Alex Cintron had been Houston’s hitting coach since the 2019 season. Sam Navarro / Imagn Images
The Houston Astros will not renew the contract of longtime hitting coach Alex Cintrón, two league sources told The Athletic on Thursday.
More changes also could be coming to manager Joe Espada’s coaching staff, according to league sources.
Cintrón signed a three-year contract after the 2022 season that ended this year, one in which Houston’s offense sputtered during a September swoon. The Astros scored three or fewer runs in 82 of their 162 games while sporting a .719 OPS that ranked seventh out of 15 American League teams. The Astros missed the playoffs for the first time in nine seasons, prompting general manager Dana Brown to promise “a complete look at all of our operations.”
Last winter, Brown said he met with both Cintrón and fellow hitting coach Troy Snitker after Brown believed the Astros “got away” from their collective offensive approach. Among the points Brown emphasized to the hitting coaches were seeing more pitches and “being a little bit more patient, and aggressive in zone, not so much aggressive out of the zone,” Brown said.
In response, the 2025 Astros boasted MLB’s second-highest chase rate and saw the third-fewest pitches per plate appearance of any lineup. Significant injuries to Isaac Paredes, Yordan Alvarez and Jeremy Peña contributed to the decline. In particular, Paredes was acquired for his patience and ability to work at-bats.
“When Paredes went down, we started seeing less pitches per at-bat. I think that’s going to be a big focus for us: that you have to hunt your pitch, stick with hunting your pitch and get to more two-strike counts to make the pitcher work a little bit harder,” Brown said last week.
“I think the fact we chased a little bit early, I think our guys were pressing a little bit because we had guys missing in the lineup and we tried to do too much.”
Cintrón, 46, spent nine seasons in the organization, including seven as a major-league hitting coach — all alongside Snitker.
Oct 9, 2025
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