San Francisco Giants Peg Alonzo Powell as New Hitting Coach
The Houston Astros are World Series champions, and the San Francisco Giants get new hitting coach Alonzo Powell from their staff.
The San Francisco Giants have begun their journey to create an almost brand new coaching staff, and in turn, the Houston Astros have another vacancy on their World Series-winning coaching staff. The Giants have their new hitting coach, bringing Alonzo Powell over from the Astros, where he served as the assistant hitting coach.
The vacancy opened because of a staff-wide shakeup, which saw previous hitting coach Hensley Meulens shift to the bench coach job, which opened because Ron Wotus was moved to third-base coach following Phil Nevin‘s dismissal.
Powell, a San Francisco-native who turns 53 years old in December, played 71 major league games over two seasons. In 1987, he played 14 games for the Montreal Expos, and returned to the big leagues in 1991, when he appeared in 57 games with the Seattle Mariners. In that time, he hit .211/.287/.342 with nine doubles and three home runs.
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More notably, Powell spent seven seasons in Japan and became a star at the plate. Over 710 games with the Chunichi Dragons and Hanshin Tigers, he hit .313/.371/.510 with 147 doubles and 116 home runs. Powell won three straight batting titles from 1994 to 1996, becoming the first foreign-born player to do so in the Central League, and was an All-Star twice.
After playing independent ball with the Newark Bears in 2001, Powell’s coaching career began in 2002. That year, he was named hitting coach for the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts and would start an eight-year journey as a minor league coach.
In 2010, he joined a major league coaching staff for the first time when he was named the Mariners’ hitting coach a month into the season after Alan Cockrell‘s dismissal. He joined the San Diego Padres’ staff in 2012, and remained there until he joined Houston’s staff as assistant hitting coach before the 2016 season.
Powell will have his work cut out for him with the Giants’ lineup, going from one of the game’s most potent offense to one of the game’s least. Houston, whose lineup is filled with young slugging stars like Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, and George Springer, scored 896 runs in 2017, leading baseball. They also led the major leagues in all three triple-slash categories (.282/.346/.478) and doubles (346), while finishing second with 238 home runs.
On the other hand, the Giants’ lineup is filled with older veteran on the downside of their careers, like Hunter Pence, Denard Span, and possibly Pablo Sandoval. The Giants were tied for 21st with a .249 average in 2017, 29th with a .309 on-base percentage, and dead-last with a .380 slugging percentage. The 128 home runs they hit were 23 fewer than any other team, and the 639 runs scored were better than only the San Diego Padres.
San Francisco’s front office has hinted this offseason that they want to shift more to an analytical approach on their coaching staff, and Powell’s hiring seems to be the first step towards that goal. The Astros are known as one of the teams that most heavily lean on advanced metrics.
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The Giants have a new voice leading their lineup, but they still need to improve the lineup itself. With the offseason now officially underway and free agents ready to go, they will have the opportunity to add some thump to the lineup. It’s now on the higher-ups to give Powell something to work with on the offensive side.