Hall of Fame designated hitter Edgar Martinez will serve as the Seattle Mariners‘ hitting coach for the rest of the 2024 season.
New Seattle skipper Dan Wilson announced the hire Friday, one day after Scott Servais was fired as the manager.
Martinez, 61, played his entire 18-year career in Seattle (1987-2004), earning seven All-Star nods and winning two batting titles. He retired with a .312 career average, 309 home runs and 1,261 RBIs in 2,055 games and entered Cooperstown in 2019.
Martinez has been working for the Mariners as an organizational hitting adviser since 2019 and previously served as Seattle’s hitting coach from 2015 to 2018. He takes over a Mariners team that ranks last in the majors in batting average.
“I want to thank Edgar for agreeing to join us for the remainder of the season,” Wilson said in a statement. “I’m confident his deep knowledge of hitting and experience with our hitters will be a great addition.”
Wilson and Martinez were teammates with the Mariners for 11 seasons from 1994 to 2004.
“When Dan reached out to me, I told him that I’d be happy to assist him this season in whatever way I could,” Martinez said. “I know the talent and work ethic this group of hitters has and I hope I can be of help to them.”
Martinez is one of two Mariners players to have his jersey number (11) retired, along with fellow Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. A statue of Martinez was unveiled outside Seattle’s T-Mobile Park in 2021.
Seattle fired Servais and hitting coach Jarret DeHart on Thursday after a summer slide that has dropped the team to 64-64 start to the season.
“Where we were in the middle of June and where we are today — it’s hard to believe, actually, how quickly it all dissolved for us,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said on a videoconference call Thursday announcing Servais’ dismissal.
The Mariners had lost eight of its past nine games heading into Friday’s series opener against the visiting San Francisco Giants. They are 5½ games behind the Houston Astros in the American League West.
Information from ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez and Field Level Media was used in this report.
