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Matt Borgschulte

Twins To Name Matt Borgschulte Hitting Coach

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The Twins are hiring Orioles co-hitting coach Matt Borgschulte as their new hitting coach, replacing the recently dismissed David Popkins, as first reported by Brandon Warne. It’s a return to his first professional organization, as Borgschulte was a hitting coach in the Twins’ minor league ranks from 2018-21 before being hired to Baltimore’s big league staff for the 2022 season. Prior to his days as a coach in the Twins system, Borgschulte had been coaching at Southeast Missouri State University.

Borgschulte’s departure is the latest in a shakeup of the Orioles’ coaching staff on the heels of a second-half decline for the club, during which many of the team’s hitters struggled to produce at prior levels. His co-hitting coach, Ryan Fuller, was one of three coaches from whom the club moved on last week. Baltimore still has former big leaguer Cody Asche on manager Brandon Hyde’s staff as the “offensive strategy coordinator,” but it seems there’ll be a change of note in the organization’s messaging to a young core of hitters.

The Twins are plenty familiar with Borgschulte, of course, and will now install him on the club’s big league staff after declining to do so heading into the 2022 campaign. Dan Hayes of The Athletic tweets that Borgschulte was a finalist for what was then a vacant hitting coach position that ultimately went to Popkins.

Minnesota is undergoing a similar overhaul to its organizational hitting strategy. Popkins was one of four coaches the Twins cut loose. They also moved on from assistant hitting coaches Rudy Hernandez and Derek Shomon. Hernandez had been at his post as assistant hitting coach for nine years.

Though the second half of the season didn’t go well in Baltimore, Borgschulte clearly had a role in working with the Orioles’ impressive core of young hitters in recent years. It’s impossible to pin an entire organization’s successes or failures on one singular coach, but the O’s have churned out quality hitters like Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser in recent seasons while seeing veterans like Anthony Santander and Ryan O’Hearn take their offensive games to new levels. Minnesota will hope for similar strides among its own impressive core of young hitters, including Matt Wallner, Royce Lewis, Edouard Julien and Brooks Lee (among others).

Coaching/Organizational Notes: Mets, Pirates, Carroll, Orioles

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The Mets are nearing a deal to add Joey Cora to Buck Showalter’s staff as third base coach, and it seems the rest of the coaches will be in place soon. Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News reports that the Mets are likely to finalize their entire staff by this weekend. Only pitching coach Jeremy Hefner remains from last year’s group, leaving first base coach, hitting coach, bullpen coach, bench coach and assistant hitting/pitching coaches to be determined.

Interestingly, Thosar hears that the mystery bench coach is likely to be a “headline-grabbing hire.” While that person’s identity remains unclear, Thosar writes that nine-time All-Star outfielder Carlos Beltrán is not under consideration. Beltrán served as Mets manager for around two months over the 2019-20 offseason, but he and the club mutually parted ways before he ever coached a game after his role in the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal was made public. He hasn’t landed a position with an MLB team since then, and he apparently won’t be Showalter’s right-hand man in Queens. Yesterday, Mike Puma of The New York Post suggested former Orioles bench coach John Russell and Dodgers first base coach Clayton McCullough could be possibilities for the role.

The latest on some other coaching/front office situations around the league:

  • Jamey Carroll is departing the Pirates organization, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link). He’d spent the past seven seasons in Pittsburgh, originally joining the Bucs’ front office in January 2015. Most recently, the 47-year-old was serving as a special assistant in baseball operations and as the club’s defensive coordinator, per Mackey. Carroll is best known for his twelve-year big league playing career. Between 2002-13, the Indiana native suited up with the Expos/Nationals, Rockies, Indians, Dodgers, Twins and Royals.
  • The Orioles became the latest in a handful of teams around the league to hire co-hitting coaches in November. Baltimore added Matt Borgschulte and Ryan Fuller to the big league staff, the first MLB opportunity for both. It’s an odd time for incoming coaches to get acclimated to a new club, as staff members are prohibited from interacting with players on the 40-man roster during the ongoing lockout. Jon Meoli catches up with Fuller and Borgschulte to discuss their new positions, with the staff members telling Meoli they talk with one another daily to build out individualized plans to implement with each hitter once the work stoppage ends. Fuller, who was promoted from within the O’s farm system, is familiar with some of the players on the big league roster. Borgschulte was brought over from the Twins organization and doesn’t have the same kind of personal connection to much of the roster, but Fuller speaks with Meoli about how his colleague’s background in pitch recognition training adds a relatively new element to the team’s development processes.

Quick Hits: Cubs, Breslow, Orioles, Hitting Coaches, Guardians, Tito

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In an article at The Athletic, Sahadev Sharma makes five predictions for the 2022 Cubs, including one that Craig Breslow will emerge as a candidate for a future team president role. Breslow retired from pitching and joined the Cubs’ front office prior to the 2019 season as director of strategic initiatives and was promoted to assistant general manager after the 2020 campaign. Sharma points out that Breslow is from the same area of Connecticut as Mets’ owner Steve Cohen, which could have made him a nice fit for the lengthy front office search the Mets’ underwent in recent months, which concluded with the hiring of Billy Eppler as general manager. However, the Mets never actually reached out to Breslow, according to Sharma.

Some other notes from around the league…

  • The Orioles announced in November that they would be hiring two co-hitting coaches, Matt Borgschulte and Ryan Fuller. Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun profiled both of them this week to discuss their respective journeys. Borgschulte spent some time at Southeast Missouri State, where he worked with Dillon Lawson. The two will now be division rivals in the MLB, as Lawson recently became the Yankees hitting coach. During their time there, the school’s program developed a reputation as being at the forefront of using technology to improve pitch recognition using occlusion training, “where video of a pitch is cut off after around 20 feet, forcing a hitter to use that early portion of the ball flight to decide what type of pitch it is and whether to swing,” as Meoli describes it. Fuller, meanwhile, has been largely focused on biomechanics and swing planes. He was hired by the Orioles prior to the 2020 season with the aim of being the hitting coach in Low-A. However, after the pandemic wiped out the minor leagues that year, he ended up at the Orioles’ alternate site, working with players who were on the cusp of the majors. Successful showings from players like Cedric Mullins, DJ Stewart, Ryan Mountcastle and Austin Hays helped Fuller’s approach take hold in the organization, leading to his new position working with the big league club. The ability to maximize the potential of their young hitters figures to be an important detail for the Orioles in the coming years. The club has had five straight losing seasons and is firmly in the basement of the AL East, with their four division mates having each won at least 91 games in 2021. However, their rebuilding process has led to stockpiling young talent, with Baseball America placing them second only to the Mariners in their most recent Organization Talent Rankings. Turning those prospects into productive major leaguers will be key to helping the club climb out of the AL East basement.
  •  Terry Francona stepped away from his managing duties for health reasons in July but seems to be on the path to return to the dugout to helm the Guardians in 2022. He recently spoke with Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe and provided some more details about his situation. “I had my hip replaced in August. That was a piece of cake. Four weeks later, they went in and redid my toe,” Francona said. “They put a rod in, two pieces of bone and eight screws. Technically, I’m still on crutches, but I haven’t been using my crutches for a while. I’m in a boot.” Tito then goes on to detail how he’s been managing this multitude of injuries since chasing down a fly ball as a 22-year-old and has since had over 40 surgeries in the subsequent 40 years.  “Twelve on each knee. That’s the majority,” he said. “I’ve had my toe done twice. Both hips. Both shoulders twice. Left elbow. Hernia. Neck. Back. Disk surgery. I’ve had four or five surgeries on my wrist and fingers, but they are just little ones. I don’t count those. Then I had the blood clot procedures. The last surgery, they put two stents in my legs and one in my stomach and I have better circulation now than I have in a long time.” Despite all of that, Tito played parts of 10 seasons as a player and has now managed parts of 21 seasons. And if all continues according to plan, he should be back for a 22nd.

Orioles Hire Matt Borgschulte And Ryan Fuller As Co-Hitting Coaches

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The Orioles announced a pair of additions to the coaching staff this morning, hiring Matt Borgschulte and Ryan Fuller as co-hitting coaches. (Joe Trezza of MLB.com first reported the moves yesterday). They’ll replace Don Long, who was let go last month after a three-year stint in Baltimore.

Borgschulte comes over from the Twins organization, where he’s spent the past four seasons. The 31-year-old worked his way up to hitting coach with the Twins’ top affiliate in St. Paul before earning his first big league job in Baltimore. Fuller, also 31, is an internal promotion. The O’s hired him as a minor league instructor over the 2019-20 offseason. As with Borgschulte, this’ll be Fuller’s initial job on a major league staff.

In addition to the coaching changes, the club also provided reporters (including Trezza and Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com) updates on a trio of injured players this week. Left-hander Keegan Akin recently underwent a hip adductor repair, his second procedure within the past couple months. Outfielder Austin Hays and infielder Ramón Urías, meanwhile, each recently underwent core repair surgeries. It’s expected that all three players will be ready for Spring Training.

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