Borgschulte returns to Twins as hitting coach

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twins on Tuesday made their first coaching hire to begin the rebuild of their hitting group, bringing back Baltimore hitting coach Matt Borgschulte to serve in the same role on manager Rocco Baldelli’s 2025 staff.

The 33-year-old Borgschulte and the Twins have plenty of familiarity with each other, as he previously spent four years as a Minor League hitting coach in the Minnesota system from 2018-21 -- most recently serving as hitting coach for Triple-A St. Paul in ‘21 -- before he was hired away by the Orioles to join their Major League staff.

Under Borgschulte’s guidance, a young Orioles lineup blossomed into one of the Majors’ most formidable units, with the development of a new wave of hitters helping the Baltimore offense surge to third in MLB in wRC+ this season.

The hiring back of Borgschulte indicates that the Twins might not be looking to make huge paradigm shifts in their hitting philosophy following the announcement that none of their three former hitting coaches -- David Popkins, Derek Shomon and Rudy Hernandez -- will return following a disappointing ‘23 season for the team.

That’s because there is continuity with this move, as Borgschulte had been part of the player development and coaching apparatus assembled by president of baseball operations Derek Falvey and had risen through the Twins’ organization from Single-A Fort Myers in 2019 to the Triple-A level, working most recently in ‘21 with current core hitters for the Twins like Jose Miranda, Ryan Jeffers and Trevor Larnach.

Borgschulte also brings back three seasons of big league coaching experience with young and developing hitters at the game’s highest level, which is a situation in which the Twins should find themselves in ‘25, as top prospects like Brooks Lee, Emmanuel Rodriguez (ranked No. 2 in the organization) and Luke Keaschall (No. 3) will look to establish themselves alongside Miranda, Royce Lewis, Matt Wallner and other youngsters who have shown inconsistency in the Majors.

Though the Twins’ offense performed well in aggregate in both ‘23 and ‘24 -- most recently finishing ninth as an offense in MLB in wRC+ this past season -- extended downswings like the first half of the ‘23 campaign and both the beginning and end of the ‘24 season ultimately led to deep inconsistency within the offense and, thus, the team’s results.

Amid all that, the team’s marked struggles with runners in scoring position and as pinch-hitters, at times, were areas that stood out, particularly amid the club’s collapse out of playoff contention at the end of the ‘24 campaign, and that’s something both Falvey and Baldelli had noted as potential areas for improvement following the season.

“I felt we had a really good offensive team,” Falvey said after the season. “We felt that from the get-go. We felt we should land in that range of offensive teams. This is where runs scored in aggregate is a piece of the puzzle, but how do you approach certain situations and games that are tighter and against the best bullpen arms in the game? How do you navigate those things? What could we have done differently or better?”

The Twins have not yet made any indication as to other hires for their hitting team, or for the assistant bench coach/infield coordinator role vacated by Tony Diaz, or for the general manager position left absent by Thad Levine -- though Falvey had noted that hirings and titles might not necessarily carry one-to-one correspondences to the club’s organizational structure in ‘24.