How the Mariners’ lineup got longer this offseason

The front office didn't make glamorous additions to the lineup this winter. But that doesn't mean Seattle's offense can't be improved in 2023.

The best way to describe the offseason improvements the Seattle Mariners made to their offense might be modest. After all, the team didn’t add sexy names via trade or free agency.

Still, three players the Mariners did acquire this winter will help make this year’s lineup longer than the 2022 version.  

Twitter me this

Not all Mariners fans agree with this assessment. My Twitter mentions drove this point home when I noted the team had upgraded second base and right field before the Winter Meetings had even commenced.

What’s sparking my optimism? The hard-hit rates of several players no longer with Seattle and the club’s three most notable offseason pickups.

A “hard-hit ball” has an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher. The “hard-hit rate” of a player or team represents the percentage of batted balls with a 95+mph exit velocity.  In 2022, the average hard-hit rate was 38.4%. – Statcast

Now that we’ve refreshed ourselves on the official meaning of a hard-hit ball, let’s now consider the offense it generated league-wide in 2022.

First, 98.2% of all home runs clobbered last season fell into the “hard-hit” category. Not only that, the AVG and SLG of these well-struck balls were eye-popping. Not so much for the rest.

Hard-hit balls: .488 AVG / .954 SLG
Everything else: .219 AVG / .254 SLG

In with the new, out with the old

Clearly, making loud contact leads to better results. Why does this matter for the 2023 Mariners?

First, consider the combined production of four players who’ve left the Mariners this offseason - Adam Frazier, Abraham Toro, Jesse Winker, and Mitch Haniger. The quartet accounted for 28.5% of the team’s plate appearance last year. They also combined for a 31.2% hard-hit rate. Remember, the MLB-average last year was 38.4%.

Conversely, three new players – Teoscar Hernández, Kolten Wong, and AJ Pollock - collectively amassed 1,556 combined plate appearances and had a 43.5% hard-hit rate. Naturally, the results produced by these three players were also noticeably better than their predecessors.   

To be clear, the threesome of Hernández, Wong, and Pollock aren’t “plug and play” replacements for Haniger, Winker, Toro, and Frazier.

Hernandez supplants Haniger in right field, while Wong replaces Frazier at second base. However, Pollock and a yet to be determined left-handed hitter will form a platoon to replace Winker. As for Toro, he was primarily a backup infielder. But it’s worth noting only seven Mariners had more plate appearances than the Canadian in 2022.   

Furthermore, Haniger did make loud contact. The Cal Poly product had a 47.2% hard-hit rate in 247 plate appearances. However, the hard-hit rate of the other former Mariners fell at least 4% below the league average with two falling below the 30% threshold.

Hard-hit rates of former Mariners
Mitch Haniger - 47.2%
MLB average - 38.4%
Jesse Winker - 34.3%
Abraham Toro - 29.7%
Adam Frazier - 24.5%

Among 252 qualified hitters, the hard-hit rates of Toro and Frazier were bottom-16. Compounding matters for Seattle last season, current shortstop J.P. Crawford (29.7%) also ranked near the bottom of the league.

Finally

Having a lineup loaded with batters who typically didn’t hit the ball hard hamstrung Seattle’s offensive production last year. But the majority of those players are now former Mariners. They’ve been replaced by three newcomers capable of delivering significantly more plate appearances with loud contact than their predecessors did in 2023.   

For this reason, Seattle’s lineup is longer than last year’s edition. It’s also poised to be noticeably more productive.

Even if a segment of Mariners Twitter doesn’t agree.

My Oh My…