The Giants’ coaching shuffle picked up an unexpected twist when Hunter Mense, who served as San Francisco’s hitting coach in 2026, was hired by the Kansas City Royals as an assistant hitting coach, according to Mark Feinsand.
That move leaves the Giants with another opening to fill after a 65-97 season that exposed plenty of problems, even if the offense was not the club’s biggest one. Pitching stood out as the more obvious weakness, and San Francisco already made some small changes on that side. Still, the Giants may decide they can do better with the bat-side leadership too.
Mense had been viewed as a fit for the kind of contact-heavy offense the Giants seemed to want, similar to the Toronto Blue Jays’ 2025 model on their way to a World Series appearance. He came from that Blue Jays staff as an assistant hitting coach, but San Francisco’s early-season struggles were hard to miss. The offense stumbled badly in April, and the team’s inability to draw walks played a major role in those rough stretches.
So now the search begins. Here are three names that could make sense for the job.
Tommy Everidge is one option worth watching. The Giants’ best organizational success in 2026 came mostly in the minors, which makes a promotion from within a logical path.
Everidge, who coached hitting for the Double-A Richmond Flying Squirrels, fits that idea well. He’s a Santa Rosa native who spent a brief time in the majors with the Oakland A’s, then moved into coaching with Oakland’s minor league system before becoming the A’s big league hitting coach in 2022 and 2023.
After a stint with the Washington Nationals organization, he was hired by San Francisco earlier this year. Jeff Young noted on social media that Giants outfielder Jonah Cox recently praised Everidge on a Giants Talk podcast episode, which only adds to the case if the organization wants someone already respected in the system.
Another name is Guillermo Martinez. If the Giants want to look outside the organization, the Milwaukee Brewers are a natural place to start, and Martinez is part of that staff as an assistant hitting coach.
He also coached with the Toronto Blue Jays from 2019 to 2024. Milwaukee’s approach lines up with the kind of contact-oriented offense Posey wants, and the Brewers drew the second-highest number of walks in MLB in 2026.
That kind of plate discipline would be a welcome addition in San Francisco.
Then there’s Travis Ishikawa, a familiar face who has already worked as hitting coach for the San Jose Giants for a few years and is now working with San Francisco’s prospects in the Arizona Complex League. The Giants may prefer to keep him focused on that developmental work, but if they want someone they know well, with experience and organizational ties, Ishikawa would be a reasonable choice.
The Giants have options, and after a season like 2026, they have reason to keep looking for upgrades. Mense’s exit may have been a surprise, but the need for change was not.
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