This story was excerpted from Jessica Camerato’s Nationals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Matt Borgschulte is stepping into the role of the Nationals' hitting coach with an appreciation for the individual talents each player possesses at the plate. But looking past the advanced statistics and personalized metrics, there is a commonality among everyone on the roster.
“The overarching philosophy is, the goal of the offense is to score runs,” Borgschulte said on a Zoom this week with local media. “We're going to value every aspect of hitting that we can to maximize that run-scoring potential of the offense, whether that’s hitting the ball over the fence in the gap and driving for extra bases, or whether that's taking a good at-bat, taking our walks and really owning the zone.”
The Nationals hired Borgschulte, 35, to manager Blake Butera’s coaching staff in December. He spent last season as the Twins' hitting coach with manager Rocco Baldelli, who was dismissed in late September.
Borgschulte also gained Major League experience as the Orioles' co-hitting coach from 2022-24. Prior to joining the O’s staff, Borgschulte was a member of the Twins' system as a hitting coach on the Triple-A (‘21), Single-A (‘19) and Gulf Coast League levels (‘18) as well as the alternate training site (‘20).
“I saw an organization that is making some changes,” Borgschulte said of the Nationals. “When I started going through the process, it really stood out that [president of baseball operations] Paul [Toboni] was talking about becoming the envy of sport. And the traits that he discussed and outlined -- joy, humility, integrity, competitiveness -- were all things that really aligned with where I want to be and what I want to have in a working environment.”
Borgschulte will look to improve the offense of a Nationals team that scored the third-fewest runs (687), ranked second-to-last in on-base percentage (.304) and tied for third-to-last in OPS (.693) in the National League.
The young roster also tied for the ninth-highest chase rate (29.0%) and tallied the 11th-lowest in-zone swing rate (66.3%) among all teams.
“I think sometimes we can make hitting a little bit too complicated for hitters,” Borgschulte said. “So having a simple approach, giving the hitters what they need, information-wise, and working with them on their swing, on what they need to do to improve, but also keeping it simple and making sure that when they go into the box, their mind isn't on what they need to do in their swing. It's simply on the approach, staying in the present moment and executing the plan that they're set out for.”
Among all pitches in the zone last season, the Nationals ranked 22nd in run value (-282), tied for 19th in barrel rate (9.2%), ranked seventh in hard-hit rate (47.2%) and tied for the 10th-lowest whiff rate (16.6%).
Looking more specifically at pitches in the heart of the zone (categorized as pitches that are more than one baseball's width inside the strike-zone borders), the Nats tied for the 16th-highest run value (-86), had the 16th-highest barrel rate (11.8%), ranked sixth-highest in hard-hit rate (53.3%) and tied for the 12th-lowest whiff rate (13.6%).
“I think that's going to be something that you're going to hear a lot this year is, we're going to own the zone,” he said. “We're going to force pitchers to the middle of the plate, and when they go there, we're going to do some damage. We're going to hit balls on the line, hit balls in the gaps, run. I think you’ve heard from Blake as well -- the ability of this team, that's a young, athletic team, to continue to take those extra bases and do the little things to win games is going to be really crucial.”
The Nationals' hitting staff is rounded out by assistant hitting coach/assistant director of hitting Andrew Aydt and assistant hitting coach Shawn O’Malley. Aydt worked the last seven years at Driveline Baseball, most recently as the assistant director of hitting. O’Malley was a hitting coach in the Mariners' system for the past six seasons, including at the Triple-A level the last two years. He also played 13 seasons of pro ball and parts of three seasons in the big leagues.
“The collaboration that we're going to have, the communication that we're going to have is going to be really important,” said Borgschulte. “... I've been coaching for a while, but I haven't stood in a Major League box before. So being able to have all of those different perspectives and bring them together with a group that doesn't have an ego and doesn't [only] want to be the guy with the right answer, we're just looking for what's right for the player. So really excited about our staff and excited to get going.”