The Mariners announced that they have relieved bench coach and offensive coordinator Brant Brown of his duties. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the news on X prior to the official announcement. Director of hitting strategy Jarret DeHart and assistant hitting coach Tommy Joseph will expand their current roles to compensate for Brown’s absence.
Brown, 52, just joined the Seattle staff coming into this year. He had previously served as a hitting coach for the Marlins and Dodgers at the major league level. Prior to holding those gigs, he was with the Mariners as a minor league coordinator.
The M’s are having a good season overall, currently sporting a record of 31-27 that has them atop the American League West. However, that’s largely due to a strong pitching staff and in spite of some lackluster offense. The team has a collective earned run average of 3.58, ninth-lowest in the majors. But their hitters have collectively slashed .221/.295/.361 for a wRC+ of 94. That indicates they’ve been six percent below league average overall, a mark that bests just six other clubs in the league.
Over the offseason, president of baseball operations spoke of wanting to lower the club’s strikeout-heavy tendencies, which seemed to play a role in letting players like Teoscar Hernández, Mike Ford, Jarred Kelenic, Eugenio Suárez and Tom Murphy depart, either via trade or free agency.
This year, the club as a whole is striking out at a 28.3% rate, easily the worst in the majors. The Athletics are second-worst at 26.2%, a significant gap. That’s at least partially attributable to the front office bringing in other players with their own strikeout tendencies, such as Mitch Garver, Luke Raley and Mitch Haniger, but perhaps the ongoing problem with punchouts played a role in the club looking to make a change.
Regardless of the reasoning, it’s a notable development since it’s fairly rare for clubs to make midseason staff changes, especially when doing so well overall. Manager Scott Servais will try to guide the club forward without Brown, while DeHart and Joseph step up. DeHart has been a member of the staff since the 2020 season, going from assistant hitting coach to his current title. Joseph was just hired coming into the current campaign.
Hopefully he has something to do with the lack of hitting
“Lack of hitting”..Unless this hitting coach was there back in the Felix Hernandez days, he’s almost certainly not to blame for the Mariner’s lack of hitting, which goes back over a decade+. For me, the lack of hitting is mostly on Dipoto since he traded away proven hitters to bring in some unproven, cost conscious hitters. Until Dipoto trades some pitching(or drafts better hitters) for a proven hitter, it’s likely the M’s continue to be one of MLB’s most feeble offenses. Dipoto has done an excellent job acquiring pitching, but the truth is, he’s done a below average job of acquiring hitters.
Dipoto never really had proven hitters to trade away to begin with. Dip dip has always been owner friendly budget concise and pretty much hoped the position re treads he signs literally hit. So far he’s been sub par in his decisions on light hitters like Pollock, LaStella, and before his recent uptick, Dylan Moore. Until the Ownership group opens their eyes, and wallets, this club will never over achieve, regardless of their recent historical dominant pitching rotations.
Good. They needed to do something.
About damn time. Should’ve happened 20 games ago.
OHH NOOOO!
My toupee’s on fire!
Lucky you have number two with you
Great comment. Must be a Cub fan.
It’s the greatest thing he is known for in Chicago, thanks to Mr. Santo’s legendary call.
Whoooah, big gulps huh? Welp,
SEE YA LATER!!!
We Got No Food! We Got No Jobs! Our Pet’s Heads Are Fallin’ Off!!
Offensive coordination? This isn’t football.
When I first saw the headline on X I thought they must be talking about the Seahawks. Wasn’t aware baseball adopted the OC. Did Brown sit up in the box with a headset on calling plays? Easy to see why they pulled the chain on him when the M’s have gone the entire season without scoring a touchdown.
Don Mattingly is offensive coordinator for the Blue Jays. This is a thing now.
Given the lack of success of the aforementioned offensive coordinators, perhaps the position should be retired…
We should hire Sean Casey, while I don’t remember him being great with the Yankees last year, players love him so that would be a clubhouse boost
The Yankees wanted Casey back, at least by reports, and the players liked him and he enjoyed the challenge. It was a bit of a test run for him personally as he had to only commit three months. He didn’t want to return for a full season because he was just getting remarried and he has either a high school or college-age child he wants to spend time with, which being a full-time coach would complicate. I suspect we’ll see him coach again in several years, but he’s not doing so now after turning down the Yankee opportunity, which was basically local.
He should be fired too
Perfect move M’s… Just KILL the MESSENGER!!!
They had to do something. I think everyone understands that it’s ultimately up to the players to get the job done, but sometimes methods, voices and personalities just don’t register.
Hopefully this shake-up will trigger a positive response from the players.
Too bad the Astros don’t get with the program and do the same thing to Abreu and Singleton.
They probably would if they could, but you can’t fire players.
Pretty easy to outright them, same thing moron
Except Abreu would have the option to decline an outright assignment and likely would since he would be paid his full salary to not have to go to the minors.
Maybe don’t call someone a moron when you’re the one to say something silly.
Sure you can., you just have to keep paying them.
And hopefully they’ll stick around with Houston!
Offensive Coordinator?
AL West*
Fixed, thanks.
We can only hope they’ve pulled the right lever this time.
I have to think that our hitters are trainable, so it’s on the coaching staff to make the hitting work better.
Go Mariners!
It’s not to easy to take a veteran hitter and have him completely change his approach. A high strikeout guy is pretty much always gonna be a high strikeout guy. You just hope that comes with power. Training has to be done to the low level minor league players. These guys are who they are.
True, but too late for that with our present hitters, so we hope the coaching can help a little.
I think Julio is pressing too much, and there is more base stealing than is wise, so just easing up a bit might give the results they need.
Hopefully Jed Hoyer is taking note.
Had no idea Tommy Joseph was an assistant hitting coach at the MLB. Maybe Bobby Dalbec will be a hitting coach one day.
Those who can’t do, teach. I guess
As a Cubs fan I can vouch for the fact that Brant Brown did anything but set the world on fire with his hitting skills back in the day.
Director of Hitting Strategy? The strategy is to put the bat on the ball.
You should apply for the position.
If that’s your only strategy, your offense is going to be pretty bad.
So they’ve finally created an official position for the guy you hear at every little league game saying, “See the ball, hit the ball.” 20 or 30 times.
Hmmm hitting strategy
On a good run, the ball looks the size of a grapefruit coming in, at bad times it looks like a ping pong ball. Hitting Strategy probably isn’t going to help streaky slumping hitters.
If it’s K’s they want to cut down on, the best strategy there went extinct years ago. It was called choking up on the bat, the batter better able to control the bat head with two strikes, shorter swing, punching the ball often to the opposite field. Most who were skilled at it have sadly passed away.
Spot on.
agreed, nailed it
Haven’t heard that name since he bubbled a fly ball at Milwaukee (before Miller Park) and the tying and winning runs sacred.
Unfortunately for the poor guy that’s basically his claim to fame.
Great, now go get Julio a REAL hitter to protect him!
THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING THE MARINERS SHOULD DO FOR A WHILE FIRE THAT HORRIBLE HITTING COACH
DeHart is the actual hitting coach, Brown was the MENTAL hitting coach.
Thank God Jerry took my call!
That’s like blaming Mario Mendoza
In reality it was never about reducing strikeouts over the offseason. Raley, Urias, Garver, Haniger, Zavala, and Polanco all were high K% hitters coming into 2024. There’s been very little difference between the Mariners approaches at the plate this year and last year. It’s been about swinging for the fences and hoping to make some contact.
If you had noticed there were some good individual hitting going on namely Moore, Rojas, Raley, even Raleigh.
Good hitting probably works best when it is working in unison some cohesiveness this can change in the other direction as well depending on who the pitcher is.
Good pitching can have it’s affect on good hitting as were aware of.
Sustaining it is difficult for all except for the very best of hitters. even so they all aspire in being the best they can.
What I have notice even with those I mentioned they are now all have the hitters flu, an epidemic is, has setting in. The way I see this is those who were hitting or otherwise are over extending themselves trying to makeup for the lack of hits by swinging at too many pitches out of the strike zone.
Someone has dropped the ball here this should have been dealt with as it was developing so we now see the outcome of this abruptly.
Been ging on for years, not just this season.
Tried this year to cut down on strike outs and that hasn’t helped.
Come and listen to my story
‘Bout a bench-coach Brown
The poor O-coord’nator,
Couldn’t help his team to hit.
And then one day…