Former Yankees hitting coach Dillon Lawson has been hired as the Miami Marlins’ hitting coach, according to Fish on First writer Kevin Barral in a tweet on X. This was then stated by the Marlins’ head director of hitting, Joe Migliacco, who told MLB.com’s Christine De Nicola, “We’re excited to welcome Dillon to the Miami Marlins. He’s an excellent fit for our organization and our vision for player development,” Migliacco said.
Christina De Nicola of MLB.com also reports that Lawson and Migliacco knew each other when Migliacco previously hired Lawson while he was with the New York Yankees. Yankees fans might remember that Lawson was the team’s hitting coach from 2022-23. The Yankees had a top offense in baseball during the 2022 season, Lawson’s first year with the organization, but things took a turn for the worse midway through the 2023 season after Aaron Judge injured his toe when he ran into the right-field wall at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Lawson’s Brief Tenure As The Yankees Hitting Coach
The Yankees offense struggled mightily without Judge, and Lawson was dismissed on July 9th, 2023, a month and five days after Judge sustained his toe injury in Los Angeles. It’s exceedingly rare for the Yankees to make coaching staff changes during the season, as Yankees beat writer and reporter Bryan Hoch of MLB.com mentioned at the time of Lawson’s firing: “Brian Cashman never dismissed a Yankees coach during the season in more than two decades,” Hoch stated. Hoch adds that Cashman prefers to “see a 162-game sample size” when deciding whether coaching staff changes are needed. Still, Cashman ultimately decided then that a change was needed regardless.
The Yankees season went so disastrously after Judge’s injury that the Yankees missed the postseason entirely in 2023. It was the first time the Yankees had missed the playoffs since 2016, seven years earlier. Lawson most recently served as the Red Sox minor league hitting coordinator from January to November 2024, then became assistant hitting coach at the big-league level, a role he held until April 2026.
Lawson’s Experience In Professional and Collegiate Baseball
Before his time with the Red Sox and Yankees, Lawson served as a hitting coach for the Houston Astros from 2017-18, and before that he was a hitting coach at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Lawson and Miglaccio will reunite as they help a young Marlins team continue to improve as they approach the 2027 season and beyond.
The Marlins have assistant hitting coaches Corbin Day and Chris Hess, and Lawson will work with them as well. Whether this next coaching tenure turns out better than it did previously with the Red Sox and Yankees remains to be seen, but one thing is for certain: the Marlins are heading in a new direction already in one key aspect as it relates to the coaching staff, and it will be interesting to see what role/impact Lawson has on these young Marlins hitters.
Even though his Yankees tenure was brief, Lawson will seek more stability and consistency in his fourth big-league stint as a hitting coach with the Marlins in Miami in 2027.
Miami Marlins’ Hire Former Yankees Hitting Coach Dillon Lawson