The Texas Rangers announced that former major-league first baseman Tommy Joseph has been hired as a hitting coach to complete second-year manager Skip Schumaker’s staff.
Joseph, 35, has spent the past two years as an assistant hitting coach with the Seattle Mariners (2024) and Baltimore Orioles (2025). He replaces Alex Cintron, who has moved to a different offensive role within the organization, and will work under lead hitting coach Justin Viele.
Originally a second-round pick by the San Francisco Giants, Joseph played in 249 career games with the Philadelphia Phillies from 2016-17. He played in South Korea’s KBO League in 2019 and played one season in the independent Constellation Energy League in 2020 before retiring.
Joseph began his coaching career in 2021 as the lead hitting instructor for the New York Mets’ Single-A team before being promoted to Double-A in 2022. He spent the 2023 season as the High-A hitting coach in the Giants’ organization before joining the Mariners the following season.
“Players love JV,” president of baseball operations Chris Young said of Viele. “He’s got such a care factor. He’s so good at really connecting with every player. He gives them everything he has. He is so committed to the players. He wears it hard when they don’t perform. He’s very well-respected, highly regarded.
“I think he’s done very good things. It didn’t perfectly translate to the run production we needed last year, but there were improvements offensively and the overall performance. Now we’ve got to translate that to our ability to score runs as a collective group. My hope is that it’ll lead to good results next year.”
