LAS VEGAS \u2014 Overhauling the Houston Astros\u2019 offense starts with defining roles within the coaching staff, something team officials saw slip away during a star-crossed 2025 season. Troy Snitker and Alex Cintr\u00f3n had the title of hitting coach and shared almost equal responsibilities.<\/p>\n
After parting ways with the duo last month, general manager Dana Brown and manager Joe Espada have finalized a new, three-person hitting department with a more clear hierarchy. Two of the hires are external: Victor Rodr\u00edguez from the San Diego Padres and Anthony Iapoce, formerly of the Detroit Tigers.<\/p>\n
Astros hitting coordinator Dan Hennigan, a biomechanics guru who joined the organization last year, will be promoted to director of hitting and serve as the team\u2019s offensive coordinator. Hennigan will not be in uniform, but will disseminate game plans and other data-driven ways of preparation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a complete overhaul of how we did things and we have the hierarchy (and) distinct roles we feel good about,\u201d Brown said Wednesday at MLB\u2019s GM meetings.<\/p>\n
Iapoce, who served as the Tigers first-base coach during the past two seasons, has been a hitting coach for the Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs and, in 2022, served as the Boston Red Sox senior hitting coordinator. Between Iapoce and Rodr\u00edguez, the two men have more than 20 years of experience as major-league hitting coaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in the past, we didn\u2019t have our No. 1 truly defined,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThey were kind of like co-No. 1s. I think these guys are all bringing their own specialties. I think Vic has a unique skill set in being able to tap into the psyche of a lot of players, and some good players from the past. Iapoce comes with a lot of energy and experience after doing it for six years as a No. 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cDan Hennigan will help us from an analytic and data standpoint in terms of preparing, game planning, things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hennigan received interest from other clubs seeking hitting coaches this winter, so promoting him helped preserve his place in the organization. Hennigan founded a hitting company called Brain and Barrel and has also worked for the Minnesota Twins as a hitting analyst.<\/p>\n
After failing to reach the postseason for the first time since 2016, the Astros did not renew the contracts of Cintr\u00f3n and Snitker, both of whom had worked on Houston\u2019s staff since 2019. Receiving a fresh perspective from external candidates mattered to Houston\u2019s front office, some of whom acknowledged that things had grown stale.<\/p>\n
Last season, the Astros scored three or fewer runs in 82 of their 162 games, though injuries and a roster littered with identical offensive profiles are more to blame than coaching. Slugger Yordan Alvarez appeared in just 48 games while All-Stars Jeremy Pe\u00f1a and Isaac Paredes missed significant time with substantial injuries.<\/p>\n
Still, Brown believes new voices can bring a return to better pitch selection, deeper counts and slugging that sometimes eluded Houston during its star-crossed season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t getting good pitches to hit,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe were hitting pitches that were sort of in the strike zone, the edges of the strike zone, but not in the middle of the strike zone. Our goal is to be more patient all the way up to two strikes and get more pitches we can do more damage with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we got away from that and guys were swinging on the edges and it showed in terms of slug. I think we\u2019ll get back to that with some veteran leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Overhauling the Houston Astros\u2019 offense starts with defining roles within the coaching staff, something team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[372,373,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-288053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-detroit-tigers","9":"tag-houston-astros","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288053","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=288053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}