Fuller, González and Hernández won't return to Orioles coaching staff in 2025

The Orioles are making multiple changes to their coaching staff following their elimination in the Wild Card series.

According to a source, the club isn’t bringing back co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller, bench coach Fredi González and major league coach José Hernández. The search begins for their replacements.

Fuller served as full-season hitting coordinator and Double-A Bowie’s hitting coach in 2021 before his promotion to the Orioles. The offense slumped in the second half this season, batting .246/.319/.412 after the break, .238/.307 /.395 over the last two months and struggling to produce with runners in scoring position. Injuries to Jordan Westburg and Ramón Urías were contributing factors.

The lull carried into the playoffs. The Orioles scored one run in the two losses to Kansas City that resulted in their second consecutive sweep.

Matt Borgschulte was hired as co-hitting coach in 2022, coming from the Twins organization, and he remains on the staff. Unknown is whether he'll operate solely or again be paired with another coach.

González spent the past five years in the organization. He shifted from major league coach to bench coach in 2022.

The 2024 season marked González’s 35^th as a professional coach or manager.

Hernández has served in a variety of roles in the organization and just completed his fourth season as major league coach. He had the title in 2019 and again beginning in 2022, and he spent two years as assistant hitting coach before the Orioles implemented a co-coaching arrangement.

The former shortstop worked as a coach in the organization for 15 years.

If no other changes are made, the Orioles would bring back Borgschulte, pitching coach Drew French, assistant pitching coach Mitch Plassmeyer, major league field cooerdinator/catching instructor Tim Cossins, third base coach/infield instructor Tony Mansolino and first base coach/outfield instructor Anthony Sanders.

The staff also includes major league development coach Grant Anders, offensive strategy coach Cody Asche - who basically served as a third hitting coach - and pitching strategy coach Ryan Klimek.

The Orioles haven't announced the changes and don't comment on personnel matters.

Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias confirmed at his season-ending press conference that manager Brandon Hyde is returning for a seventh season.

Asked about the coaching staff, Elias said the following:

“I’ve never made a habit of making this immediate press conference right after the season ends to start talking about contracts, players, staff. It’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to anybody. We’re going to examine things. Things did not go the way that we wanted this year. We did not meet expectations. There were a lot of positives this year, and I don’t want to lose sight of there are probably a lot of other more difficult press conferences than this one going on around the league. But it feels bad to us, and it was a bad outcome at the end of the season. So we had a lot of success with this group. One of the winningest teams going back more than two calendar years in baseball, and the achievements that this group have made together to pull the organization up into a spot where it’s one of the most admired organizations in baseball. There are a lot of people that have had a lot of contributions to that.

“So as I try to look this offseason about what we can adjust in many different ways, whether that’s staffing, all the stuff I just mentioned, processes, information, all the things that we do around here, I need to find the appropriate balance with all the positivity that we’ve achieved with this bad taste in our mouths and bad outcome in the playoffs and a disappointing sort of second half overall. I need some time to examine striking the right balance between analoging the positives of what’s going on here with our apparent shortcomings.”