Chris Valaika, who began his major-league career with the Cincinnati Reds, is back as the team’s director of hitting and major-league hitting coach.
Valaika, 39, comes from the Cleveland Guardians; he had been the team’s hitting coach since 2022, including two years under new Reds manager Terry Francona. Before that, he spent one year as the assistant hitting coach for the Cubs, as well as two seasons as the team’s minor-league hitting coordinator.
The Reds were ranked 26th in baseball in batting average (.231), 22nd in on-base percentage (.305) and 21st in slugging percentage (.388). Valaika’s Guardians were 21st (.238), 18th (.307) and 16th (.395) in those categories, respectively.
Valaika was a third-round pick of the Reds out of the University of California Santa Barbara in 2006. He debuted with the Reds in 2010 and played in 33 total games for Cincinnati in 2010 and 2011. He also played for the Marlins and Cubs, playing his final big-league game in 2014.
After Valaika retired from playing, he worked for Sparta Science, a California software company that uses force plate hardware to study movement.
In his first two years with the Guardians, Valaika stressed using the whole field and putting the ball in play. This past season, Valaika’s team put more emphasis on power and being more aggressive in the count.
After Francona was hired, the Reds announced that Joel McKeithan, the team’s hitting coach the previous two seasons, would not return. The team also said his two assistants, Terry Bradshaw and Tim LaMont, would not return.
(Photo of Valaika in 2014 as a member of the Cubs: George Gojkovich / Getty Images)
