Marlins To Name Dillon Lawson Hitting Coach

The Marlins have settled on former Yankees hitting coach and former Red Sox assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson as their next hitting coach, reports Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Lawson joined the Marlins organization as a roving hitting coach this past summer, following his April dismissal in Boston.

Miami moved on from hitting coach Pedro Guerrero following the season after its offense turned in a middle-of-the-pack performance. There were some obvious breakouts — Otto Lopez, Liam Hicks, Javier Sanoja — but several young Marlins hitters trended the wrong direction. Kyle Stowers and Jakob Marsee saw their offensive output take a step back, though injuries probably contributed to both (to an extent). Young hitters like Owen Caissie, Agustin Ramirez, Joe Mack and Connor Norby all hit at below-average levels; Norby wound up being traded to the Rockies prior to the deadline and saw his bat take off in his new environs. (Hicks, traded to the Rays at the deadline, hit well with both clubs).

Marlins hitters posted a collective .249/.326/.400 batting line this season — effectively right in line with the league-average .244/.318/.400. The team ranked 18th in runs scored (715), seventh in batting average, tied for fifth in on-base percentage and tied for 16th in slugging percentage. Their 9% walk rate ranked 13th, while their 21.8% strikeout rate tied for 14th. Those marks, again, were right in line with the respective league averages of 8.9% and 22.1%.

The successes and failures of an offense, it should be emphasized, can’t be solely attributed to an individual coach. That’s more true today than at any point in the game’s history. Major league teams employ multiple hitting coaches. Modern hitters are receiving data from their teams’ advance scouting and analytics departments, to say nothing of input from teammates and/or offseason work with private hitting coaches and at private training facilities. The Fish deployed as many as four hitting coaches this season (Guerrero, Lawson, and assistant hitting coaches Chris Hess and Corbin Day), plus hitting strategist Bryson Nakamura and the organization’s overall director of hitting, Joe Migliaccio.

At his end-of-season press conference, president of baseball operations Peter Bendix praised Guerrero for the work he did but stated the need for “a new voice” that was “aligned from top to bottom” with the rest of the hitting staff.

Lawson, 41, has previously served as the Yankees’ minor league hitting coordinator and major league hitting coach. He was an assistant hitting coach under Pete Fatse in Boston. He’s also previously coached in the Astros’ system, in college ranks with multiple Division-I programs, and in the independent Frontier League.