Chris Valaika, who began his Major League career with the Cincinnati Reds, returns as the Major League hitting director and hitting coach.

Valaika, 39, is from the Cleveland Guardians; he had been the team’s hitting coach since 2022, including two years under new Reds manager Terry Francona. Previously, he spent one year as an assistant hitting coach for the Cubs and two seasons as the team’s minor league hitting coordinator.

The Reds 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 a total of 33 games for Cincinnati in 2010 and 2011. He also played for the Marlins and Cubs. he played his last game in the big league in 2014.

After Valaika stopped playing, he worked for Sparta Science, a Californian software company that uses force plate hardware to study movement.

In his first two years with the Guardians, Valaika emphasized using the whole field and playing the ball. This past season, Valaika’s team put more emphasis on strength 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 its 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)