Red Sox officially name Chili Davis as hitting coach

The Red Sox have officially filled a vacancy on their coaching staff as they’ve announced that they will hire Chili Davis as hitting coach.

This move had been expected for days now and my colleague Drew Peabody posted on Davis’s rumored hire three days ago. As of today, however, the Red Sox have officially named Davis as a member of the staff.

For the previous three years, Davis has been the hitting coach for the Oakland Athletics, playing a key role in the team’s sudden rise in 2012. He is generally regarded as one of the better hitting coaches in baseball due to his work in Oakland, where he helped to transform players like Brandon Moss, Josh Donaldson, and Jed Lowrie into great hitters. In addition, Davis has previous ties to the Red Sox as he served as the hitting coach for the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox in 2011.

Davis also experienced a great deal of success during his Major League career as he smacked an even 350 home runs in his career, slashing .274/.360/.451 over a 19-year career in which he spent time with the Giants, Angels, Twins, Royals, and Yankees.

The 54-year old Davis will be taking over for Greg Colbrunn, who had been the hitting coach of the Red Sox for the past two years before leaving due to personal reasons. In an additional announcement today, the Red Sox stated that Victor Rodriguez will continue as the assistant hitting coach for his third consecutive year. Now that the Red Sox have filled their coaching staff, barring Torey Lovullo becoming the manager of the Twins, the Red Sox should be able to focus their attention on player acquisitions and they certainly will need plenty of those.