Rangers hire Tommy Joseph as hitting coach: What this means for Skip Schumaker’s 2027 staff

The Texas Rangers announced on Wednesday that Tommy Joseph will join Manager Skip Schumaker’s Major League staff as the team’s hitting coach for the 2027 season.

Joseph, a former Phillies and MLB first baseman, comes to Texas after two seasons as an MLB assistant hitting coach, working with the Seattle Mariners in 2024 and the Baltimore Orioles in 2025, according to the Rangers release.

The move also reflects Joseph’s broader developmental background. The Rangers said he started his coaching career as the lead hitting instructor for Single-A St. Lucie in 2021 and added roles across the minors, including Double-A Binghamton in 2022 and High-A Eugene in 2023.

In the Rangers’ description of his development work, Eugene’s 2023 performance included 140 home runs in 132 games under Joseph’s tutelage, which the team said ranked second-most in the Northwest League.

Before his full-time coaching path, Joseph played parts of two major league seasons (2016-17) with Philadelphia, totaling a.247 average and a.757 OPS across 249 career games, the Rangers said. He was originally a 2009 second-round pick by the San Francisco Giants and later spent time in Texas’ organization after a 2018 waivers claim, though he did not appear for the Rangers at the major league level.

The central question is whether Joseph is joining the Rangers as a dedicated hitting coach for 2027, and the answer is yes: the club has formally named him to that specific Major League role on Schumaker’s staff.