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Ronald Acuña Jr. praises hitting coach Tim Hyers

Originally posted on SportsTalkATL | By Chase Irle | Last updated Jul 22, 2025 10:44 AM ET

When a team comes into the season with the second-best odds to win the World Series and finds itself ten games under .500, not a lot of praise should be going around.

That’s especially true when it comes to the Braves offense. A historically great unit just two years ago, Atlanta now features a lineup that has been among the worst in the league for most of the season, which has raised a fair question: Did the Braves make a mistake when they decided to fire hitting coach Kevin Seitzer last offseason?

The obvious answer is yes. Seitzer was a magician in Atlanta for most of his tenure. He helped groom a number of Braves top prospects into All-Stars, but even more impressively, he consistently turned junk into gold.

Travis d’Arnaud, Orlando Arcia, Jorge Soler, and many others were fringe roster players before arriving in Atlanta, and Kevin Seitzer turned them into All-Stars and a World Series MVP. He should have been credited for a lot of the Braves success over the past seven years. Instead, they opted to use him as the scapegoat for a season that was doomed by injuries.

Now, Seitzer is in Seattle leading a resurgent Mariners offense, while the Braves bats have only worsened in his absence. That understandably has a lot of people pointing at Atlanta’s new hitting coach Tim Hyers, but star right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. is not one of those people. Following the Braves’ 9-5 win on Monday night, the 2023 NL MVP intentionally gave a shout-out to the Braves coaches, specifically Hyers, who he credited for his better approach at the plate.

Acuña did a postgame in the interview room, and afterward he said he wanted to give a shout out to #Braves coaches, and particularly hitting coach Tim Hyers, for helping him develop better plate discipline that's enabled him to raise his walk rate, including 3 tonight.

— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) July 22, 2025

For starters, it’s nice to see Acuña voice his support for the Braves coaching staff. His clashes with Brian Snitker over the years have been well-documented, so this is a promising sign of maturity, and it shows the guys in the clubhouse still believe in one another amid a year of constant turmoil.

But as far as Tim Hyers goes, I’m not sure how much credit he deserves for Ronald Acuña Jr. doing his thing. The guy is an alien, and no matter who is coaching him, he’s going to go out there and perform like an MVP. The messaging might be getting through to him, but he’s the last guy anybody was worried about. The rest of the lineup hasn’t gotten the memo, and that’s the problem. If Brian Snitker does decide to retire at season’s end, Tim Hyers’ tenure as hitting coach in Atlanta should be short-lived.

This article first appeared on SportsTalkATL and was syndicated with permission.

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