It didn’t take the Yankees very long to find their next hitting coach.
Just a day after the club relieved Dillon Lawson of his duties, sources confirmed to SNY’s Andy Martino that former MLB player Sean Casey is likely to become the next hitting coach, as first reported by the New York Post and the Athletic.
Martino reported on Monday that the Yankees front office has been aware that players miss Hensley Meulens, an assistant hitting coach last season who took the head-hitting job with the Colorado Rockies. Last year, “Yankees hitters gravitated toward Meulens for advice, and many team officials were upset to lose him,” Martino wrote, adding that now the Yankees were “left to wonder if Meulens’ departure threw off a delicate balance and exposed Lawson’s inability to get buy-in from big league hitters.”
By adding Casey, the Yankees front office is clearly hoping to now get that buy-in as someone with not only big league experience but big league success, takes over.
Casey, a three-time All-Star with the Cincinnati Reds, was a career .302 hitter over 12 big league seasons with five different teams. He finished in the Top 10 in batting average for the National League three times during his career, including a career-high .332 in 151 games in 1999.
Casey hit above the .300 mark in six individual seasons, including his final year in the majors when he hit .322 in 69 games with the Boston Red Sox.
Aside from his hitting process, Casey was also teammates with Aaron Boone in Cincinnati from 1998-2003.
The Willingboro Township, NJ native had been working as an analyst for MLB Network prior to his likely hiring.