Giants hire MLB’S first woman coach
Alyssa Nakken, former Sac State softball player to serve as assistant coach for Gabe Kapler
The San Francisco Giants made baseball history Thursday, hiring the first woman to an MLB coaching staff.
Alyssa Nakken will help round out a 13-person staff as a “major league assistant coach” under first-year manager Gabe Kapler.
Nakken, a former Sacramento State softball player, will be the first female coach in Giants history and the first female fulltime coach in the majors.
Neither Nakken nor assistant coach Mark Hallberg, also hired Thursday, will be in the dugout during games as MLB teams are limited to having seven coaches on the bench, but both will be part of the uniformed staff and work with players on the field in pregame roles.
In a statement released Thursday, Kapler said the duo “will focus on fostering a clubhouse culture that promotes high performance through, among other attributes, a deep sense of collaboration and team.”
“Alyssa and Mark are highly respected members of the organization and I’m delighted that they will now focus their talents on helping to build a winning culture in the clubhouse,” Kapler said.
Nakken is expected to assist first base and outfield coach Antoan Richardson with leading pregame outfield work, and she may also throw batting practice during the season.
As the Giants built out Kapler’s first staff, the club interviewed Rachel Balkovec, who recently joined the New York Yankees organization as a minor league hitting coach. Balkovec is the first woman to be hired as a full-time hitting coach by a MLB franchise, but her interview with the Giants was believed to be the first for a woman in consideration for a job with a major league team.
Nakken was a three-time All-conference first baseman in the Sacramento State softball program and was her conference’s Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2012. She earned a master’s degree in sports management from the University of San Francisco
in 2015 after joining the Giants as an intern in the baseball operations department in 2014.
Prior to accepting a role on Kapler’s staff, Nakken’s roles with the Giants included developing, producing and directing a number of the organization’s health and wellness initiatives and events, including coordinating the Giant Race series.
Nakken joins a slow trickle of women hired by MLB organizations.
In September 2015, the A’s hired Justine Siegal (the first woman to throw batting practice for a major league team) as guest instructor for the club’s 2015 instructional league team.
In March 2019, the Mets hired Jessica Mendoza as baseball operations adviser focusing on player evaluation.
The Yankees hired Balkovec as a minor league hitting coach in November 2019. She is believed to be the first female full-time hitting coach hired by a major league organization. Shortly after her hiring, the Cubs signed Rachel Folden as lead hitting lab tech and fourth coach for their Rookie League team in Arizona.
Hallberg is a former college teammate of Giants catcher Buster Posey at Florida State who spent the past two seasons working in the Giants’ farm system. Hallberg holds a master’s degree in business administration and most recently worked as the manager for the Giants’ short-season affiliate, the Salem-keizer Volcanoes.