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The Yankees were especially quiet during the first month of the offseason, adding virtually nothing to their major league roster.
The team has been busy, however, in making over its coaching staff — especially on the offensive side.
Dillon Lawson was promoted from minor league hitting coordinator to the Yankees’ hitting coach. He will be joined by two new assistant hitting coaches, Eric Chavez (who played for the Yankees and worked in the front office under general manager Brian Cashman) and Casey Dykes (Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s hitting coach last season).
So the Yankees are quite familiar with the new additions, who are set to replace Marcus Thames and PJ Pilittere.
Their minor league affiliates hit well throughout the system and players — including two of the Yankees’ top prospects, Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza — have developed well.
But whenever the MLB lockout ends, the Yankees will be faced with different challenges on a much larger scale, and Lawson’s teaching techniques will be put to the test in several areas.
Lawson’s hitting philosophy has long been to “hit strikes hard,” so it’s not difficult to determine where at least some of his focus will be when he’s able to resume working with Yankees hitters.
Of the players who are coming off the most disappointing 2021 seasons, several struggled in that area.
Gleyber Torres, DJ LeMahieu, Gary Sanchez and Joey Gallo all saw their rate of hard-hit balls decrease last season, according to Fangraphs.
Torres took another step backwards, in a concerning trend to his career. After posting an OPS of .871 in 2019, he registered just a .724 OPS in 2020 and dropped to .697 last season.
Among the technical advancements the Yankees made in their minor league system under Lawson’s watch was measuring exit velocity during batting practice, so it’s clear that measurement will be of even greater value at the major league level.
According to Fangraphs, Torres had a 25.8 percent hard-hit ratio in 2021, down from a career-mark of 34.3.
LeMahieu, after signing a six-year, $90 million deal last January, went on to have by far his worst season with the Yankees, limping to a .714 OPS, his lowest mark since 2014, when he was with the Rockies. LeMahieu’s 27.4 percent hard-hit ratio in 2021 was lower than his career number (31.3) and far below what he put up in his first two seasons with the Yankees (40 and 35 percent).
Then there’s Sanchez, who has befuddled the Yankees for much of his time in the majors. Although he recovered slightly in 2021 from a nightmarish 2020, with his OPS rising from .618 to .730, he hasn’t given the organization any reason to believe he’ll return to the All-Star levels he reached earlier in his career.
His hard-hit ratio was just 30.9 in 2021 (37.3 for his career).
Gallo, who is set for his first full season as a Yankee, will be looking to shake off an ugly debut in The Bronx. His hard-hit rate (combining his time with the Rangers and the Yankees) was 37.8 percent in 2021, a dip from his career mark of 44.8 percent.
Whenever MLB and the players association come up with a new collective bargaining agreement and the lockout ends, the Yankees will have a lot of roster decisions to make.
If all four of those struggling players remain, that’s where Lawson’s work will start.
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