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On Sunday, following their 7-4 loss against the Cubs to close out the break, the Yankees announced that they had dismissed hitting coach Dillon Lawson. It was described as a "rare midseason change by a franchise that has prized stability."
"I've never not been willing to make a decision like this but with careful consideration, I decided as we move forward, we have a sprint here in the second half, I felt like this was necessary," said New York GM Brian Cashman.
It's natural to draw parallels to the situation here in Minnesota, where continual teamwide failures in hitting approach have called into question the viability of top hitting coach David Popkins and his program.
Those parallels are even more intriguing when you take a step back and look at the paths that brought us to this point.
Lawson was originally hired by the Yankees in December of 2021, just weeks after the Twins hired Popkins. The two had a number of commonalities: both fairly young, considered up-and-comers after having success in reputed minor-league systems -- Lawson as minor-league hitting coordinator for the Yankees, Popkins as a Single-A hitting coach for the Dodgers.
Alas, neither had ever coached or played in the majors before.
From the outside at least, it appeared that the Twins and Yankees were of similar minds when they made these hires. In 2019, they had the two best offenses in baseball, ranking first and second in runs scored, on the strength of power-driven approaches that led to record-setting homer totals. Both clubs embraced a mentality of attacking and elevating the ball, with spectacular results. (Albeit against juiced balls.)
And so, as these potent offenses saw their results dip in 2020 and further in 2021 -- when the Twins ranked 14th in runs scored, the Yankees 19th -- both organizations decided to make a change. Evidently, they wanted to recapture that magic of the 2019 season, because they each selected known students of analytics, at a time where modern hitting theory at large focused greatly on the idea of sacrificing contact for damage swings, and adopting a philosophy where barrels, exit velocity and launch angles became the gold standards. Again: both teams had seen this work brilliantly first-hand.
In 2022, their first year under Lawson, the Yankees returned to the top of the American League in runs scored -- in no small part because of Aaron Judge's otherworldly individual season -- but this year they are back down to 19th at the break. The decision to move on from Lawson is interesting, but so is the choice for his replacement: Sean Casey, who is basically the polar opposite as a hire.
Casey, who had been working as an MLB Network studio analyst, spent 12 years playing in the majors. He has no previous formal coaching experience, but a lot of big-league playing experience, which the Yankees are hoping will resonate with an underperforming lineup that was still outperforming the Twins (ranked 24th in runs), despite being without Judge.
What can we take away from all of this as Twins fans? Well, the Yankees have now set a fresh precedent with their willingness to make a midseason change, even though it's not in their nature. And they decided to pivot completely away from what they viewed as a broken approach.
Could the Twins do the same? Nelson Cruz is a popular name floating around right now, but there are probably several different candidates out there who would represent a Casey-like change of pace. It would be a very uncharacteristic shift for this front office.
There's another implication here, though. Because the thing is, Casey-like guys are generally going to be the only options available right now. All of the desirable, established, experienced hitting coaches have jobs here in the middle of the season. Well, except maybe one.
If the Twins remain committed to their modernized analytics-driven hitting approach, but feel that maybe Popkins isn't the right voice to effectively coach it, Lawson is now on the market. He was extremely highly regarded around the game when the Yankees hired him less than two years ago. You're almost never going to find a candidate like this available when you're trying to make a hitting coach change in the middle of July. But here we are.
What would you do?
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