread-out, no-stride has equated into a real small leg kick, and it’s helped his position on his takes.”
I mean, the difference is night and day here, and the results are showing. Kelenic has recorded six hits in the first 11 at-bats of his Braves career and has walked the same amount of times as he's struck out (twice each). It's only a five-game sample, but we can see how real these adjustments are. There's every reason to believe that this hot start is sustainable.
There's a reason Kelenic was an early first-round pick and considered one of the best prospects in the game. The Mariners couldn't unlock that, but the Braves and Seitzer might have done so already.

Link to the whole article:

https://fansided.com/posts/braves-hitti ... -hot-start

Going into the season, I figured there was a decent chance JK would show some improvement, mainly due to the experience he's been banking against higher level pitching. If you look at successful major league hitters, most of them have a significant number of plate appearances at AA and AAA and then there's almost always an adjustment to major league pitching where fans on forums like this declare the player a lost cause. And then there's an offseason and the player works on some things and maybe something clicks in spring training, or it doesn't. But it does tend to take some time and a few iterations before an actual productive major leaguer emerges, and I think a big piece of that is just the day to day experience of facing pitchers that are trying to get you out in various ways over and over again.

I don't know if JK will actually perform over the course of a full season in 2024 or not. But with about 1600 plate appearances from AA to ML, the timing is about right. I'm sure the coaching matters too, but I think if there is real improvement it will have as much to do with all that experience and struggle sort of settling in.

[Sibelius Hindemith]

It's gonna take a lot more than 6 weak-ass singles in his first 11 AB's to convince me that JK is any better now than when he was here.

[Donn Beach]

Hitting coaches - bah - aren't they overrated?

I'm sure the trade opened Kelenic's eyes, finally, but why couldn't the Mariners reach him. It was doomed from the start.
Interesting to see how the whole season goes for him.

Braves hitting coach deserves tons of credit for Jarred Kelenic's hot start
“We quieted down all the hand movement,” Seitzer said of their progress at spring training, per The Athletic. “Then the last adjustment was him saying, ‘I just want to bang the leg kick.’ He goes, ‘I’m trying to do too much, swinging too hard, my timing is not good.’ He goes, ‘I’ve done this before where I’ve just kind of spread out and gone just a little no-stride.’ Well, his spread-out, no-stride has equated into a real small leg kick, and it’s helped his position on his takes.”
I mean, the difference is night and day here, and the results are showing. Kelenic has recorded six hits in the first 11 at-bats of his Braves career and has walked the same amount of times as he's struck out (twice each). It's only a five-game sample, but we can see how real these adjustments are. There's every reason to believe that this hot start is sustainable.
There's a reason Kelenic was an early first-round pick and considered one of the best prospects in the game. The Mariners couldn't unlock that, but the Braves and Seitzer might have done so already.

Link to the whole article:

https://fansided.com/posts/braves-hitti ... -hot-start

Going into the season, I figured there was a decent chance JK would show some improvement, mainly due to the experience he's been banking against higher level pitching. If you look at successful major league hitters, most of them have a significant number of plate appearances at AA and AAA and then there's almost always an adjustment to major league pitching where fans on forums like this declare the player a lost cause. And then there's an offseason and the player works on some things and maybe something clicks in spring training, or it doesn't. But it does tend to take some time and a few iterations before an actual productive major leaguer emerges, and I think a big piece of that is just the day to day experience of facing pitchers that are trying to get you out in various ways over and over again.

I don't know if JK will actually perform over the course of a full season in 2024 or not. But with about 1600 plate appearances from AA to ML, the timing is about right. I'm sure the coaching matters too, but I think if there is real improvement it will have as much to do with all that experience and struggle sort of settling in.

An important aspect is maintaining consistency, particularly with swings. I haven't studied him at all but I get the feeling his swing falls apart. I think with the pieces working smoothly he can hit, sounds like things are working smoothly now for him. The key will be maintaining it. See in a month it it goes out of kilter and he's back to tinkering with his swing again

[Hy Feiber]

JK 10-16, .625.

He’s on pace for 200 hits!