The Mariners dismissed assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes on Thursday afternoon (link via Adam Jude of The Seattle Times). Minor league hitting coordinator Ed Paparella will join the big league staff through season’s end.
Magallanes was in his second season on the Seattle staff. The M’s hired him in tandem with their hiring of hitting coach Kevin Seitzer over the 2024-25 offseason. Magallanes had been an assistant hitting instructor under Seitzer for the previous four seasons with the Braves. Edgar Martinez, the team’s senior director of hitting strategy, is still the lead voice for the organization. Martinez is in more of an overarching role rather than a full-time coaching position.
Seitzer remains in his position. Daniel Kramer of MLB.com writes that Magallanes was primarily a voice on mechanics, whereas Seitzer’s focus is more on offensive approach. The Mariners had one of the better offenses in the league in 2025, finishing at the back half of the top 10 in scoring and OPS despite playing in one of the sport’s toughest home parks. Only the Yankees and Brewers scored more runs on the road than Seattle did last year.
The offense has evaporated this year. Only the Blue Jays have scored fewer runs than the Mariners, who are hitting .229/.310/.377 to land in the bottom third in all three slash categories. This can’t as easily be attributed to T-Mobile Park. The Mariners are tied for 24th in road scoring. It’s a massive disappointment considering the amount of talent on the roster.
Cal Raleigh, one year removed from one of the greatest seasons by a catcher in MLB history, is hitting .163/.269/.304. Rookie infielder Colt Emerson has hit .189/.254/.360 in his first 51 games. Josh Naylor has been a league average hitter in the first season of a five-year, $92.5MM contract. J.P. Crawford has gone cold. The right field/DH group including Dominic Canzone, Luke Raley and Victor Robles haven’t produced lately. Seattle has been without Brendan Donovan for most of the season and lost Raleigh for a month between mid-May and June, but they’ve otherwise been mostly healthy.
One coaching change isn’t going to fix everything, but the M’s clearly need to do something to spark the offense. They’re reportedly open to dealing Emerson Hancock, which could be a means of adding a big bat. Even if Hancock stays put, they’re surely going to bring in some kind of right-handed bat to try to improve their anemic production against lefty pitching. That could be on top of adding an everyday right fielder.
The 31-year-old Paparella joins an MLB staff for the first time in his career. He has spent the last five seasons in various player development roles. Paparella, an outfielder at the University of South Alabama from 2016-19, didn’t play professionally. He was a teammate of Donovan’s with the Jaguars for his first three college seasons.
