With Matt Borgschulte taking a job with the Twins, neither of the Birds’ 2024 co-hitting coaches will be returning to Baltimore next year.
For Orioles fans who wondered if heads would roll after the O’s offense flatlined for much of the second half and then scored just one run in the postseason, it appears we have an answer.
Maybe it’s not exactly heads rolling, but Ryan Fuller and Matt Borgschulte, the co-hitting coaches who presided over this year’s disappointing offense, won’t be returning to the coaching staff next year. Yesterday Borgschulte accepted a position as hitting coach with the Minnesota Twins, rejoining his former organization, and O’s reporters confirmed last week that the club won’t be bringing back Fuller.
It seemed inevitable that the Orioles would make some changes to address the lineup’s often frustrating plate approach, which cost them dearly in the playoffs. While the Birds scored the fourth-most runs in the majors (786) and hit the second-most homers (235), they too often seemed overly aggressive at the plate, with a 7.9% walk rate that ranked 19th in MLB.
Those undisciplined at-bats were especially evident with runners in scoring position, when O’s hitters would get themselves out by chasing pitches out of the zone, often failing even to make contact when just a fly ball or a well-placed grounder would score a run. In situations where all the pressure should be on the pitcher, it was instead Orioles hitters who seemed to panic. The lasting image of the 2024 season may well be Colton Cowser striking out swinging at a pitch that broke his hand in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series. We wish Colton all the best in his recovery, but that at-bat was emblematic of Orioles hitters’ poor approach in clutch situations for much of the year. The O’s posted a .741 OPS with men in scoring position this season, a drop of nearly 100 points from the previous year.
Of course, Fuller and Borgschulte were also the hitting coaches in 2023, when the Orioles had a dynamic, productive offense that came through in the clutch time and time again. So it’s not as if the blame for 2024 can be laid entirely at their feet, unless they somehow just forgot everything they’d taught in previous seasons. Fans don’t really have any idea of what coaches are doing behind the scenes or how they’re working with individual players.
Still, given the frustrating way that the season ended, and some prominent hitters who either regressed or failed to take a step forward — notably, Adley Rutschman and Jackson Holliday — it’s probably not the worst thing for the Orioles to find a fresh set of eyes to work with their young talent.