Word is Andy Fox is not returning and They canned longtime bullpen catcher Mani Martinez . Uodated Asst Hitting coach Luis Ortiz gone , Pete Faste survives
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Sox Coaching changes
- Thread starter OBPercent1
- Start date
I believe Fox was the infield instructor (as well as 1B coach) for an epically bad infield defense, so this would not be a surprise if true.
OP has a strong relationship with folks who know this kind of stuff. Me? I’ll take his reports as being likely to be accurate.
Thanks Lose, and has not been made public yet but is 100 % factual and there maybe more shoes to drop
I mean there were some tiny problems with our bullpen in the second half.
Bullpen catcher is more of a coaching role than the title implies too, there's a lot of involvement with the pitchers' training programs, and constant communication with the rest of the coaching staff. Brian Abraham was our bullpen catcher in 2013 and now he's the director of player development. It's a serious gig.
Every coach is evaluated during and after the season. As far as the hitting coaches, that would all depend on where the overall direction of the hitting philosophy was coming from. They're also going to look at which hitters made improvements, why, and how much.
So, the first base coach, assistant hitting coach and the bullpen catcher are gone? That seems rather ... minimal
Good to see that they are getting to the root of the problem......No Reason Fatse should still be there
Fatse got Jarren Duran to quit tinkering and settle on a swing that worked. I’d keep him.
exactly the opposite. Fatse messed with him (and others, Bennintendi, etc) and tried to make him pull everything when he first came up. Duran struggled until he decided he was going to go back to being himself and use his athleticism
https://www.mlb.com/news/breakdown-of-jarren-duran-s-opposite-field-success
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Is there more than that quote? I don't find this account persuasive for basic questions of timeline and because I don't think it is a good characterization of the issues Duran had.
First off and most obviously, Benintendi's disastrous bulk-up-and-try-to-pull-the-ball-for-more-HR offseason was between 2018 and 2019. Fatse was the Twins' minor league hitting coordinator at this time, so unless he was moonlighting across Ft. Myers, I don't think he had anything to do with Benintendi's swing (and body) changes. He only became the Sox' Assistant Hitting Coach in December 2019. He overlapped with Benintendi in Boston, but only during the COVID season when Benintendi had all of 50 PA.
As for Duran: Duran's first swing changes — lowering his hands to add more loft and power, a change which made him a real prospect — came in the Fall Instructional League in 2019 (as it happened, the final Fall Instructional League), and got a lot of attention when he started hitting bombs at the 2020 Alternate Site. He was great for Caguas in winter ball and for Worcester in 2021, but after a midseason promotion, the swing was exposed against major league pitchers who could reliably locate competitive fastballs at the top of the zone. He couldn't touch them with his new swing, but they would often be called strikes if he took them.
Again: Fatse entered the picture after the swing change had happened. And then after 2021, Tim Hyers left and Fatse became the top hitting coach.
Duran's 2022 followed the same pattern as his 2021. Duran was tremendous in Worcester but bad in Boston. It was clear that this was the downside of his new approach, but he didn't respond well: this was when he kept changing his setup, when he had the high-profile defensive lapses, and when he was in rough shape emotionally, as I understand it. He was really falling apart.
But then in Spring Training 2023, Duran raised his hands back up to a modified version of the setup he entered pro ball with, to get more contact and more line drives, and crucially stopped tinkering. He had a great Spring Training, and Cora told him when he didn't make the Opening Day roster that he would be back up in Boston soon, and that he would be successful as long as he stopped changing his swing. He was up two weeks later: 2023 was a much better season, but with an asterisk because of his huge BABIP; then in 2024 he made more contact, chased less, and had an MVP-caliber season.
That brings us up to the present. So how to interpret this series of events?
My view is that the 2023–24 swing is not the same as "being himself," whatever he might tell the Globe, and I think this is pretty obvious if you read his fangraphs page. He entered pro ball with a >50% ground ball rate, which then dropped to around 37.5% (2021, AAA) with the low-hands setup before ping-ponging around and eventually settling in around 46% in 2024. Whatever he tells reporters, his pull/oppo numbers actually haven't shown meaningful changes — other than a spike in that 2021 AAA stint. In 2021, when he was playing terribly in MLB, he actually went opposite field a bit *more* than he did in 2024. If there's a story there, it's that he's hitting to the middle of the field more.
The article you linked, notably, is comparing his *results* on pulled versus opposite field balls, not their number. I think he's getting those results because he's hitting the ball harder, popping it up less, and his speed makes a decent number of doubles out of groundballs through and fliners over the left side of the infield.
The big changes on the stat sheet that have driven his rebirth are (1) his plate discipline numbers are all slightly better: he chases a bit less and makes a bit more in-zone and out-of-zone contact, and that adds up to fewer Ks and more BBs and balls in play. (2) In 2021–2022 he was terrible against fastballs, and now he's great against them (using fangraphs pitch value numbers). Indeed, he's good against every pitch category except splitters. And (3), his rate of infield fly balls has fallen by more than half. I think pitchers are no longer throwing him the high fastball as often, now that he's shown he can handle them, and that's a pitch that hitters will often pop up.
If there's a bad story to tell about Fatse and Duran, it would depend on looking at the rough 2021 and 2022 and nothing afterward. Fatse wasn't in the organization for the initial swing change that ended up causing problems, but he was for both the rough patch in '21–'22 and the subsequent success. You can draw your own conclusions, but I look at this story and see the organization diagnosing a problem (which the success in winter ball and AAA made perhaps harder than it might otherwise have been) and stabilizing a player in crisis and helping him settle on and believe in a version of himself at the plate and climb out of that morass. I don't see why Fatse shouldn't get credit for that.
I don't think Fox was being let go because of what he did in the 1B coach's box. We need an infield instructor.
Here's a general article from the New York Times: An Athletic Coach for the Mind?
I liked this Q&A with Hannah Huesman, then (2020) mental skills coach for the Phillies. And I still follow Justin Su'a, who was a mental skills coordinator with the Sox years back before moving to the Rays as Head of Mental Performance and then founding his own company.
So basically a sports psychologist with an expertise in the specific sport they are involved in.
Another driveline hire (this time for the AA hitting coach position)
View: https://twitter.com/JRBaseball8/status/1857584451053850961
View: https://twitter.com/JRBaseball8/status/1857584451053850961
Looks like the Red Sox were able to get another minor league hitting coach. Collin Hetzler will be joining the org and it sounds like he will be the WooSox hitting coach.
A little background on Hetzler from the Syracuse Mets website:
Hitting Coach Collin Hetzler begins his second season with Syracuse and his fourth season in the New York Mets’ organization. Hetzler spent the 2021 and 2022 seasons as the Mets’ complex hitting coordinator at New York’s spring training complex in Port St. Lucie, FL. In 2022, Hetzler was named the Mets Minor League Staff Member of the Year. The Fort Worth, TX native played two seasons of college baseball at Galveston College before playing his final two collegiate seasons at Houston Baptist University in 2011 and 2012. Hetzler was an assistant coach for the baseball team at Houston Baptist in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and he earned an MBA from Houston Baptist University in 2017. Prior to joining the Mets, Hetzler worked as a hitting trainer and the operations manager at Driveline Baseball in Kent, WA. Driveline is a data-driven baseball development program. While Hetzler never played professionally, his stepfather, Brian Milner, was a member of the Toronto Blue Jays’ organization and played for the major league squad in 1978.
Interesting that the Red Sox got another coach who is essentially making a lateral move. Another former Driveline guy. I would assume there is quite a pay bump involved. Clearly the Red Sox have a vision and are investing in the whole player development apparatus.
A little background on Hetzler from the Syracuse Mets website:
Hitting Coach Collin Hetzler begins his second season with Syracuse and his fourth season in the New York Mets’ organization. Hetzler spent the 2021 and 2022 seasons as the Mets’ complex hitting coordinator at New York’s spring training complex in Port St. Lucie, FL. In 2022, Hetzler was named the Mets Minor League Staff Member of the Year. The Fort Worth, TX native played two seasons of college baseball at Galveston College before playing his final two collegiate seasons at Houston Baptist University in 2011 and 2012. Hetzler was an assistant coach for the baseball team at Houston Baptist in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and he earned an MBA from Houston Baptist University in 2017. Prior to joining the Mets, Hetzler worked as a hitting trainer and the operations manager at Driveline Baseball in Kent, WA. Driveline is a data-driven baseball development program. While Hetzler never played professionally, his stepfather, Brian Milner, was a member of the Toronto Blue Jays’ organization and played for the major league squad in 1978.
Interesting that the Red Sox got another coach who is essentially making a lateral move. Another former Driveline guy. I would assume there is quite a pay bump involved. Clearly the Red Sox have a vision and are investing in the whole player development apparatus.
View: https://twitter.com/ChrisCotillo/status/1859990738484052366?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Red Sox announce their coaching staff.
José Flores is the first base coach. Was in Worcester. Parker Guinn hired from Yankees. Holt, Lawson as expected.
Red Sox announce their coaching staff.
José Flores is the first base coach. Was in Worcester. Parker Guinn hired from Yankees. Holt, Lawson as expected.
