Twins make new coaching hire

The Twins are hiring Orioles co-hitting coach Matt Borgschulte as their new hitting coach, replacing the recently dismissed David Popkins, as first reported by Brandon Warne. It’s a return to his first professional organization, as Borgschulte was a hitting coach in the Twins’ minor league ranks from 2018-21 before being hired to Baltimore’s big-league staff for the 2022 season. Prior to his days as a coach in the Twins system, Borgschulte had been coaching at Southeast Missouri State University.

Borgschulte’s departure is the latest in a shakeup of the Orioles’ coaching staff on the heels of a second-half decline for the club, during which many of the team’s hitters struggled to produce at prior levels. His co-hitting coach, Ryan Fuller, was one of three coaches from whom the club moved on last week. Baltimore still has former big leaguer Cody Asche on manager Brandon Hyde’s staff as the “offensive strategy coordinator,” but it seems there’ll be a change of note in the organization’s messaging to a young core of hitters.

The Twins are plenty familiar with Borgschulte, of course, and will now install him on the club’s big league staff after declining to do so heading into the 2022 campaign. Dan Hayes of The Athletic tweets that Borgschulte was a finalist for what was then a vacant hitting coach position that ultimately went to Popkins.

Minnesota is undergoing a similar overhaul to its organizational hitting strategy. Popkins was one of four coaches the Twins cut loose. They also moved on from assistant hitting coaches Rudy Hernandez and Derek Shomon. Hernandez had been at his post as assistant hitting coach for nine years.

Though the second half of the season didn’t go well in Baltimore, Borgschulte clearly had a role in working with the Orioles’ impressive core of young hitters in recent years. It’s impossible to pin an entire organization’s successes or failures on one singular coach, but the O’s have churned out quality hitters like Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser in recent seasons while seeing veterans like Anthony Santander and Ryan O’Hearn take their offensive games to new levels. Minnesota will hope for similar strides among its own impressive core of young hitters, including Matt Wallner, Royce Lewis, Edouard Julien and Brooks Lee (among others).