The Braves have fired three coaches who were previously under contract through 2025, with David O’Brien of The Athletic among those to relay the news (X links here). The three coaches are hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes and catching coach Sal Fasano. Atlanta will fill the two hitting coach positions but won’t replace Fasano, who was in a role specifically created for him. General manager Alex Anthopoulos had previously said he expected the entire coaching staff to return but O’Brien reports that the club hadn’t yet begun its evaluation process at that time.
Atlanta undoubtedly had a disappointing year, including on offense. The club came into the season with championship aspirations but just barely snuck into the playoffs and then were quickly eliminated. The club’s hitters posted a collective line of .243/.309/.415, leading to a league-average wRC+ of 100. That was a big drop from last year when Atlanta collectively hit .276/.344/.501 for a league-leading 125 wRC+.
How much credit or blame the hitting coach deserves for such a swing is a matter of debate. Seitzer has been the club’s hitting coach since October of 2014 and overseen plenty of good clubs since then, as Atlanta has the playoffs in each of the last seven years and won the 2021 World Series. While the 2024 club didn’t meet expectations, injuries undoubtedly played a role there, with Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley, Michael Harris II, Ozzie Albies, Sean Murphy and others missing significant time. Regardless, the club has decided that a change is necessary, so they will be looking for a new hitting coach for the first time in a decade.
Seitzer played in the majors from 1986 to 1997, suiting up for Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oakland and Cleveland. The Diamondbacks hired him as their hitting coach going into the 2007 season and he later had the same job with the Royals and Blue Jays before coming to Atlanta. Magallanes was a minor leaguer in the ’90s but never made it to the show. He became a minor league coach early in this century and was able to get up to the majors with Atlanta for the 2021 season.
Fasano played in the bigs from 1996 to 2008, playing for nine different teams. He quickly began coaching in the minors, getting hired by the Blue Jays in late 2009, around the same time Anthopoulos became the GM of that club. In late 2017, Anthopoulos became GM in Atlanta and Fasano was hired by the club as a catching instructor that same month.