Dodgers’ Teoscar Hernández is Free From the Atmospheric Pressure in Seattle
Seattle Mariners manager Scott Servais and general manager Justin Hollander have seen it before. A right-handed hitter joins the team. He struggles to hit at home. He presses, and struggles some more.
For a time, it looked like this was going to be the story of Teoscar Hernández’s 2023 season. He finished his only season in a Mariners uniform with almost unfathomable home/road splits: a .217 average, .263 on-base percentage, and .380 slugging percentage at T-Mobile Park, and .295/.344/.486 on the road.
Hernández rewrote his story midway through last year, enough to endear him to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ front office in free agency. Through seven exhibition games with his new team, Hernández has flashed some of the potential the Dodgers saw when they signed the 31-year-old slugger to a $23.5 million contract in January.
Hernández’s six hits (three doubles) in his first 18 plate appearances of spring have been a small affirmation of the idea that his down year was largely a product of his environment.
According to Statcast, T-Mobile Park is the most difficult venue in baseball on righties (and lefties). Lookout Landing’s John Trupin summed up the problem: “In essence, T-Mobile Park has become the opposite of Coors Field in its totality. A small outfield relative to much of the league in terms of total possible real estate, at sea level, in a cool and wet environment that suppresses the ball’s flight further, all conspire to reward boom or bust hitting.”
Servais noted the time of year matters, too.
“Our ballpark is challenging, especially early in the year,” he said. “April and May, it’s a little cooler. The ball doesn’t carry. I think it’s perfectly fine once you get into the summer months and it warms up a little bit, but it is a little challenging. (Hernandez) is coming out of playing in the dome up in Toronto, and plenty of other small ballparks in the A.L. East.”
Sure enough, as late as May 3 Hernández’s batting average was dipping below .200. As late as May 24, he was slugging less than .400. The park and the weather might not have been the only culprits.
“For some reason, I always see the pitcher like sideways, not straight,” Hernández told Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group. “I couldn’t figure it out, how to be in a straight position with the pitcher. That was hard for me.”
But to hear Servais and Hollander tell it, Hernández’s issues were not merely physical.
“I think he just put a lot of pressure on himself,” Hollander said. “Our team was still sort of up and down, riding a wave. And then the trade deadline came, and his name is everywhere at the trade deadline. He’s got a young family. They just moved to Seattle. We don’t think about those things a lot. It’s hard to put into context. I have a family with young kids and tomorrow somebody may call me and say, ‘you don’t play in Seattle anymore, you play in Miami’ — or wherever, pick your spot around the league. You have to leave, then they have to figure out if they’re coming with you, if they’re going somewhere else — the weight of that, I think, really took its toll on him.”
For context, from July 5-31 — the 22 games preceding last year’s trade deadline — Hernandez slashed .174/.226/.482.
“I remember seeing him the day of the trade deadline,” Hollander continued. “The clock struck midnight so to speak. I walked down to the clubhouse, gave him a hug, and you could just feel the tension — like his exhale, ‘I didn’t want to get traded, I‘m really glad I’m here’ — and he took off for five weeks right after that.”
From Aug. 2 until Sept. 8 — the 34 games after the deadline — Hernández slashed .368/.397/.647.
The optimism around Hernández’s 2024 season in Los Angeles doesn’t merely depend on his escape from Seattle. It also helps that he’ll be in a lineup that should allow individuals to weather the usual peaks and valleys of a season. The pressure on a $23-million-a-year player has never been lower.
Hernández was least successful as a Mariner when batting third (.533 OPS), a tad better batting fourth (.708 OPS), and saw his most success batting fifth (.886). With the Dodgers, he will never bat higher than fourth with Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani all in the lineup. Hernández might not even hit cleanup most nights. He can be the Dodgers’ fifth-best hitter and still call 2024 a success.
Free from the atmospheric pressure of Seattle — in more ways than one — the Dodgers have more than mere hope on which to rest their belief that Hernández can revert to his five-year peak (2018-22) with the Blue Jays. Hernández slugged .499 during that stretch and collected MVP votes in 2020 and 2021.
His former GM will be rooting for him from afar.
“There were a lot of fits and starts with his season last year that made it tough for him to get going,” Hollander said. “He’s a great person. All of us will be rooting for him.”
Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
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