The Toronto Blue Jays got so close to winning the World Series but instead fell in Game 7 to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
They’ll want to make it back there, but as is only natural, some changes will be made.
One of those is by necessity, as Blue Jays assistant hitting coach Hunter Mense is leaving town.
According to The Athletic’s Mitch Bannon, Mense is heading to the San Francisco Giants to be the hitting coach there under new manager Tony Vitello.
This was Mense’s fourth season on the Blue Jays’ MLB staff.
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Mense was originally a college ballplayer at Missouri who was a draft pick by the Florida Marlins. He topped out at Triple-A.
His first noted coaching gig was as the hitting coach for Double-A New Hampshire in the Blue Jays’ system, begin in 2018.
From there, Mense was the minor league hitting coordinator for the Blue Jays for three seasons.
He got promoted to the bigs in 2022.
Mense played his college baseball at Mizzou under Vitello, who was an assistant coach at the time. Now, they’re reunited in the major leagues.
The Blue Jays have a talented offensive group in which a number of players took big steps forward in 2025. It’s never exactly clear how much credit a given coach should get for improvements, but it seems likely that Mense was doing a solid job. Now, Toronto will have to replace him.
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