On Monday morning, the Atlanta Braves made their new hitting coach Tim Hyers available to the local media via Zoom for the first time. While the press availability wasn’t a long and expansive one like the one we had with President and GM Alex Anthopoulos and manager Brian Snitker, it was still illuminating to hear from the newest addition to Atlanta’s coaching staff as he explained his reasoning for joining the Braves and what his approach will be when it comes to helping the hitters here in Atlanta.

When it comes to the decision to leave the Rangers in favor of the Braves, Hyers did state that the reasoning was a familiar one that we’ve seen with a numerous amount of both players and coaches: They wanted to be closer to home. Hyers is an Atlanta native and most of his family is still in the area, so when the position came open and the Braves approached him, that was a pretty big factor for Hyers when it came to taking the job. This is despite the fact that Hyers was perfectly content to stay in Texas — especially since he had experienced success there after helping Texas win the World Series in 2023.

Still, Hyers did mention that he was a bit surprised about receiving the approach from the Braves and after weighing his options in a relatively quick process, he decided to join Atlanta’s coaching staff. Hyers isn’t the first coach or player from Atlanta/Georgia/Deep South to choose the Braves as a bit of a homecoming and needless to say, he won’t be the last.

When it comes to talking about his approach as a hitting coach, Hyers chose to divulge that he’s planning on going with a simple approach that includes three core principles: Game-planning, swing decisions and movement within the batter’s box.

New @braves hitting coach Tim Hyers has three core principles that he is going to preach day in and day out:

Game-planning
Swing decisions
Movement in the batter’s box pic.twitter.com/q4qAxCxCpw

— Braves On FanDuel Sports Network (@FanDuelSNBraves) October 28, 2024

Three [core principles] that I’m going to preach day in and day out is game-planning, swing decisions and our movements in the batter’s box.

Game-planning — we have so much information these days. I love information. I think that’s the art of coaching in this day and age is funnelling that information so that we have that one idea, that one thought that we can go compete in the batter’s box. I think a lot of hitters, they can only think about one thing at a time while hitting 97 mph. So game-planning is big for me. It’s taking the information, what’s the most important part [of that information] and let’s go battle.

Swing decisions — you’re only as good as the strikes you swing at. It’s basic. I think you can break that down into two groups: Chase percentage — can we eliminate some chase? — and what are we swinging at for our strengths, in parts of the zone? I think there’s some ways we can identify that to get players winging at their pitchies.

Lastly is their movement pattern. It’s the mechanics. Just watching some video and doing some studying here, I think that some of the injuries caused some players to get out of their swing. I think the mental affects the physical — some guys wanted to do more because some key players got hurt. I think we can clean up some of those patterns and get them back into their groove. Not trying to do too much, having those thoughts where it’s like “I need to get a hit” or “I need to hit a homer here” and I think that kind of messes up the physical. So we need to help get some guys back into their groove.

One of the more interesting points in there is the Chase Rate. The Braves this season had a chase rate of 29.4 percent, which was the 11th-highest number in baseball this season. That was actually a slight decrease from their 30 percent Chase Rate in 2023, when they finished ninth in that metric. However, there was a massive decrease when it came to Chase Contact percentage in 2024 when compared to 2023. In 2023, the Braves made contact with a whopping 60.1 percent of pitches that they chased, which was the third-highest number in all of baseball. This past season, it went all the way down 54.3 percent, which was the eighth-lowest rate in baseball.

The Braves definitely had their fair share of bad luck, whether it came to injuries or just rotten luck with batted balls (and barrels in particular). With that being said, the approach may have been just as much of an issue as anything else and to hear this brought up by the new hitting coach in his initial assessment of what the team looks like at the plate.

It’l be very interesting to see how any of the ideas from Tim Hyers are applied to the Braves going forward. Naturally, there’s a bit of a huge gap between now and next season but you have to imagine that there will be plenty of contact between Hyers and the players between now and next season. Hopefully it’ll be productive and we’ll see the Braves return to performing at the lofty standards that they’ve set for themselves at the plate over the past few seasons now.