{"id":846976,"date":"2026-11-06T09:27:22","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T09:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/846976\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T09:27:22","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T09:27:22","slug":"hitting-coach-hunter-mense-leaving-sf-giants-for-kansas-city-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/846976\/","title":{"rendered":"Hitting coach Hunter Mense leaving SF Giants for Kansas City Royals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For a third straight season, the Giants will have a different head hitting coach.<\/p>\n<p>Hitting coach Hunter Mense is leaving the Giants and joining the Kansas City Royals\u2019 coaching staff as an assistant hitting coach, a source confirmed to this news organization.<\/p>\n<p>The team has not announced the coaching change. MLB.com\u2019s Mark Feinsand and Maria Guardado were the first to report that the Royals had hired Mense.<\/p>\n<p>Mense, 42, spent just one season as the Giants\u2019 hitting coach, his first season as a head hitting coach in the majors. Mense had a connection with manager Tony Vitello, having been a player at the University of Missouri when Vitello was an assistant coach. Mense replaced former hitting coach Pat Burrell, who held the hitting coach position for two seasons.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Now, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/11\/02\/mlb-free-agency\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">free agency<\/a> having begun on Monday, the Giants will also begin searching for a new head hitting coach. Assistant hitting coach Oscar Bernard, who has been on staff for the last two seasons, is still with the organization.<\/p>\n<p>Mense is the first member of last year\u2019s coaching staff to leave the organization entirely. Pitching coach Justin Meccage and bullpen coach Jesse Chavez will maintain their roles, while Frank Anderson will transition from major-league director of pitching to an assistant pitching coach. Additionally, Christian Wonders will transition from an assistant pitching coach to working in the farm system as the Director of Pitching.<\/p>\n<p>Under Mense, the Giants\u2019 injury-riddled roster finished 23rd in OPS (.706). Despite below-average production from the team, Rafael Devers is a finalist for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/11\/05\/sf-giants-devers-named-2026-nl-silver-slugger-finalist-at-first-base\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National League Silver Slugger Award<\/a> at first base, while Bryce Eldridge emerged as a foundational piece of San Francisco\u2019s offense. Mense also helped players such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/09\/17\/sf-giants-jonah-cox-vitello-stolen-base-rookie-mlb\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jonah Cox<\/a> and former Giant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/07\/07\/heliot-ramos-sf-giants-batting-average-power-swing-mechanics\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Heliot Ramos<\/a> make midseason adjustments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a third straight season, the Giants will have a different head hitting coach. Hitting coach Hunter Mense&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,5776,2178,162,5774,5775,853,4,5777,378,5778,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342,185],"class_list":["post-846976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco-giants","tag-baseball","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-giants","tag-giants-hq","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-peninsula","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-county","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-sanfrancisco","tag-sanfranciscogiants","tag-sf","tag-sf-giants","tag-sfgiants","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117568788446913628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}