Brewers promote coaches LeBoeuf and Theisen, part ways with Timmons

MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers are calling up Triple-A hitting coaches Al LeBoeuf and Eric Theisen to the Majors and parting ways with Ozzie Timmons for 2025.

LeBoeuf, 64, spent the last 15 seasons as a coach in Milwaukee’s Minor League system and will be lead hitting coach. He will be supported by the 39-year-old Theisen (pronounced like “Tyson”) and incumbent hitting coach Connor Dawson, 31, who will return for a fourth season with the club. The team’s other incumbent hitting coach, Timmons, was let go after a three-year tenure with the Brewers.

The changes come as Pat Murphy begins planning for his second season as Brewers manager. LeBoeuf will report directly to Murphy under the new configuration, and Theisen and Dawson will report to LeBoeuf.

“In his 15 seasons in the organization, Al has played a key role in the development of many of the young hitters you see on the Major League team today,” Brewers GM Matt Arnold said in announcing the moves. “His familiarity and relationships with all these players will be a great resource for us. Al has had a long journey to get here and we are very excited for him.”

Arnold added, “Al and Eric have worked alongside each other as hitting coaches in the farm system and we look forward to them joining Connor at the Major League level. At the same time, we want to thank Ozzie for all his contributions on the field and as a person over the last three seasons. We wish him all the best.”

That what was long a one-man job now takes three full-time hitting coaches, not to mention the analysts and scouts working behind the scenes, reflects the growing pressure on teams to keep up with the proliferation of data and training tools available to hitters. And it comes with the Brewers in the midst of a multiyear transition to a young wave of position players, with rookies Jackson Chourio and Joey Ortiz coming off impactful Milwaukee debuts in 2024 after earlier seasons saw the arrivals of top Draft picks such as Sal Frelick, Garrett Mitchell and Brice Turang.

The group actually took a collective step forward this season, when the Brewers ranked sixth in the Majors with 4.8 runs per game (17th in '23), fourth with a .326 on-base percentage (also 17th in '23) and second with a 25.7% chase rate (seventh in '23). The Brewers trailed the Yankees in that category and were a hair ahead of the Dodgers -- the two teams set to meet in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday.

Yet, the club decided to make a change away from the incumbent tandem of Timmons and Dawson, who were hired together in November 2021 when the Brewers first expanded their staff from one hitting coach to two.

Both LeBoeuf and Theisen are familiar to Brewers hitters. Leboeuf has been managing and coaching in Milwaukee’s Minor League system since 2010, including in 2012 and '21-24 as hitting coach for the organization’s top affiliate. He overcame a serious medical scare in 2012 when he was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer, which required time away from the Triple-A team to recover. Earlier this year, LeBoeuf celebrated being 10 years cancer free.

“I’m blessed,” he said.

LeBoeuf golfed on Monday afternoon and was running errands with his wife, Laura, near their Palm Harbor, Fla., home when he noticed he’d missed a call from Murphy. They were in the car together when LeBoeuf reached Murphy via telephone, and the conversation went like this:

Murphy: “Hey, I want you to be the lead hitting coach for us next year.”

LeBoeuf: “OK.”

And that was it.

“It shocked me,” LeBoeuf said. “This journey has been amazing, thanks to my wife’s support. It was a pretty special phone call for her to hear it, too.”

What next?

“The first thing is to realize that my position is a pretty important one, and we’re trying to get to the pinnacle,” LeBoeuf said. “I know that myself, ET [Theisen] and Connor will work really well together and get to the solution. ET and I did this last year in Nashville and we were very involved in the data, and organizing it for the players. I think all three of us will put our heads together and work well together.”

Theisen has been with the organization since 2021 in various capacities as a hitting instructor; last season was his first in Nashville.

The rest of the Brewers’ staff has yet to be finalized for 2025. Coaches’ contracts don’t expire until Oct. 31, so Arnold and Murphy still have time to discuss how the rest of the pieces could fit going into Murphy’s second season at the helm.