MASN’s Roch Kubatko reported that Orioles co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller and two other members of the staff won’t be back.
At last week’s end-of-season press conference with Orioles GM Mike Elias, he committed to manager Brandon Hyde for the 2025 season but stopped short of making the same statement about the entire coaching staff. On Friday morning, MASN’s Roch Kubatko reported on several changes coming to that staff, with co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller, bench coach Fredi González, and major league coach Jose Hernández all not coming back for 2025.
There could still be further changes to the coaching staff beyond this reporting. Kubatko noted that the team has not announced any changes and will not comment on what it deems personnel matters. Some time later in the offseason they’ll just put out a press release about the coaching staff and that will be that. It could be in each of these cases that these were not firings so much as choosing not to renew expiring contracts.
For anyone who was looking to blame hitting coaches for the team’s second half swoon and the offense’s two-game vanishing act in the postseason, the fact that at least one of the two guys is changing is a nice symbolic victory. Fuller had been a minor league-wide hitting coach as well as Double-A Bowie’s hitting coach before joining the big league staff. Co-hitting coach Matt Borgschulte and offensive strategy coach Cody Asche appear to be remaining for the time being.
González filled the role of “bench coach as former manager,” bringing about a decade of experience in that position between the Marlins and Braves to the Orioles in 2020. He’s been coaching or managing at the MLB level almost continually since 1999.
Hernández has been around in some capacity with the Orioles for 15 years. The “major league coach” is a vague portfolio, but again for those looking for symbolic change, it may be significant that Hernández also previously held the title of assistant hitting coach with the team.
From the outside, it’s impossible to know how much any one of these guys may have been part of the problem, or even whether their being reported to be leaving the organization means that the Orioles think they are part of the problem. What we can say is that they don’t seem to have been part of the solution. As the team makes some new hires and looks to implement some changes to its philosophies, hopefully they can get themselves back to a successful formula.