Offense struggling since Hyers left
Former hitting coach joined Rangers in offseason
Rarely does a change in hitting coach make the kind of significant impact that has the fanbase wondering what happened, but the Red Sox’ loss of Tim Hyers is doing just that this season.
In Texas this weekend for a three-game set with the Rangers, the Sox pitching staff will have to contend with a Hyers-coached Rangers offense that has yet to hit its stride.
Hyers is in his first year with the Rangers after leaving the Red Sox on his own terms this past offseason. The Red Sox promoted assistant hitting coach Peter Fatse to replace Hyers.
There was a lot of speculation as to why he left, though Hyers cleared some of that up on Friday when he told MassLive.com that it had nothing to do with money and the Sox wanted him to come back, but Hyers left because he felt like a change of scenery would be good for everybody.
“It was a new challenge for me,” Hyers told MassLive.com. “Maybe they needed a new voice. Maybe. Maybe I needed a new scenery, a new environment to keep moving. I had all the confidence in the world with Pete. They’re going to be in great hands. So if there was a time for me to walk away, it was the time. And it was probably a little bit better for my family. My wife’s job moving back and forth here in Texas. So it’s probably a little easier on the family.”
Hyers joined the Red Sox along with manager Alex
Cora in 2018, when the Sox instantly became one of the most aggressive offenses in baseball.
Cora and Hyers preached similar messages: attack early and often.
It worked in ‘18, when the Sox saw their offense improved from a 10th-ranked offense scoring 4.85 runs per game in ‘17 to the topranked offense scoring 5.41 runs per game in ‘18.
The clearest change was in the team’s aggressiveness. They were one of the most patient teams in baseball in ‘17, when they swung just 44% of the time, the 29th-ranked swing rate in the big leagues. That number jumped to 46% as they became the 19th-ranked team in Hyers’ first year.
The numbers were similar across the board and players were vocal about how the change impacted them. Mookie Betts stopped looking at juicy pitches and became the leadoff man who hit .346 with 32 home runs and earned him the American League MVP award. Xander Bogaerts saw his home run total jump from 10 to 23.
Aggression was the answer.
Under Hyers, the Sox continued to slug at the plate in ‘19 and ‘21, averaging over five runs per game in each of those seasons aside from the shortened season in ‘20, when the Sox finished in last place.
But Hyers left this offseason, Fatse took over and the Sox are averaging just 3.45 runs per game this year, the third-worst offense in baseball.
It’s often over-exaggerated how much of an impact coaches can make. The players are mostly the same this year as they were a year ago, with the only main difference being the addition of Trevor Story, who has yet to make much of an impact. But it’s clear that something is off with the Sox’ offense, which has become even more aggressive under Fatse than they were under Hyers.
They’re swinging a remarkable 51% of the time, easily the highest rate in MLB.
Both Fatse and Cora have been public with their belief that the aggressive plate approach isn’t the wrong one. They want their hitters to be aggressive, despite the poor results. They’ve said it’s more a matter of pitch selection, that Red Sox hitters aren’t choosing the right pitches to swing at. That checks out; the Sox’ 31% chase rate is among the highest in the game.
But it seems that the aggression is only affecting some of the hitters, because the Sox’ top three guys are still producing.
They entered Friday as the only MLB team with three qualified players who each have at least a .290 average and .830 OPS. The hitters: Bogaerts (.345, .863), Rafael Devers (.313, .851), and J.D. Martinez (.298, .837).
Bogaerts’ average is the best in the American
League and fourth-best in the majors. Devers is in the top 10 in most offensive categories while Martinez is top 10 in average.
It seems to be the other hitters on the Sox’ roster who haven’t made the proper adjustments this