On Monday morning, the Atlanta Braves made their new hitting coach Tim Hyers out there to the native media through Zoom for the primary time. Whereas the press availability wasn’t an extended and expansive one just like the one we had with President and GM Alex Anthopoulos and supervisor Brian Snitker, it was nonetheless illuminating to listen to from the most recent addition to Atlanta’s teaching employees as he defined his reasoning for becoming a member of the Braves and what his method might be on the subject of serving to the hitters right here in Atlanta.
On the subject of the choice to depart the Rangers in favor of the Braves, Hyers did state that the reasoning was a well-recognized one which we’ve seen with a quite a few quantity of each gamers and coaches: They needed to be nearer to house. Hyers is an Atlanta native and most of his household remains to be within the space, so when the place got here open and the Braves approached him, that was a fairly large issue for Hyers when it got here to taking the job. That is even though Hyers was completely content material to remain in Texas — particularly since he had skilled success there after serving to Texas win the World Sequence in 2023.
Nonetheless, Hyers did point out that he was a bit shocked about receiving the method from the Braves and after weighing his choices in a comparatively fast course of, he determined to affix Atlanta’s teaching employees. Hyers isn’t the primary coach or participant from Atlanta/Georgia/Deep South to decide on the Braves as a little bit of a homecoming and evidently, he received’t be the final.
On the subject of speaking about his method as a hitting coach, Hyers selected to disclose that he’s planning on going with a easy method that features three core rules: Recreation-planning, swing selections and motion inside the batter’s field.
New @braves hitting coach Tim Hyers has three core rules that he’s going to evangelise day in and day trip:
Recreation-planningSwing decisionsMovement within the batter’s field pic.twitter.com/q4qAxCxCpw
— Braves On FanDuel Sports activities Community (@FanDuelSNBraves) October 28, 2024
Three [core principles] that I’m going to evangelise day in and day trip is game-planning, swing selections and our actions within the batter’s field.
Recreation-planning — we’ve got a lot info as of late. I like info. I feel that’s the artwork of teaching at the moment is funnelling that info in order that we’ve got that one concept, that one thought that we are able to go compete within the batter’s field. I feel numerous hitters, they’ll solely take into consideration one factor at a time whereas hitting 97 mph. So game-planning is massive for me. It’s taking the data, what’s crucial half [of that information] and let’s go battle.
Swing selections — you’re solely nearly as good because the strikes you swing at. It’s primary. I feel you’ll be able to break that down into two teams: Chase proportion — can we eradicate some chase? — and what are we swinging at for our strengths, in components of the zone? I feel there’s some methods we are able to determine that to get gamers winging at their pitchies.
Lastly is their motion sample. It’s the mechanics. Simply watching some video and doing a little finding out right here, I feel that among the accidents precipitated some gamers to get out of their swing. I feel the psychological impacts the bodily — some guys needed to do extra as a result of some key gamers obtained damage. I feel we are able to clear up a few of these patterns and get them again into their groove. Not making an attempt to do an excessive amount of, having these ideas the place it’s like “I must get a success” or “I must hit a homer right here” and I feel that sort of messes up the bodily. So we have to assist get some guys again into their groove.
One of many extra attention-grabbing factors in there may be the Chase Fee. The Braves this season had a chase fee of 29.4 %, which was the Eleventh-highest quantity in baseball this season. That was truly a slight lower from their 30 % Chase Fee in 2023, once they completed ninth in that metric. Nevertheless, there was an enormous lower when it got here to Chase Contact proportion in 2024 when in comparison with 2023. In 2023, the Braves made contact with a whopping 60.1 % of pitches that they chased, which was the third-highest quantity in all of baseball. This previous season, it went all the best way down 54.3 %, which was the eighth-lowest fee in baseball.
The Braves positively had their fair proportion of unhealthy luck, whether or not it got here to accidents or simply rotten luck with batted balls (and barrels specifically). With that being stated, the method might have been simply as a lot of a difficulty as the rest and to listen to this introduced up by the brand new hitting coach in his preliminary evaluation of what the group appears to be like like on the plate.
It’l be very attention-grabbing to see how any of the concepts from Tim Hyers are utilized to the Braves going ahead. Naturally, there’s a little bit of an enormous hole between now and subsequent season however you need to think about that there might be loads of contact between Hyers and the gamers between now and subsequent season. Hopefully it’ll be productive and we’ll see the Braves return to performing on the lofty requirements that they’ve set for themselves on the plate over the previous few seasons now.
