Atlanta Braves Facing Offseason Decision on Hitting Coach

The Atlanta Braves won the National League East at 94-68, beating the Philadelphia Phillies in the wild card round before losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS.

That is a good season by most standards. It is also a season that ended with real questions about whether this offense is capable of doing more, and one of those questions is about hitting coach Tim Hyers.

Hyers signed a two-year deal with Atlanta in October 2024, coming over from Texas after helping the Rangers win the World Series in 2023. He had also been part of the Boston Red Sox staff that won the championship in 2018.

The resume was strong, and manager Walt Weiss has backed him publicly. Weiss called Hyers one of the best hitting coaches he has ever been around, said he was outstanding and expressed complete confidence in him heading into 2026.

The results have been harder to read cleanly, and that is largely because of injuries. Ronald Acuña Jr. has not been the same player he was before his knee surgery. Austin Riley dealt with his own struggles and missed time.

Sean Murphy fractured a finger and played just 33 games. Ozzie Albies has had stretches of inconsistency.

When a lineup loses that kind of production for weeks at a time, it becomes almost impossible to evaluate the coaching staff fairly. 

What the Braves do know is that their offense has leaned heavily on Matt Olson and Drake Baldwin, who have both been reliable. The supporting cast has been inconsistent. Atlanta ranked among the better teams in the league by final record, but their run differential tells a more complicated story. They also struggled to get anything going in the playoffs.

There is an argument for keeping Hyers. While the results in the postseason were disappointing, it was still just a seven-game sample size.Continuity matters, and asking hitters to adjust to a new voice every couple of years creates its own problems.

There is also a real argument for change, though. Riley and Albies are two of the more talented hitters in the lineup, and neither produced at the level Atlanta needs from them.

Riley’s numbers were a disappointment across the full season, and Albies never found any consistency. When two All-Star hitters underperform in back-to-back years, the question of what the hitting staff is doing to address it becomes harder to avoid.

No decision has been confirmed. But Hyers’ original two-year deal is up, and Atlanta has a choice to make.