The Edgar Effect

It's now been nearly a month—25 days, to be exact—since the Seattle Mariners finally got around to firing their manager (Scott Servais) and alleged hitting coach (Jarret DeHart) and replacing them with former Mariner players Dan Wilson and Edgar Martinez, respectively. I said at that time that despite their poor standing the change made me more bullish on the potential of the Mariners making the postseason than I'd been in months, and now, after 25 days, how are things looking?

Well, not great. But a better grade of not-great than before, to be sure.

Currently, the M's are four games over the .500 mark and 2 games out of a postseason berth (the ridiculous third Wild Card) with 12 games left to play. When Wilson took over, the team was at .500 and five games back of playoff standing. So it is marginally better, but time is running out, and it would still be a bit of an upset if they managed to get into the October tournament.

But the difference aside from the standings isn't marginal, it's enormous.

That improvement is, naturally, in the offense. Edgar taking over from the woefully ill-equipped DeHart as batting coach has changed the whole way of thinking for the team, away from the stupid stuff like launch angles and barrel rates and back toward the important things like contact and situational awareness. Here's a very simple stat to show the change in attitude:

Under Servais/DeHart: 18 sacrifice flies (128 games)

Under Wilson/Martinez: 11 sac flies (22 games)

That's a 500% increase in the simple act of getting a runner home from third base with a fly ball. Productive outs in general has been a key point in Edgar's tutelage so far, which you'd think would be a basic, known element for batters, but under DeHart the very idea was apparently discouraged.

But it isn't just making better outs that's improved, far from it. All team batting stats have been raised since Edgar came back to the dugout:

Team slash line under Servais/DeHart: .216/.301/.365

Team slash line under Wilson/Martinez: .254/.354/.416

Runs per game? Up from 3.9 to 5.2. Hits per game, walks per game, RBI per game, doubles per game, homers per game, all up. And strikeouts per game are down, though not significantly yet thanks to one 17-K game against the Rays; if you take that outlier out of the mix, Ks per game are down from 10.2 to 8.6. Still a ways to go on that front, but the way the rest of it is trending, that'll come in time.

Certain individual batters have gotten impressive results from consulting with the Hall of Famer, most notably Julio Rodríguez, Mitch Garver, and Luke Raley. Before the regime change, Julio was batting .260/.310/.364. Since the changeover, he's batting .278/.356/.489. It's the middle number, the on-base, that really stands out to me. Garver was having the absolute worst year of his career, and with no one to turn to for help was just getting worse and worse; he was at a miserable .165/.287/.327 under the old guard. With Dan and Edgar, his line is .267/.353/.433. Yes, only 34 trips to the plate, but what a difference. Then there's Raley, who had started out strong in the early season—a high-water mark of .301 in late May—before slumping down into the .220s. What's he done since Dan and Edgar took over? .304/.403/.679 with 15 RBI.

Victor Robles is another guy with huge numbers since Dan and Edgar arrived, but he's been the best hitter on the club basically since he got to Seattle at the beginning of June so it's not as clear that it's an Edgar influence. Still, check it out—Pre-Dan and Edgar: a very good .280/.340/.413; since Dan and Edgar: an astonishing .473/.546/.636.

Other guys aren't seeing big bumps in their numbers, but still some things of note, e.g. Cal Raleigh's average is still anemic, but his on-base mark has gone from a pre-change .303 to a since-then .341; newcomers Randy Arozarena and Justin Turner weren't around long during the Servais/DeHart time, so the comparison doesn't track, but Arozarena's slugged 100 points higher since the change and Turner's post-change slash is a stellar .290/.386/.464.

The Mariners as constructed throughout the year have had plenty of talent in their lineup, they were simply underachieving. Guys who were slumping or falling into bad habits had no one in-house to go to for help and things never got any better. Now they do. And we're starting to see who they really are.

It might be too late for 2024, but it bodes well for 2025.