![\"Alex](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/USATSI_25416027-1024x683.jpg\")
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Alex Cintron had been Houston’s hitting coach since the 2019 season. Sam Navarro \/ Imagn Images<\/p>\n
The Houston Astros will not renew the contract of longtime hitting coach Alex Cintr\u00f3n, two league sources told The Athletic on Thursday.<\/p>\n
More changes also could be coming to manager Joe Espada\u2019s coaching staff, according to league sources.<\/p>\n
Cintr\u00f3n signed a three-year contract after the 2022 season that ended this year, one in which Houston\u2019s 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 \u201ca complete look at all of our operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last winter, Brown said he met with both Cintr\u00f3n and fellow hitting coach Troy Snitker after Brown believed the Astros \u201cgot away\u201d from their collective offensive approach. Among the points Brown emphasized to the hitting coaches were seeing more pitches and \u201cbeing a little bit more patient, and aggressive in zone, not so much aggressive out of the zone,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
In response, the 2025 Astros boasted MLB\u2019s 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 Pe\u00f1a contributed to the decline. In particular, Paredes was acquired for his patience and ability to work at-bats.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Paredes went down, we started seeing less pitches per at-bat. I think that\u2019s 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,\u201d Brown said last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cintr\u00f3n, 46, spent nine seasons in the organization, including seven as a major-league hitting coach \u2014 all alongside Snitker.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Oct 9, 2025<\/p>\n
Connections: Sports Edition<\/p>\n
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms<\/p>\n
Find the hidden link between sports terms<\/p>\n
Play today’s puzzle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Cintron had been Houston’s hitting coach since the 2019 season. Sam Navarro \/ Imagn Images The Houston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[373,363,99],"class_list":["post-212258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-houston-astros","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}