The Braves announced that Tim Hyers has been hired as a hitting coach for their major league staff. He replaces Kevin Seitzer, who was fired two weeks ago. Hyers had been the hitting coach of the Rangers, so that club will now have a vacancy to fill on their staff.
Hyers, now 53, is a Georgia native. He was born in Atlanta and attended Newton County High School before being selected by the Blue Jays in the 1990 draft. He went on to play in the majors from 1994 to 1999, suiting up for the Padres, Tigers and Marlins. He moved into coaching and scouting after his playing days. He got a job as assistant hitting coach with the Dodgers for the 2016 season.
He has since served as hitting coach for two clubs, winning World Series rings with both of them. He was hired by the Red Sox going into 2018, with Boston winning the title in his first year. He was hired by the Rangers going into 2022, with the Rangers hoisting the trophy in the second of his three seasons there.
It’s always tough to separate player performance from coaching contributions, but Hyers has been around a lot of success lately. He will now take that to his hometown team, something that he is surely excited about. Per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News on X, Hyers still lives in the Atlanta area.
While it’s a nice homecoming for Hyers, the Rangers will now have to embark on a search for his replacement as they look to bounce back from a disappointing 2024 season. In a column at the Dallas Morning News, Grant says the club will look to make a new hire, even though they still have bench coach/offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker on the staff.
Seemed like Seitzer received quite a bit of praise before this season. Were the Braves combination of injuries and down seasons at the plate his fault? If Acuna is healthy and Riley/Olson have bounce back years will it really be because of Hyers?
The Rangers should hire Kevin Seitzer as their new hitting coach.
Seitzer said the problem was he couldn’t settle the players down and stop them from trying too hard. That’s kinda throwing them under the bus without throwing them under the bus.
@bhambrave — It also makes it an amicable split. It’s implying he’s not getting through to them, and after 10 years, maybe it’s time for fresh voice.
It’s also a problem in how the team is constructed. They’ve got to have a couple of contact hitters. Can’t wait to not see Arcia take an empty HR cut.
Agree on all points. Arcia has never been an OBP guy. I don’t mind the guys in the middle of the order being aggressive, but the bottom third needs to learn how to shorten up on two strikes. Good defense and a high BA/OBP is all they need. Keep the line moving.
Absolutely a problem with how the team is constructed, but certainly with the number of injuries nobody could catch a consistent vibe. Hitters feed off each other and having a lot of swing and miss guys doesn’t bode well for consistency either.
Guys knew they needed to step up.
They didn’t, so they pressed making the situation worse.
I’m sure Seitzer himself was very frustrated about the whole mess.
Atlanta had the best offense in the history of baseball in 2023.
Yes they did.
One would assume the front office bases these decisions on more than runs scored, whether in a good year or a bad year.
Great Hyer
Who?
Both franchises have the same organizational philosophy to hitting, which is hit the ball over the fence or bust. So really the hitting coaches are just glorified untrained psychologist trying to achieve the same goal. In reality, both groups should just swap coaches to see if what each coach said sticks because both guys lost the mental game with their players bad this past season. The Braves, to me, appear to be the easier job as they had a ton of injuries and likely had a lot of players trying to overcompensate for the lack of production elsewhere in the lineup which probably had the reverse effect, but rather that true or not, just having players come back is a benefit. No matter what, I think it’s an organization problem, not a coaching problem. And unless they are willing to adjust to the league adjusting to them, I fear next season might be another struggle bus
“ But the Rangers continued to hit well with runners in scoring position in 2024, with a .271 average and .357 OBP that were both top three in MLB, while the swing-for-the-fences Braves struggled mightily in that area. Atlanta hit just .247 with RISP, with a .314 OBP that tied for seventh-lowest in the majors.”
So you kinda prove my point to a degree actually. (Assuming your cherry picked stats are correct) hitting with runners in scoring position is what we can call a “clutch” stat. In other words, a stats that shows a little more mentally challenging skill attached to it. The rangers did a better job of it than the Braves last season, so a mix up of a coach from the mental side of it, just might work.. My overall point was, both teams had huge declines in offensive production from their previous seasons. Like huge declines. There is a reasons for this. The league made adjustments to them, their approach isnt sustainable, or “tinfoil hat” the ball isn’t as juiced cause offense across the league was down. So my guess is, it’s an organizational philosophy more than anything …hit the ball over the fence or bust. In the Braves case; there is data out there that they may overcommit to sitting on the slider, which is why they weirdly get beat on the fastball all the time. So overall, ur cherry picked data doesn’t really do anything but help my statement
Dave O’Brien of the athletic wrote it.
Then his cherry picked data helps my statement
“Braves Hire Tim Hyers” qualifies for the Ministry of Redundant Redundancy Headlines.
offense was down through the whole league.. ( was mlb using the dead ball this year) .. but so tired of living and dying by the long ball.. would love for atleast 3-4 guys to manufacture some runs playing small ball.. still dont believe firing the last guy was the answer.. the whole team was hurt. we won 89 games with band-aids
To your point, almost every guy they brought in (other than Rosario) out-performed their first half statistics.
Laureano went from a 43 OPS+ to a 128+.
Soler went from a 115 OPS+ to a 134 OPS+
Merrifield went from 62 to 93.
Urshela went from 76 to 95.
thats great and i totally agree with u there, but it still dont replace harris, acuna, albies and riley not to mention murphy being hurt and a bad year from olson. Thats a ton of SBs and HRs that couldnt be replaced. then stridor and fried, that easily makes it close to 95 -100 win season…. Fpr what we had, no one can say we had a bad year.
ATLbravos;
Offense was down last year for a reason no one is talking about…..
MLB listened to the players and had teams play less inter-division games and more games against all the other MLB teams.
Even superior hitters struggle some until the see a pitcher at least a few times. The new schedule has hitters doing just that.
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Additionally, teams went more to bullpen games in 2024, with the average ML start around 5-1/3’rd innings. Most teams had between 30 and 33 different pitchers on their roster in 2024 (a team usually has 13 pitchers on their roster each game day). All this means that hitters were facing many pitchers they either hadn’t batted against, or only batted against a few times.
Don’t blame this on individual hitting coaches. It was across the board.
so you agree with my post? bc exactly my first sentence. and for the hitting coach he produced the best offense in 2023. i dont see how anyone can hate on that guy, as i said with my statement of firing the guy wasnt the answer
ATLbravos I don’t see how anyone could hate Seitzer or his body of excellent work except those that have no clue of what being a hitting coach in the MLB entails. For the most part several hitters through the years have significantly improved after coming to Atlanta and responding to his instructions. Unfortunately I believe that the frustrations of this season took a toil on Seitzer, especially the pressing that a few players admitted to experience. I do NOT blame Seitzer at all for the braves decline, but unfortunately the front office made the decision to part ways with him.
If, and that may be the big question (but I don’t see a competitor like Seitzer ending on this note), Seitzer wants to continue coaching then I think he will find a job quite easily.
As far as Hyers goes, certainly he has had his successes, and was probably the best option available (I mean, to be honest, who even thought he was available), hopefully he steps right up and helps to elevate the braves offense in 2025.
Does he still make Root Beer?
No IBC he got Mugged at the A&W.
Hires Hyers as hitting coach. Now say that 3 times fast.
It’s easy try saying pink pumpkins 3 times fast instead
Hires Hyers as hitting head honcho.
I love how almost every pitching coach hire (or hyers) these days are nobody anyone has ever heard of. Why should an MVP like Acuna listen to anything this guy says? The guys the reds hired is a career .238 hitter over parts of four years. How’s he going to improve anyone?
There’s a difference between being a good hitter and knowing how to coach. Some people don’t have the physical skill to hit well, but they can still know form and technique. Bobby Cox only had 719 plate appearances in the majors, but he is a HoF manager. A HoF-class hitter like Chipper Jones or Alex Rodriguez might know how to hit, but they may not know how to relate to an average player trying to figure it out.
Exactly. Teaching, analyzing, and communicating effectively are different skillsets. Not all former players possess them.
For one, he has more rings than Acuña.
That is a dumb take. By that logic ALL coaches should be former MVP caliber players just in case you have a former MVP on your team. Snit needs to go I guess. He never made it out of the minors. Heck Tiger Woods would have never been able to find a swing coach back in the day if he could only listen to one that had accomplished as much as him. Some of the best coaches in every sport are people who never made it to the highest level of their sport as a player. And some of the worst coaches are people who were great players.
Salad Daze 22-27;
How come most of the successful managers weren’t especially good players?
Barry Bonds was a decent hitter but a bad hitting coach
i came to say the samething bonds was the goat but was a bad hitting coach bc he was lazy and couldnt get him off the couch in the club house
Age old adage…. Those who can’t do teach!
Hyers is one of the better hires.
Didn’t even read the article – but I let out a sigh of relief when I read that he is 53 years old.
LOL
Phenomenal hire
CAN YOU TAKE ME HYER? TO A PLACE WHERE BLIND MEN SEE!!!