The challenge for Cody Asche in his first season as Orioles hitting coach is a complicated one.
Asche occupied a front-row seat to the offense last season and, in his role of offensive strategy coach, had a hand in helping the ballclub score the fourth-most runs in the majors (4.85 per game). At the same time, however, their lineup struggled to string together long rallies and leaned heavily on home runs to put runs on the board.
It was a flaw that ultimately proved to be their downfall in the playoffs, where the Kansas City Royals held them to one run — plated on a homer by Cedric Mullins — in two games to sweep them out of the wild-card round. Executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias admitted the all-or-nothing results were frustrating and pledged to study them for a cause.
“Getting hits and getting RBIs with runners in scoring position, there’s a lot of evidence that that can be difficult to control on a year-over-year, month-to-month basis,” Elias said after the season. “It’s a tricky thing, hitting. That said, I am going to behave as though it is under our control, and we are going to examine everything about our offensive approach, teachings, the mix of personnel, the kinds of things you mentioned and put ourselves in position to where we feel like we’ve addressed any potential shortcomings there. I don’t believe it’s necessarily all chance.”
Though Asche now carries the leading voice on hitting in the Orioles’ clubhouse after being promoted to replace departed co-hitting coaches Ryan Fuller and Matt Borgschulte, the front office’s hitting philosophies, and those of manager Brandon Hyde, will still carry plenty of weight. Baltimore values the platoon advantage — only the Cleveland Guardians had more such plate appearances last year — and the team showed its desire for more right-handed power production with its decision to bring the left field wall at Camden Yards back in this winter.
But Asche expressed during a media availability in August a desire to see the Orioles draw more walks, providing a glimpse at what he will bring to the table as hitting coach.
“I think, from a hitting coach perspective, yeah, we’d want to walk more and chase less,” Asche said. “That’s the pipe dream of every front office that builds a lineup. That’s the pipe dream of every manager and hitting coach. … But you kind of got to factor in your lineup and help guys do what they do best all the time without solely focusing on weaknesses, because you tell a guy what he’s bad at enough, eventually he just believes that’s who he is instead of showing him what they’re good at and making sure they’re really good at that.”
The Orioles were good at hitting home runs — they ranked second to the New York Yankees with 235 in the regular season — and making any sacrifices in the power department could risk lowering the team’s overall offensive production. But their lack of patience at the plate was glaring. Baltimore finished the season with 2.08 walks for every homer, the lowest rate in the majors. Statcast also estimated that Orioles hitters chased on 31% of pitches outside the strike zone for the eighth-highest rate of any team in the league.
The Orioles tried to put their hitters in good situations by setting them up with platoon advantages, where a right-handed hitter is facing a left-handed pitcher or vice versa. Their hitters did, on average, perform better in those situations, in line with the widely accepted truth of modern-day front offices that the platoon advantage is statistically significant. While that might have made it difficult for young players such as Heston Kjerstad or Jackson Holliday to rack up enough at-bats to settle into a rhythm, the results were promising.
The Orioles’ team OPS with the platoon advantage (.779) was nearly 83 points higher than without (.696) and their pinch hitters, who nearly always hit in such situations, led the American League with a mark of .857 despite many of their bench players being thrust into everyday roles down the stretch because of injuries. It’s unlikely that approach changes with Asche at hitting coach.
“We try to play platoon advantage as well as we possibly can, but maybe we’re at disadvantages on some nights [when players are hurt], and to still win 91 games, I’m proud of that,” Hyde said in his end-of-season news conference. “[Are] there things to look into? Absolutely. Do we need to score more runs? Do we need to generate more offense the second half? Absolutely.”
As their young lineup continues to get comfortable at the major league level, improvement in their swing decisions could be the natural next step in their development. Positive regression for their numbers with runners in scoring position might help, too. Even though their overall philosophy might not change, the Orioles will look to Asche to make the suggestions that allow their hitters to reach their full potential.
Perhaps those suggestions will entail more patience in 2025.
“The offense was more aggressive this year in terms of its — just characterizing the stats that it put up,” Elias said. “Some of that is variation year over year, and without doing anything, we might see some of those numbers switch.
“We’ve got a bunch of guys that have the ability to see the ball well, control the strike zone, have demonstrated a lot of walking ability, if not in the major leagues in the minors, and that that’s been a big pillar of the success that I’ve been around in baseball dating all the way back to starting my career with the St. Louis Cardinals’ scouting department. And so we do want to keep an eye on that.”
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