This is a rough time to be a hitting coach.
Philadelphia fired Greg Gross yesterday, Kansas City fired Kevin Seitzer this morning, and now Seattle announced that Chris Chambliss was let go after the Mariners ranked dead last among AL teams in scoring during each of his two seasons on the job.
It’s tough to argue with a hitting coach being fired after back-to-back seasons ranking dead last in hitting, but Safeco Field being so pitcher-friendly that the Mariners are moving the fences in obviously explains a lot of the team’s ugly numbers offensively. Seattle ranked fifth in road scoring this season, although they were also dead last in road scoring last year.
And now the Mariners’ next hitting coach gets to benefit from the automatic jump in raw offensive numbers that will come as a result of the fences coming in.
