Mariners hire Atlanta Braves’s Kevin Seitzer to serve as hitting coach

Seitzer brings with him former Mariners 50th-round draft pick and assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes

The Mariners haven’t yet formally announced their 2025 coaching staff, but according to a report from Daniel Kramer, they’re making a change with their hitting staff. Edgar Martínez will remain with the club in a role that sounds an awful lot like the role of hitting coordinator, overseeing the general strategies but not traveling with the club, something it appeared he was unwilling to do full-time after stepping in to help out the club in the interim after the shocking dismissal of Scott Servais and Jarret deHart (deHart has since accepted a position to be the Yankees’ director of hitting). The Mariners also lost two other members of their coaching staff this off-season, as first-year assistant hitting coach Tommy Joseph left the team to take the same job with the Orioles, and field coordinator Carson Vitale - in that role with the Mariners since 2020, but a long-tenured member of the organization - is departing to be the bench coach for the Miami Marlins.

To replace deHart and Joseph, and round out the staff as Edgar takes a step back, the Mariners will reportedly be hiring both Kevin Seitzer and Bobby Magallanes from the Atlanta Braves. Seitzer and Magallanes were both dismissed despite having time remaining on their contracts, along with catching coordinator Sal Fasano, in a surprising move shortly after the end of the 2024 season.

The 62-year-old Seitzer had a decade-long MLB career, beginning with the Royals, who drafted the Illinois-born Seitzer in 1983 after a standout career at Eastern Illinois University. The lifelong midwesterner still maintains a baseball facility in Kansas City. Before his dismissal, Seitzer was the longest-tenured hitting coach with a team, having been with the Braves for a decade; however, he has almost another decade beyond that of experience coaching hitters, starting with the Diamondbacks in 2006 before moving to the Royals and the Blue Jays.

The 55-year-old Magallanes was the Mariners’ 50th-round draft pick in 1989, and when his playing career was over, became a coach with the Angels in 2002, managing the eventual Mariners-affiliate Arkansas Travelers from 2007-2010. He joined the Braves organization in 2019 and earned his way to the big-league club in 2021, winning a World Series ring with the club that year. Magallanes is bilingual, born in the US but of Mexican heritage, and played multiple years in the Mexican League.

Seitzer and Magallanes had the gift of overseeing one of the league’s brightest young offenses over the early 2020s, including superstar Ronald Acuña Jr., young stars like Dansby Swanson, Michael Harris III and Austin Riley, as well as All-Stars like Freddie Freeman and Ozzie Albies and exciting trade acquisitions like Matt Olson and Sean Murphy. Atlanta has been a constant threat in the playoffs, winning the AL East for a consecutive six years and the World Series in 2021, in addition to leading the league in almost every major offensive category in 2023, leading to Baseball America naming Seitzer MLB Coach of the Year.

But 2024 was a dreadful year for the Braves offense, breaking their streak of winning the AL East, marred by injuries (including season-ending ones to stars Acuña and Riley) and ineffectiveness. For all the sturm und drang, Atlanta did manage to sneak into the playoffs, but were promptly swept away by the Padres in the Wild Card round, leading to the Braves making a coaching change. In a post-firing interview, Seitzer told The Athletic his biggest struggle on the field was with getting players to stop pressing so much while the team was slumping:

“It was the hardest season of my life, because guys were trying so hard and couldn’t get going, and I couldn’t get them to (not press),” Seitzer said. “If they can find somebody to get these guys to not try so hard, that needs to be the guy they hire. You can talk about mechanics until the cows come home, but this (struggles this season) was all between the ears.”

Sounds a bit familiar, no? Lack of situational hitting was also a problem for the Mariners this season, so Seitzer won’t necessarily find a reprieve with this group of hitters. He also won’t enjoy quite the collection of talent—largely young talent—he had in Atlanta. But Seitzer’s track record is much longer than a lousy 2024. Like, much, much longer. Raul Ibañez has credited him with saving his career, for starters:

Seitzer advised Ibañez to shorten his stroke, not swing as hard as normal and to aim to line the ball the other way, in the direction of the shortstop, on every pitch...“Seitzer’s voice is still with me,” said Ibañez. “It’ll be with me every time I step up to the plate.”

With hiring Seitzer, the Mariners are signaling that they’re sticking with the approach Edgar Martínez instilled during his brief but successful second stint as hitting coach: less focused on the data and swing mechanics, and more of a general approach steeped in experience. As for Magallanes, he brings a sports psychology-influenced approach (he has a master’s in that area) that harmonizes well with the Mariners’ emphasis on mental skills. Happily for those of us who are Frequently Online, he’s a frequent guest on podcasts and posts on Instagram (@magallanesbobby), where you can learn more about his hitting philosophy.

The Mariners haven’t yet officially announced these moves (although Magallanes’s Instagram bio already lists him as part of the organization), but we’ll update the story if other significant moves are made, either in additions to the staff or departures from it.