On Saturday afternoon, the Seattle Mariners announced that they hired former Mariners designated hitter and third baseman Edgar Martinez as their new hitting coach.
Howard Johnson had been the hitting coach for the first three months of this season, but the Mariners have decided to move in a new direction. Johnson has been reassigned to a Minor League role following the move. HoJo, as they like to call him, has been a part of the Mariners organization since 2013 when he was the hitting coach with the AAA club, the Tacoma Rainiers. Starting in 2014, he joined the Major League club with the new coaching staff that was brought in under new manager Lloyd McClendon.
Martinez, now 52, seems to be the perfect man for this job as he spent his entire 18-year MLB career with Seattle, mostly as a designated hitter. He played in 2,055 games as a Mariner. The seven-time All Star ended his career with a slash of .312/.418/.515 and also won two batting titles. He is regarded as one of the best right-handed hitters in Major League history, and a bid to the Hall of Fame has been very controversial as he played most of his career as a DH.
This season has been quite a struggle for the Mariners at the plate. Seattle is 28th in the league in total runs scored, and they tote the worst average in the Bigs at .233. With names like Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz in the lineup, numbers like these just cannot be acceptable and the front office felt a new voice was needed.
Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik said in a statement released by the team, "We had reached the point where a change was necessary."
Martinez will begin Saturday night as the hitting coach in Game 2 of their home series vs. the Houston Astros, and he will be wearing his famed number 11. This will be Martinez's first official coaching position, but he has helped out in the past in the Minors and at Spring Training.