Orioles general manager Mike Elias spoke of an in-depth analysis of the entire organization after the team failed to win a postseason game for the second straight year. The first domino? Three coaching changes.
Co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller and bench coach Fredi González will not return in 2025, multiple sources told The Baltimore Banner. One source confirmed José Hernández also will not return. The moves were first reported by Mid-Atlantic Sports Network.
A source with knowledge of the situation said it was Fuller’s decision to depart Baltimore. González, however, was let go by the Orioles, according to a third source.
The Orioles’ hitting coaches oversaw an offense that hit a skid in the second half. That was partly influenced by injuries, as Jorge Mateo, Jordan Westburg, Ryan Mountcastle and Ramón Urías missed chunks of the season. But there were also slumps that saw Baltimore’s 117 wRC+ — a measure that rates offensive productivity, with 100 being average — go from first in the majors to seventh after the All-Star break.
It wasn’t for lack of effort. Baltimore’s hitters defended their hitting coaches late in the season as external pressure mounted amid a teamwide slump. And manager Brandon Hyde, who will return in 2025, noted how difficult the job of a hitting coach is.
“You’re never going to have 13 or whatever guys going at the same time,” Hyde said after the season. “You’re going to have three guys going, you’re going to have three guys struggling, and you’re going to have six guys kind of in between, and it changes every three or four days. So it’s a really, really tough job. Hitting is so hard to do. I think our guys do an amazing job of preparing our guys. I think they’re unbelievably likable. Guys love to hit with them in the cage. They’re incredibly prepared, they’re unbelievably positive, and they’re living and dying with every single one of our guys’ at-bats. That’s all you can ask for.”
But Elias spoke of “examin[ing] everything about our offensive approach, teachings, the mix of personnel” at the end-of-season news conference, and it may have led to the coaching staff. As of now, co-hitting coach Matt Borgschulte and offensive strategist Cody Asche remain.
They are, of course, the same coaches who helped the Orioles win 192 games in 2023 and 2024. But a lack of postseason success is drawing a change.
“As I try to look this offseason about what we can adjust in many different ways — whether that’s staffing, all the stuff I just mentioned, processes, information, all the things that we do around here — I need to find the appropriate balance with all the positivity that we’ve achieved with this bad taste in our mouths and bad outcome in the playoffs and a disappointing sort of second half overall,” Elias said.
The decision to part ways with González is a surprise. He was a trusted resource for Hyde, an experienced major league manager who joined a young manager in 2019 to help guide Hyde at the helm. During the final stretch of this season, González said he and Hyde often talked about difficult stretches and how to navigate them.
“We’ve had conversations with that,” González said. “He asked me, ‘Have you ever seen anything like this before?’ I turned around and said, ‘You remember 2011, when I was going through the same thing in Atlanta?’ And he goes, ‘What would you do? What did you do different?’ And we talked a little bit about that.”
González credited Hyde with maintaining an even keel rather than exploding on umpires or his players. But, as Hyde enters his seventh season, there will be a new bench coach alongside him. One possibility is Triple-A Norfolk manager Buck Britton, considering he’s been in the organization much of his playing and coaching careers and managed many of the players now with the Orioles.
Hernández has long been with the Orioles as well. He joined the major league coaching staff in 2019 after 10 years in the minor league system.
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