The Boston Red Sox have gotten their offseason started off on the right foot. Last week I wrote a piece detailing what I believed should be the Red Sox top five priorities this winter. I asserted that the very first thing they had to do was hire a new hitting coach. Though the reports have yet to be confirmed, it appears that the Sox accomplished that goal on Sunday.
Despite an initial report that Boston had interest in former New York Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long, multiple sources are now reporting that Chili Davis, who spent the last three seasons as the hitting coach for the Oakland Athletics, will take over for the recently resigned Greg Colbrunn, who served with the Sox for two seasons in that capacity. MLB.com reported that Davis has agreed to a multi-year contract. Davis and the Red Sox are familiar with each other, as Davis spent the 2011 season as the hitting coach for the Pawtucket Red Sox, Boston’s Triple-A affiliate.
A former outfielder, Davis spent 19 seasons in the major leagues. He hit .274 for his career while clubbing 350 home runs and driving in 1,372 runs. He was named to three All-Star teams, twice with the San Francisco Giants and once with the then-California Angels.
In Colbrunn’s first season with Boston, the Red Sox led the major leagues with 853 runs scored. Just one year later, despite finishing in the top-half of baseball in team on-base percentage, Boston finished 18th in the majors in runs scored with just 634. The problem was a seeming inability to hit when it really mattered – with runners in scoring position. As I noted in last week’s piece, only three teams put up worse overall batting averages than the 2014 Red Sox with men on second and/or third base.
Though one bad season is not normally enough by itself to cause a hitting coach to lose his job, especially when the season before ended in a World Series victory, it is likely that the team’s poor performance in key situations at least played in to Colbrunn’s decision to resign. Even had he not, Boston would likely have at least explored their options going forward, and Colbrunn may have been on his way out anyway.
Though the A’s were eliminated by the Kansas City Royals in the postseason, they enjoyed a relatively successful year at the plate. Though they did not hit any better than the Red Sox overall (both teams finished the season with a .244 overall batting average), they finished 10th in baseball in batting average with RISP. The A’s mark of .258 with RISP was 21 points higher than the Sox. The A’s also drove in 686 runs, the fifth most in baseball and 85 more than Boston. This could be explained by a much higher team on-base percentage, but the A’s OBP of .320 just barely outpaced the Red Sox (.317). On paper, the Sox probably have the stronger lineup of the two teams. Davis should help that talent translate into runs on the board next season.
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Photo by Michael Zagaris/Oakland Athletics/Getty Images
