The Giants have lost another coach from last year’s staff as first-base coach Mark Hallberg will join the Minnesota Twins as a bench coach under recently-hired manager Derek Shelton, the Twins announced on Friday.
President of baseball operations Buster Posey told reporters this week in Las Vegas during MLB’s GM Meetings that Hallberg, his roommate at Florida State, and catching coach Alex Burg were deciding whether to stay with the Giants or purse other options.
“He’s one of those that we’d love to have back, but he has been kind of a popular guy with some other teams, as well,” Posey told reporter on Tuesday. “We’re working through that.”
Hallberg, 39, spent six seasons on the Giants’ coaching staff under former managers Gabe Kapler and Bob Melvin, working as an assistant coach (2020-21), third-base coach (2022-23) and first-base coach (2024-25).
Along with Hallberg, bench coach Ryan Christenson, pitching coach J.P. Martinez, bullpen coach Garvin Alston, hitting coach Pat Burrell, assistant hitting coach Damon Minor and third-base coach Matt Williams will not be on new manager Tony Vitello’s coaching staff.
Posey confirmed earlier this week that assistant hitting coach Oscar Bernard, quality control coach Taira Uematsu and bullpen catcher Eliezer Zambrano will be back next season. It has yet to be determined whether Burg will return for next season.
Bernard, Uematsu and Zambrano will be joined by former San Diego Padres manager Jayce Tingler and former Toronto Blue Jays assistant hitting coach Hunter Mense. Tingler’s role has yet to be officially determined, but Mense will replace Burrell as San Francisco’s new hitting coach.
“He’s exceptionally disciplined and very bright,” Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins told reporters in Las Vegas of Mense. “He brought those attributes into our process and connected well with our players and made a big difference for us over the years.”
Additionally, Quentin Eberhardt is leaving the University of Tennessee to become the Giants’ director of performance, according to Mike Wilson of the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Eberhardt spent seven seasons as Tennessee’s strength coach under Vitello across two stints with the program, working briefly with the Chicago Cubs as the head strength and conditioning coach in between his time in Knoxville.
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