What finished as a lackluster season for the 2024 Atlanta Braves, change was much needed. On October 10th, the Braves made some changes official, parting ways with some of their coaching staff. After nine seasons, the Braves have decided to move on from hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, as well as assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes.
Braves New Hitting Coach Will Bring Different Offensive Approach
New Braves hitting coach Tim Hyers laid out his three core principles and explained how he will try to get the most out of a talented Braves offense in his return home. https://t.co/yzDv8TKaek
— Justin Toscano (@JustinCToscano) October 28, 2024
Seitzer, who was originally hired in 2015, had one year remaining on his contract. It would have made sense for Seitzer to stay for at least one more season. However, after a season of extended hitting slumps from the Braves’ best hitters and poor situational offense, Alex Anthopoulos informed Seitzer of his termination.
On October 24th, Anthopoulos made his first coaching hire as the Braves’ General Manager, hiring former big leaguer and seven-year hitting coach Tim Hyers.
The Atlanta #Braves today announced the organization has hired Tim Hyers to the major league coaching staff as hitting coach. pic.twitter.com/j4RnnNuu3k
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) October 24, 2024
One year after helping the Texas Rangers win a World Series title, Tim Hyers is coming home to guide the Braves’ offense. The 53-year-old Atlanta native has taken advantage of the opening after spending the past three seasons with the Texas Rangers and serving as the hitting coach for the Boston Red Sox from 2018 to 2021. Hyers has been a full-time hitting coach for seven seasons, helping win a World Series with both of his previous organizations.
Tim Hyers Previous Success
Hyers was originally hired by the Boston Red Sox in 2018 for his first full-time coaching position. The 2018 Red Sox offense led in many offensive categories in the regular season, which translated to success in their World Series run. They led the MLB in runs and batting average, finishing sixth in walks in 2018. Over his four-season stint with the Red Sox, they led all of baseball in runs (2,898), total bases (8,632), extra-base hits (1,989), batting average (.266), slugging percentage (.455), and OPS (.790).
In 2022, Hyers was hired by the Texas Rangers and had another successful three-season run with the team. During his tenure with Texas, the Rangers compiled the third-most runs (2,271) and home runs (607) in the AL and hit .247/.315/.410 overall. Texas also won the inaugural Team Silver Slugger Award in the American League in 2023.
Hyers has coached 12 Silver Slugger award winners throughout his career.
A New Refreshing Approach
Hyers said recently that he has three simple principles that he will emphasize every day with the Atlanta offense: game-planning, swing decision, and movement in the batter’s box. These principles can be informative and simple, not overloading hitters with too much to think about at the plate. Hyers believes the Braves will be more prepared, disciplined, and fluid by adhering to these principles. Being fluid is especially important, according to Hyers, because a good team needs to score runs in multiple ways.
First Principle
On the game-planning aspect, Hyers is a big believer in using the information and data from starters and relievers and where they place pitches. “We have so much information these days. I love information,” Hyers said. “But I think the art of coaching in this day and age is funneling that information, so we have one idea.” This helps keep it simple because, as Hyers said, you can only think about one thing at a time and hit a pitch coming in at 97 miles per hour.
Second Principle
Swing decision, being another principle, is another approach the Braves struggled with in the 2024 season. The goal will be to reduce chase rates and help hitters get better at sitting on pitchers they can hit best. “You’re only as good as the strikes you swing at” Hyers said. In 2024, Braves hitters had a strikeout rate of 24.04%. They finished seventh in the MLB regular season and struck out the most of any team that made the postseason. Striking out 1,461 times over 6,075 plate appearances. A big swing in difference coming off the 2023 season where they finished 25th in strikeouts.
Third Principle
And the final principle is movement in the batter’s box. This will be about the mechanics and approach to situational hitting, not overcompensating. Something Atlanta has struggled with, especially after the injuries the Braves sustained. Hyers addressed the injury situation from a mechanics’ perspective. “We can clean up some of those patterns and get them back into their groove,” he said. “And not trying to do too much – those thoughts of ‘I need to get a hit’ or ‘I need to hit a homer here.’ I think that messes up the physical.”
“There’s days we can slug, and obviously this can slug the ball really hard,” he said. “But there’s also days you gotta score runs in different ways.”
2025’s Hopeful New Offensive Approach
Getting their All-Star back in 2025 will almost certainly improve the Braves’ offense. However, a new approach to their at-bats is definitely needed. With strikeouts increasing and walks decreasing from the historic 2023 offense, Tim Hyers seems to have a solid plan for improvement. By getting their hitters to make better decisions at the plate and not worry as much about power, this fresh approach could help the Braves’ offense return to the juggernaut it has the potential to be in 2025.
