Source: Phillies set to hire Peter Fatse as hitting coach
Fatse, 39, was Alex Cora's hitting coach with the Red Sox from 2022 through April 2026.
Alex Cora won’t manage the Phillies next season, but his former hitting coach is poised to join Don Mattingly’s staff.
The Phillies will hire Peter Fatse to be their hitting coach, a major league source said Monday night, confirming a report in The Athletic. An announcement from the team is expected later this week.
Fatse, 39, was the Red Sox’s hitting coach from 2022 through late April, when Boston fired Cora and five coaches. During his 674-game tenure as the lead hitting coach, the Sox ranked sixth in the majors in batting average (.254), seventh in slugging (.416), eighth in runs (3,139), and tied for 11th in on-base percentage (.321).
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Although Fatse was hired by the Red Sox after Dave Dombrowski was let go as president of baseball operations, he overlapped in Boston with Kyle Schwarber for a few months 2021. With Fatse as assistant hitting coach, Schwarber got traded to the Sox at the deadline and hit seven homers with a .957 OPS in 168 plate appearances over 41 games.
Fatse moved on quickly from the Red Sox, joining the Rays as a hitting consultant within their research and development department. Tampa Bay finished with the best record in the American League en route to winning the pennant.
The Phillies dumped hitting coach Kevin Long two weeks ago with two seasons left on his contract. Long had close relationships with several veteran hitters, notably Schwarber, Bryce Harper, and Trea Turner.
But Long took the fall for the Phillies’ sharp downturn in offensive production. They scored three runs or less in 72 games, including the postseason. They were 19th in the majors in runs, 22nd in OPS, and 23rd in on-base percentage. And they were 28th in on-base percentage from the right side of the plate. Turner, in particular, had the worst season of his career.
Mattingly, who signed a two-year contract to stay on as full-time manager after serving on an interim basis for 134 games, indicated that the new hitting coach would need to be able to blend the data that the Phillies receive from the analytics department and traditional coaching techniques.
“We have all the information that you need; I think you have to be able to use it,” Mattingly said two weeks ago. “But you also have to be able to help a guy and talk to a guy and help teach it, right? It’s not just use the information and don’t have any understanding of what’s going on with the swing. I think they go in conjunction together. So, you have to have both sides of that nowadays with the amount of information that comes in.”
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Dombrowski hired Cora to manage the Red Sox in October 2017, and they won a World Series together in 2018. He spoke to Cora about the managerial job after the Phillies got booted by the Braves in three games in the wild-card round of the playoffs. For the second time in six months, Cora declined the job.
But Dombrowski and Cora remain close and talk frequently, with Cora now endorsing one of his former coaches to help revitalize the Phillies’ offense.
Tim Mayza was among the best, most under-the-radar Phillies stories this year. And he's coming back for more after signing a new contract last week. The Lancaster County native joined Phillies Extra, The Inquirer's baseball podcast, to discuss his solid season, building a culture in the bullpen, the origin of his "Sheriff" nickname, and more. Watch here.
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