Here's what Tim Hyers told us about being Atlanta's new hitting coach
The media met with Tim Hyers this morning to discuss his move from the Texas Rangers to Atlanta, his philosophy, and more
The Atlanta Braves surprised us all last week by dropping the news of a completed deal with then-Texas Rangers hitting coach Tim Hyers to take the same role in Atlanta. In typical Braves front office fashion, there were no rumors it was Hyers, no publicly confirmed meetings, just a press release dropped by the team.
Hyers was still under contract with Texas when the Braves reached out and requested permission to interview the Atlanta native. “It just came out of nowhere, really,” Hyers told us earlier this week when he met with the media via Zoom. While the Rangers didn’t have to grant the request, they did, something which Hyers appreciates. “I was happy in Texas. Texas treated me great (but) I told CY (Rangers GM Chris Young), you know it is home. I needed (to do this) for the family. They've chased me around baseball for many, many years…I’m glad to be home.”
After talking with President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos and manager Brian Snitker, converations that Hyers said put him “at ease”, Hyers accepted the job, wrapping up a process that “went pretty quick.”
The reason? He believes in their philosophies of building an offense and what they want to do.
“I just think they were sticking to the fundamentals of what complete offenses do,” Hyers told us. “It wasn’t something that was over-complicated. We have some talent, they know the talent is here. It’s: how do you get the talent to jell? How do you get the guys to continue to play together and to focus day in and day out? I just love the simple approach. I know Alex has got a big scouting background1. His job, he talked about getting good players on the field, keeping them healthy and then (handing) over to to (us, the coaches), and (we) do (our) thing. And he was just talking about Snit letting you do your job.”
What is that job? Sure, his title is “hitting coach”, but how does Hyers believe is the best way to do it?
He broke it down for us, explaining his three tenents of coaching:
Game Planning
Swing Decisions
Movements in the Batter’s Box
(Here’s video of Hyers breaking down these concepts, if you want to hear it from the man himself)
Let’s discuss these three concepts:
Game Planning - it’s all abut the information
Modern baseball is perhaps the singular sport where its easiest to suffer from information overload.
Hyers sees his job as preventing that:
“We have so much information these days, which is great. I love information, but I think that's the art of coaching this day and age is funneling that information.
So we have that one idea that one thought that we can go compete in the batter's box. And I think a lot of hitters, uh, they can only think about one, you know, one thing at a time and hit 97 miles an hour. So, game planning is big for me, is taking the information, what's the most important part, and let's go battle.”
Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, and Hyers understands that, but there’s an ulterior motive there.
“But in the big picture of the offense, if you dominate those things, I also think that helps your team be prepared, be disciplined and also be fluid.”
Remember that ‘fluid’ point - we’re coming back to that.
Swing Decisions - ‘you’re only as good as the strikes you swing at’
I’m going to be honest, I love this quote from Hyers.
He clarified that his ‘swing decisions’ tenet comes down to two different factors: Chase percentage - “can we eliminate some chase?” - and the pitches in the zone the players are swinging at. As he explained it, “what are we swinging at for our strengths, in parts of the zone?”
And I’m fired up about that.
Michael Harris II should be, too.
Atlanta’s young centerfielder is one of my favorite players on this roster - he’s an exceptional defender, an underrated offensive performer (career .285 hitter with 53 homers and 50 steals), and a great quote, to boot.
But also, he accomplishes everything he does despite some glaringly bad swing decisions.
Harris’ 39.6% chase rate in 2024 was 3rd percentile in all of baseball. And while now-dismissed hitting coach Kevin Seitzer said that guys were pressing, this isn’t a 2024 issue: Harris was at 38.1% (6th percentile) in 2023 and 39% (7th percentile) in 2022.
Obviously, minimizing some chase would be great. Even a modest reduction to simply below-average has the potential to dramatically raise the young outfielder’s ceiling.
But the other part of Hyers’ swing decisions ideas - “you’re only as good as the strikes you swing at” - is pretty big for Harris, as well.
We’re going to introduce a concept here, Attack Zones. Think of this from the hitter’s perspective: How pitchers are trying to attack you, using one of four areas.
Heart - these are right down the middle of the plate and (almost) never called balls. You need to swing as much as possible at pitches over the heart of the plate, because it probably wasn’t supposed to be there. Many of the best hitters are the league’s best hitters because they DESTROY mistake pitches - Aaron Judge was the best MLB hitter this season at pitches in the heart of the zone at +38 Runs. Number two? Shohei Ohtani, at +35. (Marcell Ozuna was tied for third at +24).
Shadow - this zone is about a ball width inside the edge of the strike zone to a ball width outside the strike zone. These might get called balls or strikes, depending on the movement (and the umpire calling balls and strikes, obviously), so most players are also on guard here and swing at a lot of these pitches.
Chase - These pitches are ten inches from the middle of the strike zone and almost never called strikes. Pitchers love the chase zone because, obviously, if they can get you to swing at a pitch here, you’re unlikely to do damage with it even if you do make contact. Good hitters avoid this zone completely.
Waste - Exactly what it sounds like, a wasted pitch2. Don’t swing at these and honestly, don’t throw these either. It does nothing but driving up your pitch count and risks hitting a batter if its inside.
This seems pretty clear so far - always swing at pitches in the heart, swing at hittable pitches in the shadow (if you can do damage) and protect (with two strikes), and avoid the chase and waste zones.
What if I told you that Michael Harris…doesn’t do that?
Money Mike was actually worth NEGATIVE three runs on pitches in the heart this season, mostly due to swing decisions. When he swung, he was effective: +3 runs at swings in the heart. He just didn’t swing enough, because he was worth minus six runs when taking pitches in the heart of the zone.
If you’re going to teach anyone to hit strikes hard, Tim Hyers, there’s your guy.
Movements in the Box - mechanics and how health impacts that.
While Hyers hasn’t had the chance to meet with all of Atlanta’s hitters yet, as they’re scattered all over the Western Hemisphere3, he has watched film and identified some issues that will be familiar to those of you who both read this site and watch the associated podcast:
The transcript here: “I think that some of the injuries caused some players to get out of their swings. And I think the mental affects the physical – when guys want to do more because some key players got hurt. I think we can clean up some of those patterns and get them back into their groove. Not trying to do much, (not trying to) have those thoughts, ‘I need to get a hit’ or ‘I need to hit a homer here.’ And I think that kind of messes up the physical.”
We heard something similar from Kevin Seitzer after he was fired by Atlanta - “It was the hardest season of my life, because guys were trying so hard and couldn’t get going, and I couldn’t get them to (not press),” Seitzer told David O’Brien of The Athletic. “If they can find somebody to get these guys to not try so hard, that needs to be the guy they hire.”
Guess what? That’s the guy they hired.
The Texas Rangers squad that Hyers is leaving was similar to Atlanta in 2023 - a power slugging team (third-best OPS at .790) that hits lots of homers (233, third-best4) and dealt with significant injuries this season.
The one difference between the 2024 Rangers and the 2024 Braves is this:
The Rangers never quit hitting with runners in scoring position. Texas put up a .273 team batting average with RISP this year, the 3rd-best mark in all of MLB.
Atlanta’s batting average in that same situation? .247, 20th. (They hit .266 with RISP in 2023.)
And this goes back to something Hyers said in that presser with us, about the need to be fluid:
“The fluid part of this is important, because you have to be able to score runs in multiple different ways. There’s days that we can slug, and obviously this team can slug and hits the ball really hard. I’m excited to be a part of that. But also, there’s days when you gotta score runs in different ways, and how quick can we be fluid into identifying that and do that as a group to be consistent with it?”
And this is where everything comes together. I’ll let Hyers explain it in his own words:
“They can impact the game with one swing and change the scoreboard in a hurry. But also, identifying those other times to take it down a notch and be a complete hitter and win 90 feet to start rallies and understand how to score runs. I think there’s multiple ways to do that, and I think that’s where the environment starts and the culture of getting those leaders together and, what does it take to win games? Yes, it’s in their DNA to mash baseballs and impact the game. But also, picking those little areas and spots during the season, against different matchups, to help them see different ways to score runs. I think we can do it. It’ll obviously be a challenge, but if you go back to the core fundamentals – if we swing at better pitches, if we’re the most prepared team offensively, I think those things blend into helping them use the whole field, identify situational hitting and grind out with two strikes and not just give at-bats away.”
And THAT’S what has me fired up for the addition of Tim Hyers.
(If you want to listen to this article in audio form, complete with clips of Hyers, we covered this on the Braves Today podcast the day after the press conference.)
Hyers was assistant hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016 and 2017, during the tenure of the club’s vice president of baseball operations…Alex Anthopoulos. They both left late that year, with AA coming to Atlanta as general manager and Hyers heading to Boston with a promotion as the team’s new hitting coach.
I call it a wasted pitch, but MLB hitters swing about 7% of the time out here in the waste zone. Usually it’s a well-sequenced pitch with a ton of movement, but it’s still embarassing almost every time it happens.
Ozzie’s at the World Series, working as a special correspondent for MLB.
Atlanta had 307 homers and a .845 team OPS in 2023, both which easily led MLB.