The administrative business of the offseason has begun in earnest for the Boston Red Sox.
After a season in which they improved, made the playoffs, but still left a lot on the table, the Red Sox decided to keep the majority of their coaching staff intact this winter. However, on Monday, one interesting staff change was reported.
According to Chris Cotillo of MassLive, the Red Sox are expected to part ways with assistant hitting coach Ben Rosenthal, who spent four seasons in his role after coming over from the Houston Astros organization.
Though it might not be fair to say Rosenthal was “fired,” given that most assistant coaches are on short-term contracts, the Red Sox appeared to want a change of some sort that might help to address some of their shortcomings on offense that were exposed this year.
Cotillo also reported that fellow assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson is expected to return, as is gameplanning coordinator Jason Varitek, unless he looks for a job elsewhere with several openings in other organizations.
Boston finished seventh in runs scored and ninth in team OPS this season. However, they had the eighth-most strikeouts in the sport, including the most strikeouts of any team with runners in scoring position (by a wide margin — 394 to the second-place mark of 363).
Rosenthal, 46, was hired the same offseason that hitting coach Pete Fatse (who is expected to return for next season) assumed his current role. Lawson, the other assistant hitting coach for the 2025 team, joined the Red Sox before the 2024 season.
A former professional player with the St. Louis Cardinals organization and multiple independent teams, Rosenthal began his coaching career at the high school level in 2011, jumping to the college ranks in 2014 and then getting his first professional opportunity with the Astros in 2017 — Red Sox manager Alex Cora’s final year in the organization.
Whether the Red Sox will add another offensive assistant remains to be seen, but a day after it was reported that the core group of assistant coaches behind Cora would be retained, we’re immediately seeing that there will at least be a few tweaks along the way.
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