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.
Sunday Lasagna
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?
Francys01
The Rangers should hire Kevin Seitzer as their new hitting coach.
bhambrave
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.
RunDMC
@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.
bhambrave
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.
southi
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.
Smacky
Atlanta had the best offense in the history of baseball in 2023.
bhambrave
Yes they did.
Ted
One would assume the front office bases these decisions on more than runs scored, whether in a good year or a bad year.
Mai Pen Rai
Great Hyer
McNasty1
Who?
bravesfan
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
Smacky
“ 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.”
sugoi51
“Braves Hire Tim Hyers” qualifies for the Ministry of Redundant Redundancy Headlines.
ATLbravos
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
bhambrave
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.
ATLbravos
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.
Unclemike1525
Does he still make Root Beer?
ButCanHePitch
Hires Hyers as hitting coach. Now say that 3 times fast.
Braves Butt-Head
It’s easy try saying pink pumpkins 3 times fast instead
Salad Daze 22-27
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?