Tigers hire new catching coach to complete 2023 staff

The Detroit Tigers have hired Tim Federowicz as their catching coach for the 2023 season. He spent last season as the manager for Triple-A Tacoma in the Seattle Mariners’ organization.

Federowicz played 163 MLB games across parts of eight seasons, including 10 games for Tigers manager A.J. Hinch as a member of the Houston Astros in 2018. He also played 878 games in the minor leagues.

The Tigers’ coaching staff for 2023 has been completed.

“I was looking for an ex-catcher, someone who’s been in the league before,” Hinch said Thursday. “I didn’t care about experience level. ... I had Fed with the Astros as a player and got to learn about how his mind works and how he connects with players as a teammate.”

Here’s a look at the Tigers’ coaching staff: manager A.J. Hinch, bench coach George Lombard, pitching coach Chris Fetter, assistant pitching coach Juan Nieves, assistant pitching coach Robin Lund, hitting coach Michael Brdar, hitting coach Keith Beauregard, assistant hitting coach James Rowson, first base coach Alfredo Amézaga, third base coach Gary Jones and catching coach Tim Federowicz.

Five of them are new faces: Lund, Brdar, Beauregard, Rowson and Federowicz.

“The one space we were looking to fill was some catching experience and park game planning,” Hinch said. “Him coming off the field just recently and jumping right into the Triple-A level, which might be the hardest level to manage in the minor leagues, I think his adjustments were awesome.”

Federowicz, 35, hit .192 with 12 home runs, 25 walks and 143 strikeouts in his MLB career, playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers (2011-14), Chicago Cubs (2016), San Francisco Giants (2017), Astros (2018), Cincinnati Reds (2018) and Texas Rangers (2019).

The Boston Red Sox selected Federowicz in the seventh round of the 2008 draft from the University of North Carolina. He joined Team USA as a player and won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

“Watching him jump right into the Triple-A level,” Hinch said, “and be a really good manager last season gave me a ton of comfort that he can come to the big leagues and be a great source of knowledge and experience for our catching department.”