The Atlanta Braves have fired hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes and catching coach Sal Fasano, a source confirmed to The Athletic on Thursday. The team has yet to announce the moves, but each of the coaches has been informed. Each was under contract with the Braves through 2025.
The rest of the coaching staff is expected to return next season along with manager Brian Snitker, who also is under contract through 2025. The Braves will replace both hitting coaches but not Fasano, whose position was specifically designed with him in mind and will not be filled.
Snitker and Braves president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos each said Friday, two days after the Braves were eliminated by the San Diego Padres in a Wild Card Series, that they intended to bring back the entire coaching staff.
But a person familiar with the situation said the team had not begun its offseason evaluation process at that time. After several days of management meetings, the decision was made to fire the hitting coaches and Fasano and all three were notified Thursday.
The #Braves fired hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes and catching coach Sal Fasano, a source confirmed to The Athletic. The team hasn’t announced the moves but the coaches have been informed. Each was under contract with the Braves through 2025.
— David O’Brien (@DOBrienATL) October 10, 2024
The Braves offense, after leading the majors in virtually every major category in 2023, when it tied the MLB single-season home run record with 307, became the first team to slug .500 or better (.501) for a full season, and also ranked first in average (.276), OBP (.344) and runs (947), slipped to the middle of the pack or lower in many of those same categories in 2024, when the team was beset by injuries throughout the season.
The Braves played without 2023 NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. for the last four months of the season after his second major knee surgery in three years and also had 2023 All-Stars Sean Murphy, Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies spend at least two months apiece on the injured list. But, ultimately, the overall offensive decline of the team and so many players when they were healthy led to the decision to go in a new direction.
A team source said the Braves will look far and wide for replacements, but Hall of Famer Chipper Jones isn’t a candidate for hitting coach. Jones, who for a few seasons served as a hitting consultant (basically a third hitting coach, for home games and some of spring training), wasn’t on the coaching staff last season and isn’t expected to be in 2025.
Seitzer, 62, spent 10 seasons with the Braves, longer than any other current MLB hitting coach has been with his current team and more than twice as long as most have been. Magallanes, 55, is a former Braves minor-league coach who was promoted to assistant hitting coach on the big-league staff before the 2021 season.
Fasano, 53, spent the past seven seasons with the Braves in the catching coach position that didn’t exist with the team before Anthopoulos hired him to fill it.
(Photo of Kevin Seitzer from 2023: Darren Yamashita / USA Today)
